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A Study Of Early Childhood Education Investment Policy Based On Education Voucher Theory

Posted on:2008-02-11Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:J J FangFull Text:PDF
GTID:1117360212491359Subject:Pre-primary Education
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
As the non-compulsory education, early childhood education development is facing a path choice dilemma: if selecting the fairy of "managing the big education by our poor country", it will further intensify the contradiction between education demand and supply; while if focusing on the efficiency, and making education marketize, it will be hard to safeguard children's equal education right. In our country, government's investment in early childhood education is extremely limited. But with the limited resources, facing the extreme deficiency of the overall funds on the one hand, on the other hand the fact is the excessive or the unusual use of education funds of some minority of public kindergarten —short wastes coexistence with the resources with not high resources disposition efficiency. In addition, the person who enjoys the financial aid are often who need not subsidy, and on the other hand the one who actually and truly needs the subsidy may often be hard to got the financial aid —insufficient resources disposition fairness, which is uncoordinated with the overall goal of harmonious society construction.As we can say, the insufficiency of the total education resources is unable to be changed in short time because of the restriction of country's finance ability, then how to enhance the education resources disposition fairness and the education resources use efficiency may be the reality choice to realize the connotation-type grow of the education resources. With the guidance of harmonious society construction goal, our government needs to seek the improvement strategies both in the efficiency and fairness of the education investment.Focusing on the improvement of the low efficiency as well as the unfair condition of government education investment, American economist Milton Friedman who once won Nobel economic prize proposed the creative thought of the education voucher -which is different from the traditional procedure that the government directly appropriates the education funds for the school, the government appropriates the education funds for the guardian through the education voucher, and so the guardian who hold the voucher may choose the school and the school had to " win" the education funds from the guardian through gathering the education vouchers. The education voucher proposed by Friedman profoundly affected the public education reform and to investment policies in various countries.So, basing on the original intention of seeking the strategies to improve the fairness and the efficiency condition in our country early childhood education investment, this paper focuses on the education voucher theory and its policy practices in the early childhood education domain. The research extends from three aspects: (1) the system research of education voucher theory. It inspects the development history and theory base of the education voucher and analyzes the connotation, the thought essence and the key factors of the education voucher; (2) the literal and practical research to domestic and foreign early childhood education voucher policy. It have conducted the literal research to the implementation background, the policy plan and the implementation result of American, English, and the Chinese Taiwan's early childhood education voucher policy; it has conducted the practical research to Zhejiang Province Zhenhai City preschool education voucher policy, comprehensively investigated the policy background and plan of Zhenhai City preschool education voucher and has conducted the policy appraisal research to the implementation result of preschool education voucher through the inquiry and interview. (3) Finally, through comparison and the analysis, seeks to the enlightenment to our country early childhood education investment by synthesizing the education voucher theory as well as the preschool education voucher policy research.Through the research to the education voucher theory and the preschool education voucher policy, the paper draws several main conclusions as the follow:1. The education voucher policy plan can be designed both fair and efficient. The fairness of the education voucher mainly manifests in: (1) average fairness of the resources disposition; (2) if the weak community can enjoy extra-supplementing; (3) the school fairness of education resources disposition. The efficiency functions of the education voucher mainly manifests through two ways: (1) the rule and regulation to education quality must be efficient and strong (including the formulation of the quality standards and monitoring); (2) entrusts with guardian's education option right which is enough to stimulate the effective competition between the garden institutes.2. The education voucher principle is that introduction of the market mechanism by entrusting the guardian with the option right will improve the efficiency and fairness of resources disposition. But the substantive thought essence of Friedman's education voucher is: The government funds the education but need not manage the school, namely it request the government be separated from the education micro-management, and directly aims at the privately operated education market which approaches complete competition. As for as the implementation of the four nations/places preschool education voucher policy which the author inspects, although the plan design either stresses the efficiency or stresses fairness according to respective policy difference, but they all only introduce the principle through the market mechanism of the education voucher to improve the efficiency and the fairness of the resources disposition. They entrusted the guardian with the varying degree of option right through using the education voucher policy tools (finance, control, service supporting), thus partially introduced the market mechanism and improve finance resources disposition condition.3. The education quality promotion function of the preschool education voucher policy in various countries is not obvious. It has two main reasons, one is that the implementation of the limit education voucher policy is not able to arouse the effective competition among gardens- not all competitions are able to enhance the quality, and which can only cause the quality enhancement in a key value scope. Two is that the design and the execution of the education voucher policy can not rule and regulate the education quality effectively and strongly. Therefore, whether the quality rules and regulations of education voucher is efficient and strong as well as whether the guardian's entrusted option right can arouse effective competition among the gardens are the two essential factors affecting the promotion of education quality.4. The education voucher is not only has the function of fairness and efficiency, but also advantageous to solve the education question which arise in the economically difficult home. And also it has the positive policy guidance function, and affects value degree of the society to the early childhood education.5. Basing on the summarization of the implementation result and the experience of the four nation/area preschool education voucher and according to the policy metaphor, the paper provide the policy model for the implementation of the preschool education voucher policy in our country.
Keywords/Search Tags:childcare voucher, government's investment, resource allocation
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