Policy Study About Free Education For Normal School Students From The Perspective Of Rise Assessment

Risk assessment constitutes a very important part of risk management. It has gradually become an important content and research field in the studies of public policy in recent years. It is of great value on playing policy effectiveness and promoting policy performance. The correlative study on risk assessment of educational policy has just started and it is still not mature. Overall speaking, in the field of our country’s risk assessment of educational policy, there still exist such problems as unsound mechanism, lack of institutions, simplified evaluation criterion and methods. These problems weaken or overlook the assessment of relevant risks in our country’s policy making process, which may affect the scientificity, democratization, performance and procedure of educational policy decision making, and thus increase the possibility of negative effects of educational policy.Introducing risk assessment into educational policy research helps us to take countermeasures against risks in advance, which is helpful for us to deepen the research of educational decision making. Meanwhile, in the process of educational policy working, risk assessment can promote the continuous improvement of educational policy. So it can be regarded as the reassessment process of educational policy. Thus the introduction of risk assessment into educational policy research will deepen the correlative studies of educational policy, and have important significance and value on improving educational policy itself.Specifically speaking, risk assessment can also be regarded as a new perspective for educational policy analysis. There are many risk assessment approaches which include both theoretical deduction of policy text and empirical test of simulative policy implementation. Therefore, it is very suitable for analyzing the educational policies that are introduced in haste, with insufficient risk assessment and call for subsequent policies after the introduction of meta-policy. Free Normal Education Policy makes a perfect sample suitable for applying risk assessment as analytical approach to make policy improvement.In 2007, our country put into trial implementation of Free Normal Education Policy within the six normal universities affiliated to Ministry of Education. To this day, the content of Free Normal Education Policy has experienced many changes and been walking haltingly towards further improvement. On the one hand, it shows that the policy itself meets the needs of society and has great living space. On the other hand, it shows that at the beginning of policy decision making, there is a lack of full consideration and argumentation about the possible problems in the policy process, which consequently leads to high risks of policy itself. In particular, the risks of enrollment, development, employment, fulfilling contract and so on have severely affected the effective achievement of policy objectives. Free Normal Education Policy constitutes a very important part of teacher education policy in the new period of our country, and is of great significance to promoting the development of educational career, improving the social status of teaching profession, and promoting the balanced development of education. Thus, based on the theories of risk assessment and educational policy, the dissertation choose to have Free Normal Education Policy as the sample and tries to introduce the concept of risk assessment into the field of educational policy studies. Applying risk identification, analysis and assessment to Free Normal Education Policy, the dissertation explores the strategies for coping with policy risks, and then puts forward strategies for policy improvement.The main body of the dissertation consists of the following four parts:Part One is Introduction. It gives an account of research origin and explains the thesis topic; then it introduces the research perspective and approach; it also has a comprehensive survey on the achievements and deficiencies of existing researches; at last, it provides a detailed research framework, clearly points out the research significance, and indicates the possible innovation and space for future efforts.Part Two is Chapter one. The content of part two is to clarify the basic concepts. The core concepts as educational policy, educational policy decision making, and risk assessment of educational policy are introduced. Meanwhile, it sorts out and summarizes the implementation situation of educational policies. These contents provide the dissertation with a basic starting point.Part Three contains Chapter Two and Chapter Three. This part mainly focus on the risk identification and risk analysis of Free Normal Education Policy. This part is the main part of the dissertation. Adopting literature analytic method, semi-structure interview method and risk checklist method, it conducts a progressive screening for risks and eventually identifies 4 broad categories, 12 subcategories, all together 26 policy risks. Then the policy risk event and risk source are analyzed; stakeholder groups are organized to formulate policy risk criterion, divide risk grades and risk zones; risk matrix method is used to identify the possibility and analyze the consequences of risks, and thus to provide reference to risk response.Part Four is Chapter Four. Based on the above research, the dissertation makes suggestions on how to cope with policy risks of Free Normal Education Policy, and put forward specific strategies for policy improvement. On the whole, this part provides differentiated risk response strategies according to the risks in different risk zones. On the basis of risk response strategies, the improvement suggestions for Free Normal Education Policy are proposed.