Quality Optimization Of Compulsory Education In Minority Areas From The Perspective Of People’s Livelihood Improvement

The increasing input into basic education in China, together with the formulation and implementation of various preferential policies toward specific regions and minority areas, has significantly improved the historical difficulties in insufficient supply of compulsory educational resources in minority areas. The regional gap in distribution of educational resources has been narrowing with a relatively balanced realistic picture and development trend demonstrated. Especially after the nine-year compulsory education has been popularized, education in the minority areas have seen qualitative improvement development in the respects scale&running way of education, the educational expenditure and the teaching staff construction. Meanwhile, there still exist prominent conflicts between the increase in quantity of resources input and the synchronized improvement of quality of educational development, and the masses’ pursuit for high-quality education is not fully satisfied. In general, the problem is enough schools for all students, but lack of excellent schools to provide high-quality education. This is the best representation of the predicament in providing high-quality education in minority areas after the nine-year compulsory education has been popularized.Indwelling the social culture, schools are not "isolated islands of culture". People’s obtaining or waiving of education are their psychological dispositions and behavioral choices based on their established needs and value judgments, which interact with their deep-rooted concepts of socio-cultural value and behavioral modes. In reflection of school education, we should not limit our vision within the school system, but take a broad view on the whole socio-cultural system that school education is dependent on and the context of its changes in different times. The predicament of quality compulsory education in minority areas is not only a cultural issue, but also a livelihood issue. When it comes to the quality of compulsory education in minority areas, existing researches contribute the reasons to "insufficient educational funds" or "parents’ unenlightened concepts". Seldom do they touch upon the educational needs and livelihood conditions of minority members, pay attention to the significance of "free schooling" on "poverty alleviation" and "decent life" for minority members, or ponder over the realistic significance of "high-quality education" for them. It is found out from the fieldwork of the two major field points, Yi District in Liangshan and Dong Village in Qiandongnan, that the predicament in quality of compulsory education faced by minority areas can be concluded as follows:the standards of compulsory education are inconsistent with the facts; the students are poor in academic performance; it is "not cost-effective" to go to school; there are potential vagrants in students; and schools intervene less and less in Traditional Chinese Culture.The educational development and people’s livelihood improvement in ethnic minority are intrinsically dependent on each, which is shown by certain time variation features and regional features. The realistic difficulties of "being unable, unwilling and useless to learn" result in the minority members’ low recognition and needs of "free education", or even mentality of rejection of it. They therefore lack necessary motive and enthusiasm for obtaining free education, which is also an institutional block that causes the difficulty in improving the quality of compulsory education in minority areas. At the same time, the behindhand and embarrassed livelihood in the minority areas stir up the urgent needs for compulsory education to provide fundamental intellectual support and conceptual guide that are reliable for improvement of people’s livelihood. This requires us to give to full play the educational resource advantages in minority areas, and make education to lay foundations for people’s living, development and meaningful life in real sense through effective collaboration of various educational forms. To be specific, the distinctive natural and cultural system in minority areas, on the one hand, requires the exploration of characteristic paths for development of local education, and on the other hand, provides available natural and cultural resources and possibility for characteristic development of education. It should be noted that although the research focuses on limitations of socio-culture to quality of compulsory education in minority areas, alert will go to the moral hazard of "cultural relativism" which is also the basic orientation and innovative discussion of minority education in the research. The research holds that there are three particular features about minority education: namely it varies for different "minorities", and in different "regions" and "stages".In view of the above conclusions, the conflicts faced in improvement of quality of compulsory education in minority areas can be concluded as follows:first, the conflict between the institutional education and the local socio-economic development is mainly demonstrated by the inadaptation of education to the development of local productive force; second, the inadaptation or conflict between institutional education and minority (regional) culture is mainly demonstrated by the inadaptation of school education to traditional social culture. Currently, the difficulty in improving quality of compulsory education in minority areas is not just the simple matter of educational input. Lack of concern for and effective response to social culture and its change are the underlying cause for low utilization, idling and waste of supportive and preferential policies and funds in minority areas, as well as the crux for the difficulty of quality improvement compulsory education in minority areas. The improvement of quality of compulsory education in minority areas is intrinsically dependent on and unified with the improvement of minority members’daily life and livelihood. We should explore the collaborative mechanisms and characteristic paths for educational development and livelihood improvement in minority areas in the premise of correctly understanding socio-cultural limitations to and diversified pursuit for development of minority education. So that, correctly treating the traditional minority culture in educational reform, showing respect to limitations of historical stage on educational development, emphasizing the socio-cultural collaboration of educational reform, showing care for the minority members’ livelihood conditions and educational needs, and enhancing the "pedagogical standpoint" awareness of educational reform, are the basic principles that should be followed in optimization of quality of compulsory education in minority areas. Compulsory education in minority areas as a systematic project, based on the above basic logic and direction, the quality optimization of the national compulsory education should do specific work in the following areas:to universalize preschool education preferentially in minority areas, to implement the three-level managerial system of curriculum effectively, to promote bilingual education comprehensively, to construct quality monitoring system of compulsory education in minority areas, and to further development and improvement of people’s livelihood. Of course, the improvement of the quality of compulsory education in minority areas, should not mechanically copy "universal" reform model and specific strategy, should be based on the reality and specificity of national economic, social, cultural and educational development, should explore optimized strategies and practices for ethnic regions.The complexity of educational phenomena and the particularity of minority education lead to that, based on any particular views of paradigms or cases there are inevitably vague and illiberal shortages in both forms and contents in discussing the quality of compulsory education in minority areas, which is also the limitation and deficiency of the research. It would be the major contents in subsequent researches to analyze in depth the dynamic dependence of educational development in minority areas on social culture and to discover the characteristic collaboration mechanisms and practical strategies that are suited to realize win-win of educational development and livelihood improvement in minority areas.