Research On Government’s Purchasing Of Educational Services In Contemporary China

With the rapid development of economy and society, as well as the brilliant achievements and remarkable progress of education reform and development in our country, public criticism of unbalanced education development, the pursuit of quality and level of education, the expectation of education fairness and efficiency are growing. Among them, the contradiction between supply and demand of diverse and high-quality educational services are particularly prominent in the process of basic education development in our country. However, due to the limited resources and capacity of the government, the cost of educational services provided by the government has been increasing in dealing the two contradictions. It also brings new challenges for government’s management in the field of education. Therefore, in order to maintain the vitality and vigor of the educational development, to improve the supply quality and the management level of the educational services, the government must change the traditional thinking models through the optimization of its functional structures, redefining the relationship between government, society and market in the field of educational services to construct an education governance system that involves multiple subjects. This is not only part and parcel of accelerating modernization of the education governance system and ability, but also the key to solve the difficult problem of how to supply educational services effectively. Through purchasing from social channels, the government makes these educational services available to the public. This not only provides a practical path for the improvement of education governance system, but also works as a sound strategy to solve contradiction between supply and demand of diverse and high-quality educational services. Through purchasing educational services from social sectors, the government actually transfers the "production process" of educational services to social forces. Based on the relationship of commodity exchange with "contract" as its link, the separation of "producers" and "providers" can help expand the supply range of educational services, so as to enhance the efficiency and quality of educational services and to meet public demands for better, effective and alternative educational services. Within the broader context of the macro development of government’s purchasing of public services in our country, the study of the local government’s purchasing of educational services is a realistic response to the deepening of the theory about government’s purchasing of public services and educational services, as well as an important direction to discuss the reform of educational services and the transformation of educational functions in contemporary China.The current study will follow the pattern of "ask questions-analyze problems-solve problems". It will start from the theory logic and the research status of Chinese government’s purchasing of educational services. Based on the Public Governance Theory, the Principal-Agent Theory, the Public-Private Partnerships Theory, through the selection of Strategic Management, the main theoretical tool in management studies, and by employing mission management, political management and operational management which are three analysis dimensions of "Triangle Model" of government strategy management as reference, an analytical framework of contemporary Chinese government’s purchasing of educational services is constructed. At the same time, three major topic modules of the study were divided. They are purchasing mission statements which based on the logic and value target, outside purchasing environment measurement which based on the relations between macroscopic environment and microcosmic main body, internal purchasing environment examination which based on government resources, abilities and operating mechanism. Within the above-mentioned analytical framework and research topics, this paper has employed various research methods including literature research, interview and comparative research in social sciences. With the actual practice of contemporary Chinese government’s purchasing of educational services as analysis background and focusing on Chinese government’s purchasing of educational management services, this paper studies the Entrust Management of educational services in Pudong Area. The observation and measurement have been done with regard to the internal and external strategic environment of government’s purchasing of educational services. It also explores problems, risks and proposes strategic choices of development during the purchasing process.Specifically, the first research topic is in the first chapter and the second chapter, which explains the history evolution logic and realistic driving factors of the government’s purchasing of educational services in contemporary China, and it also expresses the value orientation and purchased target localization of government’s purchasing of educational services based on the value-rationality. The third chapter and the fourth chapter is the second research topic. According to the assessment of external macro environment and the exploration of micro subject relation of the government’s purchasing of educational services, we can find that the government’s purchasing of educational services showed the concomitant situation of opportunity and threat in the macro policy environment, economic and social environment. Because of the uneven allocation of responsibility and power, the deviation of interest demands and confidence crisis, the interaction of microscopic "ternary subjects" showed a conflict relationship between the ideal and the reality. The fifth chapter and the sixth chapter covers the third research topic, the study found that at present although Chinese government has certain power resources and technical resources advantages in purchasing educational services, it still has structural difficulties in the information acquisition, human resources construction, financial resources arrangement and power resources utilization. Meanwhile, the management abilities of the government including the structure organization ability within construct dimension, the contract management ability within technical dimension, the risk prevention ability within responsibility dimension have certain limitations. In addition, in the operating mechanism construction of demand survey mechanism, undertaking subject admittance mechanism, bidding mechanism, performance evaluation mechanism and withdrawal mechanism showed that low progress coincidence and logical defects existed in the coordination with operating mechanism. With the view of "Three-tier governance" including system arrangement level, means and technique level and governance ability level, chapter seven discussed the approach selection scheme of strategic evolution of government’s purchasing of educational services in China. It pointed out that only to keep improving purchasing rules and increase the purchasing legitimacy, to define the boundary of responsibilities, rights and interest reasonably and clarify the purchasing relationship, to optimize internal government resources and enhance the management abilities of government, to cultivate subjects which can undertake the educational services and innovate purchasing culture, to strengthen the operational mechanism of purchasing in order to avoid the purchasing process risk, can the sustained development of government’s purchasing of educational services in China be obtained.