Policy Reflection On The Merging School Issue

Since the implementation of layout adjustment policy of primary and secondary schools in2010nationwide, the policy has achieved some success, but the attendant problems have also arisen more and more. In the case of ineffective adjustment thrice in2006and2010, this policy was suspended in2012. Its core issue is that this policy was not really reasonable adjustment to the school layout in the process of implementation. Unidirectional consolidation school action lead to a lot of schools which should not be merged were merged, causing a series of serious problems which directly affect the future development of basic education such as a waste of educational resources and student drop-out rate increases. What is that causes such consequences that school layout adjustment policy implementation produce? As an educational policy, what elements are related to the policy formulation and implementation? What about the relationship between these elements? The answers to these questions can not only analyze the deep-seated reasons why the policy which should originally have significant value was problematic at last, but also respond to the fact of the its suspension. More importantly, through analyzing this particular policy, the purpose is to find the starting point of making the education policy, to explore the relationship and interactive laws among educational policy making, implementing and policy environment, in order to avoid similar mistakes happening again and strengthen applicableness of education policy.Based on the above issues, adopting fieldwork methods, this study verifies the specific process and circumstances of the policy formulation and implementation to clarify the underlying issues and causes of the phenomenon. This issue has epitomized in the school layout adjustment policy implementation in M county. As one county in minority and border areas, its problems in school layout adjustment policy implementation process are the most serious and also typical and representative. The use of depth interviews and participant observation strive to ascertain the specific process and the situation of policy formulation and implementation, clarify the underlying policy issues and causes of the phenomenon. In this study, the following steps to explore issues in progressive style are as follows. The first step is school layout adjustment policy analysis and merging schools issues presentation. The use of literature and fieldwork methods sorts out different levels of school layout adjustment policies, investigates M county school layout adjustment history and current situation and analyzes its effectiveness and problems. The study has founded that from short-sighted perspective, M county is especially suitable for centralized school sponsoring, and its surface value even far exceeds the value of the non-ethnic school districts. However, from the perspective of long-term development of the nation and education, M county is not least suitable for centralized school sponsoring. The merging schools problems are mainly derived from the implementation of the policy on school layout adjustment, so that the policy attribution analysis is needed. The second step is the policy attribution analysis. Based on the characteristics of the layout adjustment policies and fieldwork place, the policy process theory and policy ecology theory are chosen as the theoretical basis of the study, to build up the analytical framework of the study. The problems produced by merging schools are analyzed from the formulation, implementation of school layout adjustment policies and policy environment. The two core parts of the policy formulation and implementation in the policy process are placed under the background of the policy ecology environment to explain. The specific reason is that the policy positioning is inadequate, that the policy implementation is lack of culture care and that local special policy environmental factors are lack of consideration. The third step is the legal discussion. Due to the limited effectiveness of education policy, many reasons for merging schools problems in policy implementation process are inevitable, it is necessary to further explore the rationality of the policy itself, to explore the jurisprudence basis of education policy formulation. The reason is that education policy producing is lack of strict regulation and that education policies transgress education laws. The fourth step is to solve the issues. The suggestions solving the issue are put forward from two levels of the theory and practice on the basis of policy attribution analysis and legal discussion.Through the above examination, the findings are as follows.(1) Not only the success or failure of the implementation of education policy is related to the coordination between policy formulation, implementation and policy environment, even more importance is of the harmonization between education law, education policy and the local management.(2) The starting point of making and producing of educational policy should be realistic, rather than authority-centered. That is to say, the formulation of education policy cannot proceed from rationality, but from the actual situation of the educational development and being people-oriented. The limitations of education policy effectiveness should be recognized. Based on these research findings, two aspects of policy recommendations in this study are put forward:First, in the macroscopic aspects of education policy implementation, it’s need to build policy process system included an integrated policy actions, specifically including the integration of education law, education policy and local governance, the integration of policy formulation, policy implementation and policy environment, as well as the integration of policy spirit and policy subjects. Thereby the introduction of the policy is more reasonable and well-grounded. The implementation of the policy is independent of man’s will and forms a coherent logic system. The basic thought that the policy is simply to be implemented and enforced should be broken. Second, in the specific proposal of school layout adjustment policy implementation in ethnic areas, the specific policy recommendations of future school layout adjustment policy in ethnic areas under the guidance of the theoretical system of integrated policy action are put forward. That is, Strengthen the policy values that the policy subject cares for the national culture; Take the principle of policy implementation that the cultural security comes first; Enhance the policy guarantee level of small-scale school development; Take care of special policy environment factors in national regions; Guarantee the neighborhood school right.