Research On The Fiscal Policy Of Preschool Education From The Perspective Of Adequacy, Fairness And Efficiency

Early Childhood Education(ECE)financial system is a key component sub-system in ECE systems.Since 2010,governments at all levels in China have initiated the reform of ECE financial systems and the public expenditure into ECE has climbed dramatically.However,whether public expenditure is adequate to develop public-beneficial,quality and universal ECE services;whether the fiercely debated equity issue of ECE public expenditure has been dealt with?Whether maximum desirable outcomes have been produced?All of the above-mentioned questions remain unknown.Based on theories of policy,finance,economics,and education administration,this research utilized literature,questionnaire,interview,statistics analysis,and policy text analysis to study Chinese finance policies from the perspectives of finance adequacy,equity,and efficiency.The study mainly answered the following questions:What are the normative values of ECE finance policies?Do ECE finance policies embrace ideas of adequacy,equity and efficiency?What are the current status and the development trajectory of ECE finance adequacy,equity and efficiency in China?How do the influencing factors work?The study suggests that the Children's Rights theory,the human capital theory,and public good theory together outline the common normative values of ECE finance polices:children-oriented,education equity,adequacy,and efficiency.Adequacy,equity and efficiency shall be three basic principles applied in designing and evaluating Chinese ECE finance systems.This dissertation went on to study the policy text via the theoretical framework of Policy Paradigm and construct three different policy paradigms from Chinese ECE finance policies after 1949.The three paradigms are Dan-Wei Welfare paradigm,the marketization paradigm,and the emergence of social investment paradigm.In the last stage,policy values approach to adequacy,equity,and efficiency.This study reveals that the finance adequacy has been improved drastically after 2010,but there are still some problems unsolved,such as lacking sustainable improvement,lagging behind other countries,remaining the weakest stage in education systems,and leaving a large gap between the current status and the ideal level.Although horizontal equity has been largely improved,still inter-provincial,inter-county differences cannot be ignored.There were no radical changes of the phenomena that public financial resources are highly centralized to urban public kindergartens.Vertical equity between urban and rural areas has also been enhanced,but there is still an obvious"town-centered" orientation.Specifically,the improvement of non-personnel expenditure is more obvious than personnel expenditure.In terms of opportunity equity,chi-square test and logistic regression suggest that family capitals are still important factors influencing children's possibilities to be enrolled into public kindergartens.The study indicates that the ECE finance efficiency is unsatisfactory.The loss of efficiency is serious,of which the loss of scale efficiency is most prominent.The study also found that the proportion of personnel expenditure in recent years has been reduced to an inappropriate level,significantly lower than that of all OECD countries.This dissertation then explores the factors influencing adequacy,equity and efficiency in the internal,external,and macro systems.In theory,as for ECE finance adequacy,factors in the internal system impose effects on the willingness of investment,financial capacity of governments,and the policy development and implementation.The influence from the external system embodies in the following dynamics:the economically decentralized and politically centralized"Chinese Decentralization" system,the bureaucratic system,the public opinions expression system and the regional economy,all impact local governments' willingness and capacity to invest ECE and the capability and effectiveness to involve public demands into the decision-making process.In the macro system,the "Local Society" is cultural root of current economic decentralization and "top-down" scale competition,and the deep-rooted examination culture impedes local officials to accurately grasp the importance of ECE.As for financial equity,the effects from internal system and external system mainly embodied in the following aspects:the isolated,urban-centered,and authorized personnel input institution is a primary reason that finance equity descends;the self-interest local officials lack instincts to adjust resource allocation pattern or innovate institution after cautious cost-benefit calculation lead by their rationality;the fact that local governments burdening main ECE expenditure responsibility,the tax sharing reform,and the rural tax and fee reform,all leads to the weakening of the financial basis of rural ECE in China.Centralization of compulsory education administration system and the project of "Nine Year Compulsory Education" Championships further squeeze the resources that could have been utilized for developing rural ECE services.In the internal system,ECE finance efficiency is influenced by the scale of public expenditure,the structure of expenditure elements,the method of expenditure,the allocation chains of funds,the disclosure of financial information,the financial supervision mechanism,the quality monitoring system,and the accountability mechanisms.From the external system,both the weak citizen participation mechanism and the horizontal fierce competition between local governments in "Chinese fiscal decentralization" system are detrimental to finance efficiency.In the macro system,the small "trust radius" and the lack of honesty,thrifty and cooperation in public life are also important reasons for the growth of transaction costs.This study went on to use the panel data of 31 provinces and sample counties in "A Province" to establish fixed-effect models,random-effect models and Tobit models to empirically study the influencing factors of ECE finance adequacy,equity,and efficiency.Firstly,the study found that the degrees of fiscal expenditure and fiscal income each has a significant positive effect on finance adequacy;the transfer from the central government to local governments has an incentive effect and a "sticky flies" effect;the government effort towards ECE is an essential factor influencing ECE finance adequacy;the preference of local citizens has a limited effect on public policy-making;key ECE finance policies after 2010 impose significant positive effect on ECE finance adequacy.Secondly,in terms of vertical equity between rural and urban areas,the degree of fiscal autonomy negatively predicts the vertical equity;the government effort towards ECE imposes a significantly positive effect.While urbanization of provinces has played a negative role,student urbanization of provinces positively predicts vertical equity.Lastly,the fiscal decentralization generally negatively predicts ECE finance efficiency;the government effort towards ECE imposes a significant negative effect;and the ratio of private expenditure predicts higher ECE finance efficiency.Besides,population density and per-capita GDP in provincial panel data predict ECE finance efficiency positively.The policy practices to promote the ECE finance adequacy,equity and efficiency in other major foreign countries and Chinese local governments are summarized and policy recommendations are brought out.In order to enhance the finance adequacy,the early childhood education right shall be legislated.ECE expenditure shall be specifically budgeted,and the minimum investment guideline shall be established to solve the legitimacy of investment issues.Besides,both internal and external supervision mechanisms shall be constructed and political incentives as well as economic incentives shall be utilized to solve the public investment willingness.In order to ensure financial capability,expenditure liability shall be appropriately upward shifted and intergovernmental expenditure liability shall be set province to province.ECE costs shall be calculated,public share proportion shall be decided and the demand-linked per-student funding mechanism shall be adopted.In terms of ECE finance equity,it is necessary to primarily prioritize the disadvantaged while reconcile the aim to benefit everyone in the short term;in the long run,"universal benefit"shall be combined with"disadvantaged compensated".Newly developed public-benefit resources shall primarily expand to the disadvantaged areas,and the disadvantaged groups are given priorities accessing to these resources.In order to guarantee all children access to public-benefit ECE services,governments shall continue to expand public-benefit kindergartens,ensure the enrollment criterion is of no discrimination,and make sure these kindergartens are economic and distance accessible.In the distribution of public financial resources,per-student funding formula shall be used to share the basic cost universally and the compensation costs for vulnerable groups.Plus,it is necessary to strengthen coordination abilities of central and provincial governments to compensate vulnerable areas.In terms of ECE finance efficiency,it is of necessity to enhance the proportion of personnel expenditure,ensure the financial funds collected and allocated in place,strengthen the budgeting democracy,budget management,and budget supervision,and improve the performance-based evaluation system and performance-based accountability mechanism.