A Study On Rural Teachers Living Treatment Policy Implementation

Rural teachers are the organizers and defenders of rural education,and belong to the grass-roots social elites.For a long time,the majority of rural teachers suffer heavy workloads,huge work pressures and low living standards.The loss of rural teachers is serious,especially for those marginal rural teachers working in remote and impoverished areas where the overall living conditions are worrying.How to effectively solve the practical problem of “unwilling to go,can't teach well and hard to stay” for rural teachers,narrow the gap between teachers in urban and rural areas,and strengthen the team construction of rural teachers are important issues which urgently calls for the governmental support at the policy level.Since the reform and opening up,the social status of rural teachers in China has gradually recovered.The central government has issued a number of policies to improve the situation of rural teachers.The regulations and requirements concerning the living treatment of rural teachers are scattered in the policy texts.In June 2015,the Rural Teacher Support Plan(2015-2020)was issued,in which the CPC Central Committee and the State Council show great concerns to rural teachers and rural education,and repeatedly mentioned the need to improve the living conditions of rural teachers.The starting point of the series of policies is good,but whether there are deficiencies in the formulation of the policy,and whether the policy can be effectively implemented are still worthy of in-depth study and thinking.Based on the review of these practical issues and the deepening of previous studies,this study focuses on the rural teachers' living treatment policy itself,and tries to answer the following questions: What is the development process of rural teachers' life treatment policy? What does the policy text contain? What policy instruments are used? What problems still exist in the implementation of the policy? Why do these problems occur? What factors influence the implementation? How to achieve the expected objectives of the policy? How to effectively promote policy implementation?In order to turn the policy ideal into the policy reality and realize the policy goal,it is necessary to scientifically select and use policy instruments.The purpose of research on policy instruments is to help policy makers and implementers better choose the right tools to address social issues with broad impact.Although there has been a lot of research on policy instruments in the policy implementation stage,in fact,policy itself is a means of decision-making.The scientific,comprehensive and feasible policy decision-making will also directly affect the effectiveness of policy implementation.This study carries out a systematic analysis of the implementation of rural teachers' living treatment policy mainly from the perspective of policy instruments.Under the background that the living treatment of rural teachers has been highly concerned and the policy goals have not yet been fully realized,to identify,analyze and study the policy instruments available to the government,and then make appropriate choice,matching and combination of policy instruments can improve the effectiveness of government education governance,strengthen the overall team construction of rural teachers in China,and promote the balanced development between urban and rural teachers of compulsory education.The basic idea of this study is to start with the research theme,and based on the factual analysis of the policy development process and the theoretical analysis of the classification of policy instruments,the text analysis on the current policy content,the textual and empirical analysis on the policy implementation,and the causal analysis of the existing problems are conducted.And then on the basis of drawing lessons from the experience of foreign rural teachers' living treatment policy implementation,combined with the conditions of our country,the researcher makes a strategy analysis on the policy of living treatment of rural teachers.Clarifying and confirming policy goals is the primary issue to be addressed by policy makers and an important part of policy value analysis.In terms of policy,the key to strengthen the construction of rural teacher's team is to improve the living treatment of rural teachers.The main goals of the policy are to improve the plight of rural teachers,stimulate their enthusiasm for work and enhance the professional attraction.Indeed,the formulation and perfection of any policy is not a one-time but a cyclical process.The rural teachers' living treatment policy also gradually evolves into a relatively complete and internally coordinated policy system after a certain policy cycle.This part mainly focuses on rural teachers' living allowances,housing security,social insurance and medical insurance benefits,which are historically analyzed from the macro requirements of national policies and the matching of local policies.How to effectively improve the living standard of rural teachers and encourage them to better engage in rural education depends largely on what kind of policies are formulated and how to effectively implement the policies.The purpose of policy instruments research is to help policy makers better choose the right tools to solve policy problems with wide influence.From the perspective of policy instruments,this study analyzes the text of rural teachers' life treatment policies and the status quo of its implementation.Although domestic and foreign scholars have different expressions on the concept of policy instruments,they have reached the consensus on the range of policy instruments.Among those scholars,McDonnell's policy instruments classification has more distinctive,pertinent and operational attributes.Using of this policy instrument classification,the study analyzes the implementation of rural teachers' living treatment policies.Firstly,the current selection of textual instruments of rural teachers' life treatment policy is analyzed.The research establishes a two-dimensional structure analysis framework of the content and instruments of the life treatment policies,and finds that the current characteristics of the text instruments selection and use of the life treatment policy for rural teachers are mainly manifested in the administrative orders,focus on the multi-path education investment and the short-term benefits of the policy instruments,and rely on the internal resource allocation of the system.Then an empirical study on the implementation of rural teachers' living treatment policies is carried out.Through the investigation and research,the research finds that the current rural teachers' wage income level has been increased,the housing security has been improved,the medical security has made some progress,the social insurance has been further standardized,the scope of living allowance has been expanding,and the overall career expectation of rural teachers is improving.At the same time of facing up to the achievements,we must also be aware that there are some practical problems in the implementation of the rural teachers' life treatment policy,such as the authority instruments are hindered in the implementation,the role of incentive instruments is limited,the form of authoritative restructuring instruments is relatively single,the function expansion instruments are easy to be ignored,and the implementation of the exhortative instruments is insufficient.The results of quantitative and qualitative analysis are combined to summarize both the achievements and the existing problems of the policy implementation.This paper analyzes the problems existing in the implementation of rural teachers' living treatment policy.The reasons are not only the direct influence of internal factors,but also the comprehensive influence of external environment.After in-depth analysis,it is not difficult to find that there are conflicts between the differences of policy instruments and the complexity of tool selection,the limitation of government resources and the infinite need of policy objects,the authoritative expectation of organizations and the reality of low efficiency,the benign demand of policy environment and the influence of reality deviation,which further affect the effectiveness of policy implementation.During the long course of history,almost all countries have attached great importance to the rural education development,and regarded it as a crucial field in governmental decision-making.The policy and guarantee system of living treatment for rural teachers in foreign countries are worthy of our in-depth exploration and study.Based on the advanced experience of foreign policy implementation,and combined with the actual situation of rural education in our country,the study proposes the policy implementation strategies which fit into the practical conditions of rural education in our country.The whole process from policy formulation to policy implementation is systematically interpreted,and the corresponding improvement strategies are discussed from the aspects of policy goal and instrument selection,living treatment and guarantee mechanism,responsibility awareness and power allocation,policy propaganda and environment creation,and multi-center governance and enhancing professional attractiveness.