Research On Compulsory Education Finance And Expenditure Assurance From The Perspective Of Provincial Coordination

The provincial coordination of compulsory education expenditure is a major adjustment of the financial system of education in our country,and it is also a key link in establishing a modern public finance system.After more than a decade of reform,the overall main role of provincial governments has a clear legal basis,and it is built into financial system,which is required to implement its responsibility of education in accordance with the law.In practice,local provinces have encountered many difficulties among implementation of national deployment,but the results have not been expected,reflecting in the regulation of investing,distributing and supervising.That is still has a gap to fulfill the high-quality education system which is also proposed to "accelerating education quality,balancing development of urban and rural integration,and optimizing resource allocation of regional education".Meanwhile,there is a lack of consensus on theoretical basis,including conceptual category interpretation,provincial responsibility and educational finance system design,while the research paradigm and analytical methods in most researches are different,so as to lead the discussion is not consistent with the cognition.Based on the perspective of provincial coordination,this paper is in the context of literature and its development,focusing on the research on education expenditure ensurance with three aspects of question,which is what provincial government should do? how has it done? how will it improve? In order to analyze these ongoing progress of reform,we must respond to and launch in-depth research.In view of the above three levels of research questions,this paper follows the main stream of educational finance analysis,integrating the theory of public goods,fiscal decentralization,new public management and modern economics as relevant scientific basis,focusing on the provincial government’s responsibility demarcation,value and practice orientation.Based on the practical basis brought by policy tools and empirical methods,this paper deeply analyzes policy connotation and its characteristics,implementation performance,existing problems and main causes of the provincial coordination of compulsory education,as a result to put forward corresponding optimization paths and countermeasures.This paper consists of six chapters: Chapter one is the introduction,which mainly introduces the research problems,reviews the existing research progress at domestic and abroad,and clarifies the core concepts,research methods,research design ideas and possible innovations.Chapter two is one of the key contents of this paper,which mainly responds to the first level research question of what the provincial government should do.This paper attempts to construct a theoretical analysis framework for the provincial coordination of compulsory education expenditure,delimiting the provincial government’s responsibility from the process of investment,distribution and supervision,and analyzing the value and practical orientation.Chapter three to five is another key content of this paper,which mainly responds to the second level research question about how provincial governments have done.In this paper,the connotation and its characteristics of existing policies are summarized.With the help of empirical experiment such as causal inference,spatial measurement,stochastic frontier production,high-order terms and quantile regression,the current implementation status and performance of overall practice in the whole country and some provinces are studied,and the mainly existing problems and their causes are reflected.Chapter six mainly responds to the third level of research questions that how provincial government will improve.Based on the research conclusions of the above part,the countermeasures and suggestions of the provincial coordination of compulsory education expenditure are formed.The general conclusions and countermeasures are as follows: First,the provincial coordination should be carried out around the institutional framework of education finance,guiding provincial government to clarify the investment responsibility of "internalizing externalities,eliminating congestion and matching preferences",to assume the distribution responsibility of moderate centralization,to implement the supervision responsibility of new public management,to focus on the value orientation of "unified balance,raising increment and rigidifing constraint",while taking fiscal vertical transfer payment as coordinated mode,educational operating expenditure as coordinated content,basic index and comprehensive index as coordinated estimation,thus reshaping the necessary state of provincial government.Secondly,the policy development is mainly from subject and objective.Its implication is to clarify the main position,which is transformed them into the defender of underpaying investment,the regulator of balanced distribution,and the corrector of binding supervision.The connotation features presented are relatively clear in object and path,but the horizontal and vertical structure of various policy carriers is vague,and the effective connection between the internal and external coordination system needs to be improved.Third,the overall implementation has achieved,but there is still room for improvement.The coordinating imbalance is relatively obvious in most provinces,and provincial governments have not fully fulfilled their responsibilities and still need to released their role in practice,especially in the allocation of education funding,which is mainly reflected in alleviating the salary gap of teachers between regions,realizing educational equity,and horizontal and vertical financial equity of migrant children.Fourthly,there are still some problems in the institutional aspects,such as internalizing externalities and consumptive congestion,adjusting various preference by vertical transfer payments and subsidies,relieving the financial pressure of local governments,and improving efficiency expenditure intensity and intention below provincial government.Fifth,the countermeasures mainly include the following six aspects: improving the responsibility of provincial governments in bottom-incremental support;Strengthen the equal-tendency distribution;Improving quality and efficiency of supervision;Optimizing coordination method to narrow the inter-regional teacher salary gap;Increasing funds for migrant children;promoting the mechanism for ensuring provincial-level government with functions,rights and responsibilities in accordance.The innovation points of this paper are as follows: firstly,it clarifies the overall responsibility of provincial governments in different process of investment,distribution and supervision,and frames the overall planning of compulsory education at provincial level to provide theoretical support for the development of standardized and formed policy texts.The second is to clarify the value and practice orientation of implementation of provincial government’s responsibility,providing decision-making reference for establishing the specific goals and trend of upcoming reform.The third is to reveal the provincial practice performance,and then put forward the promoting system design,so as to provide countermeasures for provincial governments to perform their duties and functions in a targeted way,optimize the financial system and its ensuring mechanism of compulsory education.