An Analysis Of The Investment Shortage In Rural Compulsory Education Based On Public Choice Theory

The rural compulsory education investment shortage has long been a bottleneck of the development of the whole compulsory education system. As the senior decision-making leaders voice their grave concern for the San-Nong issue (i.e. the problems concerning agriculture, villages and farmers), naturally, some problems of rural compulsory education draw people's attention. In 2001, our government reformed the management system of rural compulsory investment, and the "County-Oriented" Investment and Management Policy in rural compulsory education was constructed. Yet, the shortage has not been radically changed. The ineffectiveness of the reform is bringing about a lot of thoughts. And the authority's highlighting the San-Nong Issue offers a great opportunity to solve the problem.Based on the public choice theory, in a perspective of decision-making in educational investment, this paper tries to explore the reasons for the educational investment shortage in rural areas and find some ways to solve the problem. The research mainly involves three aspects, namely, bureaucratic economy, interest groups and rent-seeking.Driven by the ration of "economic man", officials have the thought of chasing after their political accomplishment in minds when making decision, and tend to attach less importance and less responsibility to educational investment, which is the direct cause of the shortage in rural areas.The profit-sharing competition of interest groups at different levels directly affects the result of educational investment distribution. In the profit-sharing competition between urban and rural interest groups, the rural group is inferior, and so it is in the profit-sharing competition happening inside education and among different parts. The inferior position of rural compulsory education interest group at different levels will surely lead to the investment shortage in rural compulsory education.Rent-seeking leads to the lavish with the limited educational appropriations and misuse of the outlay, which purposely aggravates the problem. The administrational rent-seeking in examining and approving the educational funds makes the transaction costs mounting up. Officials in education management organizations mishandling thefunds results in the waste of the expenditure.To solve the problem, a comprehensive treatment should be taken in the background of the San-Nong issue. First, effective stimulating and restraining mechanism should be set up. The government's responsibility should be enhanced in the form of fulfilling the policy of free rural compulsory education. In this way can the rural compulsory education investment get a guarantee from the institution. The compulsory education investment should be institutionalized and laws must be made to restrain the policy making. At the same time scientific evaluation system for officials' behavior should be set up to stimulate the enthusiasm and motive. Second, central government should support the inferior interest groups to balance the investment. Peasants' organization should be set up to express their own interests, and public educational financial institution should be constructed according public financial institution. In this way can we balance the interests among different groups. Third, the educational funds should be used in right way .To do this, the regulations to guide the using of the appropriation should also keep pace with it. Finally, the educational investment system should be more creative and the layout of the mew innovations should be more reasonable to secure the funds to be used in rural compulsory education effectively.