A Study On The System Of Central Educational Supervision In China (1949-1985)

Educational supervision is an important function of state education administration. It isinspection, monitoring, evaluation and guidance activities carried out systematically foreducation. As an independent administrative activity, educational supervision’s fundamentalpurpose is not to supervise but to promote the development of education through supervision andguidance. This paper uses the central educational supervision system in1949-1985in China asthe research object; adopted by related theories about Management, Game Theory andpsychology and so on, to work together for studying the history of the central educationalsupervision system. This study uses literature, historical research, systematic research and othermethods, in order to systematically analyses historical characteristics and problems of each stage,and to investigate the reasons and the nature of problems existing in this historical period. On thebasis, the article also proposes reference to solve the problems for the development of today’seducational supervision system.On the basis of accounting related concepts and research ideas, starting from the analysis ofhistorical data, the research inspects institutional settings, regulation set up, team building,allocation of funds, work deployment and practice activities of China’s educational supervisionsystem in each stage. Based on detailed historical study, the article analyses and discusses indepth the characteristics of educational supervision system in each stage. In chronological order,the study divides the development of educational supervision system during this period of intothree different historical periods:The first stage is the beginning and initial development of the educational supervisionsystem (1949-1956). At the beginning of the founding of New China, the Party and thegovernment once established the same strain from central to local supervisory institutions,regulations and staffing, conducted a series of working arrangement and supervision practices.Educational supervision system during this period experienced the process from inspecting toguiding, its scope is mainly on supervising learning, supervisory levels are relatively low.The second stage is the further exploration, disorder and stagnation of educationalsupervision system (1957-1976), including the independent exploration period (1957-1965) andthe “Cultural Revolution” period (1966-1976). Despite frequent political impact, educationalsupervision during independent exploration period overall still had some development. After“Cultural Revolution”, the educational supervision work almost completely collapsed, for it hadno uniform regulations and requirements, had no independent supervisory institutions. The entireeducational supervision work undergone a tortuous development process, showing some featuresas the guiding ideology politicized, management activities disordered, and “rule of man” factorprominent. The third stage is the restoration and rapid development of educational supervision system(1977-1985). Under the background of Reform and Opening up, China began to graduallyrecover and rebuild supervision system, made clear and specific provision for institutional setting,staffing, work mode and so on of educational supervision, and indicated a clear direction for thedevelopment of educational supervision system. During this period, educational supervisionactivities were highly valued;“supervisor” began to combine with “Administrative Supervision”;however, educational supervision system was not obviously perfect.The last part of the article makes a rational thinking of the contemporary educationalsupervision system, and specifically analyses the existing problems of China’s educationalsupervision system:“rule of man” ideology of education supervision,“rent-seeking” issues ofeducational supervision, inspectors’“imperial consciousness government”,“unlimited” mode ofgovernment management and other issues. At the same time, using Management, Game Theoryand psychology and so on, it analyses the reasons of China’s educational supervision’s slowdevelopment for up to30years. This part points during the new opportunity of development, theeducation supervision should strengthen the legislative work, adjust the interest relations,establish principal-agent mechanism and re-define the functions of the government, in order tomake our country’s education supervision system more perfect and full of new vitality.