Research On Increasing Parental Satisfaction Towards Compulsory Education In Suzhou

Citizen satisfaction towards compulsory education has received much attention from governments,research institutes,and scholars abroad and at home.Based on the fundamental theories about citizen satisfaction evaluation,equalization of public service,education equity,and spatial justice,a parental satisfaction index system is constructed,with education quality,equity,belief,communication and involvement and legal governance being its five dimensions.Our questionnaire survey finds that firstly,parents in general have a high satisfaction level;secondly,there exist negative correlations between the parents’ social-economic status and their satisfaction levels.Four independent variables,including household registration,career category,education level and admission methods,have the strongest correlations with the satisfaction index;and thirdly,there is still large room for improvement of satisfaction index in many aspects.The satisfaction index of education equity,education belief as well as parent-school communication and parental involvement are found to be the major factors affecting the aggregate parental satisfaction index through the analysis of correlation and regression.Three major areas have received comparatively lower scores in parental satisfaction evaluation,which include firstly parent-school communication services and parental involvement in compulsory education being unsatisfactory,secondly parental satisfaction index in educational equity being low,and thirdly the implementation of well-round education belief being far from parental expectations.Duties in conducting parent-school communication and increasing parental involvement are in lack of fulfillment by all relevant functional bodies such as local bureau of education and various schools,and individual teachers.The imbalance of resource allocation in compulsory education among regions,districts,and groups has lowered parental recognition of education equity.Reforms in both curriculum and assessment in compulsory education need to be further implemented.Public administrative reforms in the following three aspects are proposed to upgrade parental satisfaction index.Firstly,platforms for school-parent communications are to be established,incentives and mechanisms are needed to encourage faculties to improve teachers-parents communications,and responsibilities are to be stated clearly to enhance parental involvement in both school management decision-making and educational policy-making fields.Secondly,the allocation of compulsory educational resources needs to be balanced among urban and rural areas and among school districts.The provision of primary school and middle school admission opportunities needs to be well adjusted based on the population statistics.Education quality in middle vocational institutes needs to be improved to attract more students who might be more suitable to pursue skill-training related career education.More governmental supports need to be allocated to schools with limited educational equipment and teaching faculty.In addition,reforms in school curriculum and student evaluation criteria need to be conducted to remove the hindering factors to the implementation of well-round educational belief.The number of teaching hours for courses aiming at cultivating students’ creativity and practical skills shall be increased compared with the traditional subjects.The teaching practices in both internal school education and external learning centers with exam-oriented teaching focus shall be regulated to reduce the students’ pressure.Assessment systems for middle and high school enrollment shall highlight the importance of student virtue,characteristics,voluntary work and practical skills,instead of putting scores of major subjects as the priority in the admission criteria.