The Research On Tai Shuangqiu's Thought Of Educational Fund And Its Significance For Present Days

Tai Shuangqiu was a well-known educator in the history of modern Chinese education and the founder of the school of thought that advocates the educational belief—“the People's Livelihood-oriented Education”,and a dedicated pioneer in the experiment in the people's livelihood-oriented education.Tai,together with three other comrades(Tao Xingzhi,Liang Suming and Yan Yangchu),was known as“the Four Strange Chinese Educational Masters”in the era the Republic of China due to his great contribution to the development of educational theories and practices.Tai's thought of educational fund,producing a profound social influence in the practice of executive management on educational fund and greatly contributing to the theoretical development of the fund management in history,was characterized by its reflection on social trends and practicality.By reviewing the past to understand the present,it could be seen that his thought of educational fund brings a whole new level of insight and inspiration to the ongoing reforms of financial system in education field.The research conducted in this paper is based on the principles of universal connection and development,which are derived from the historical and dialectical materialism,and the research methods here are variously used,namely literature research,historical research and comparative analysis.Starting with the retrospective review of Tai Shuangqiu's education background and educational practices,this paper then reviews the historical trajectory of Tai's view of educational fund to interpretively present the way the theoretical framework works.Next,the paper gives an analysis of the view's historical contribution by examining the social reality of the time.Finally,it considers and discusses the view's modern value through referring to the current reform of the educational finance system.The whole paper is divided into six sections:The first section deals with the introduction of Tai's life experiences and past educational activities.The focus is on a review of Tai's educational background,educational thought and related practical activities as well as analytical research into how his thought of educational fund was form based on his personal abilities.The second section,which discusses the historical background of his thought of educational fund,gives a review and summary of political,economic and educational aspects in the era of the Republic of China to figure out how the formation of his thought of educational fund and point out all of the problems and deficiencies that existed in the executive management on the educational fund.From above,it could be seen that the creation of his thought of educational fund originated from the need for working out some solutions to the above existing problems in his era.In the third section,the essay focuses on the explanation of the theoretical aspects of his thought of educational fund to display the logic of his theoretical framework,which is the core of this dissertation.Tai proposed four theoretical propositions revolving around his theory of educational fund,namely,increasing the educational fund,equally burdening the funds,ensuring the autonomy of the educational fund and unifying executive management on educational fund.In fact,the generation of the four propositions could be attributed to such factors:the philosophical basis--“the responsibility of educational fund was taken by the public”,the highest goal--“the equality of education opportunity”and the three perspectives of the educational fund-“its fund source,fund management and fund allocation”;and Tai regarded the practice of unifying the executive management on educational fund as a starting point and looked at the other three propositions as well as the equality of education opportunity as an organic whole to address any emerging problems of executive management on educational fund.At the time of devising a system of fund-raising for education from various methods,Tai offered eight suggestions on the system,that is,first,enriching the citizens;second,developing more channels to enrich the sources through education;third,putting the unprofitable resources to good use;fourth,improving the mechanism for education tax;fifth,expanding the units to provide the education fund;sixth,rallying the support from the public;seventh,preventing the power abuse;lastly,reducing the possibility of ineffective use of fund.As for how to handle the issue about equally raising the funds for education,Tai suggested establishing a fair mechanism for education tax which was the key to the issue,locating and stabilizing a source of raising funds for education,and setting“a tax threshold”as well as“progressive taxing rate mechanism”to ensure the achievement of a fair system for education tax.Regarding the autonomy of addressing the issue about the educational fund,Tai called for this suggestion to be put in practice and in the mean time he gave eight concrete measures for enabling its effective function,namely,first,legalizing the educational fund;second,implementing the proper division of the educational fund source;third,building an independent budget system;fourth,imposing the education tax whenever needed;fifth,warranting the practice of charging educational fund by the independent authority;sixth,empowering the independent unit to have the custody for educational fund;seventh,enabling the independent authority to use the fund whenever needed;last,empowering the independent authority to examine and approve the use of the fund.On the part of implementing the unified executive management on the educational fund,Tai proposed that the old administrative tradition of local government being exclusively concerned about the development of local administrated area should be abandoned,and therefore the narrow view of educational fund that the local fund was utilized for the local education development should be altered;instead,the new view that gathering all the local funds to use for the education development in the whole society,together with the practice of introducing the centralized management on the educational fund to ensure a fair division of educational fund among different areas,should be promoted.And aiming to provide a template for the establishment of the centralized management on the educational fund,Tai formulated the Rules and Regulations for education funding committee and education funding bureau at all levels.As to the equality of education opportunity,he was active in advising the central government and education authority to form a unified system for managing the educational fund,and to provide the remote and undeveloped regions financial support in terms of educational fund,thus pushing the aim of the equality of education opportunity and the fair development of education cause to be achieved in the entire country.The fourth section makes a summary of the historical contribution brought about by his thought of educational fund from the perspectives of the practice of the executive management on the educational fund as well as its related academic research.In the process of implementing the executive management on educational fund by governments all all levels in the whole country,the values of his thought is mainly manifested through its contribution to the improvement of local governments' management on educational fund regarding their organizational skills and the devising of mechanism.In addition,with respect to the academic research into the executive management on the educational fund,the significance of his thought could be generally reflected by his great attention to researching into theories of the executive management on the educational fund as well as fruitful theoretical achievements that promoted the progress in studies on financial system in education field,along with his academic spirit and scholar's demeanor,which are not afraid of worldliness and dare to speak out,inspire and inspire the pedagogues.In the fifth section,the discussion is focused on his view's significance for the present education.By making a comparison between his thought of educational fund and the ongoing reform of financial system in education field,I could be able to figure out how his thought of educational fund could trigger careful reflection and deep thought over the practical problems that can be reflected by current irrational mechanism for equally raising the funds for education,unfair mechanism for allocating educational fund and nonstandard legal system for educational fund-raising.And at the same time,from Tai's thought,we could also gain some insights into how those problems could be addressed.The final section gives a conclusion that the essential characteristics of his thought of educational fund is composed of three parts,which are fairness of the thought,the systematicness of the educational fund theory and the practicality of the theory in tackling the practical problems;in addition,it concludes that his theory of educational fund is based on the autonomy of the educational fund,and there remain some limitations and deficiencies in his outdated part of the theory.