Research On The Equity Of Fiscal Input In China’s Compulsory Education

Compulsory education is the cornerstone of national education,and the equity of fiscal input in compulsory education is the material guarantee to promote the prosperity and development of compulsory education.Therefore,the theoretical and empirical research on the equity of fiscal input in compulsory education is of great significance.In theory,most scholars agree that equity of compulsory education includes three progressive stages: starting equity of compulsory education,process equity of compulsory education and result equity of compulsory education.China has now crossed the starting equity stage and is in the process equity stage,namely the stage of fiscal input equity.The equity of fiscal input in compulsory education means a balanced allocation of compulsory education resources.As for empirical research,domestic scholars pay close attention to the long-term progress of fiscal input equity in China’s compulsory education and the possible measures to promote its further improvement in the future,which constitutes the theme of this article.This article selects different indicators to measure the development of fiscal input equity in China’s compulsory education from 1995 to 2016,outlines the evolution of fiscal input equity in China’s compulsory education in the past 20 years,and then demonstrates the correlation between the change of expenditure responsibility distribution under the adjustment of the compulsory education fiscal system and the change in the fiscal input equity of compulsory education.According to these,this article makes corresponding policy recommendations at the end.This article mainly consists of five parts.The first part is the introduction,comprising the significance of the research,literature review,research ideas,main content and methods,as well as the main innovations and deficiencies of this article.The second part defines the related concepts of fiscal input equity in compulsory education,explores the theoretical basis of fiscal input equity in compulsory education from different perspectives,and clarifies the evolution of the idea of compulsory education equity and the adjustment process of compulsory education fiscal system.The third part uses the Gini coefficient and Theil index to measure and decompose the differences in education resource input of the elementary and junior high school stages from 1995 to 2016,and summarizes the development and changes of fiscal input equity in China’s compulsory education during this period.The fourth part analyzes the reasons for the change in the state of fiscal input equity in China’s compulsory education.In other words,this part applies the intensity DID model to demonstrate the causal relationship between the adjustment of expenditure responsibility and the change in fiscal input equity of compulsory education.The last part uses the conclusions of the previous empirical research as a basis to provide concrete policy suggestions for the further improvement of the fiscal input equity of compulsory education in China.The study mainly draws two conclusions.First,from 1995 to 2016,the fiscal input equity of compulsory education in China has improved twice,once around 2001 and once since 2006;second,the change of fiscal input equity in China’s compulsory education is closely related to the change in the compulsory education fiscal system.The adjustment of expenditure responsibility for compulsory education has brought a positive impact on the fiscal input equity of compulsory education.In order to further promote the fiscal input equity of compulsory education,this paper makes four policy recommendations concerning compulsory education fiscal responsibility dividing at all levels of government and compulsory education funding standard setting.The four policy recommendations are strengthening the central government’s compulsory education expenditure responsibility,clarifying the provincial,municipal and county obligations,raising personnel funding standards and raising public funding standards.