A Study On The Composition And Optimization Of The Implementation Field Of The Policy Of Reducing Burdens In Compulsory Education

The burden of schoolwork on students in compulsory education is a major concern in China’s education sector,and a large number of policies and documents have been issued at both the national level and by local governments and education administrations.On 24 July2021,the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China(CPC)and the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Further Reducing the Burden of Homework and Extracurricular Training on Students in Compulsory Education(hereinafter referred to as "double reduction"),which kicked off the "double reduction".Through questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews,this paper reveals the current situation of the implementation of the policy on reducing the burden of work in local education administration departments,schools,families and the extra-curricular training market,and uses policy implementation theory and field theory to construct the field of policy implementation in local education administration departments,the field of school education,the field of family education and the field of extra-curricular training market from the perspective of the relationship between the actors in the implementation of the policy on reducing the burden of work.The changes in the composition of the subfields of policy implementation before and after the "double reduction" have been analysed in terms of the changes in the implementation process and the behavioural logic of each actor,and the ultimate root causes of the difficulties in the implementation of policy reduction have been analysed.This paper focuses on the main problems in the process of policy implementation in various subfields and analyses the causes.It is found that local education administrations have problems with policy perceptions and path dependence in policy implementation,mainly in the sense that local education administrations interpret load reduction as reducing the amount of homework in class and cutting out extra-curricular training courses,and understand load reduction as simply "subtracting";in addition,local education administrations have to fulfil the political objectives of their superiors while taking into account local education performance.In addition,local education administrations have to meet the political objectives of their superiors while taking into account the performance of local education,and the contradictory interests between the central government and the local authorities hinder the smooth implementation of the policy.The causes of these problems are the simplistic thinking of local education administrators and the inertia of the structure of the relationship between the central government and the local authorities.There is a tendency for headmasters and teachers in the school education field to act with short-term utilitarianism,mainly in the form of teachers teaching new lessons in after-school services in order to improve grades,and teachers’ performance appraisals in the school continue to be based on student performance.The problems in the school arena are caused by the fact that the evaluation value scale of education is not in line with the spirit of load reduction,and that headmasters and teachers are under pressure to perform.In the family education field,there are problems with traditional family education concepts that are difficult to change and the pursuit of social status,which manifests itself in parents’ early and excessive investment in education under the pressure of fierce social competition to expand the opportunities for their children to move up the social ladder,due to the different accumulation of cultural capital in families,which stimulates the utilitarian pursuit of cultural capital in order to cross social classes.In the extra-curricular training market,there is an ’invisible training market’,mainly in the form of private tuition classes in various forms,and the price of training is not regulated by the market,mainly due to the transformation of capital in the extra-curricular training market,where the great need for family education and the extra-curricular training market form an alliance of interests.In this regard,this study proposes the following strategies: in the subfield of policy implementation by local education administrations,to improve the mechanism for distributing the interests of the central government and the local community in policy implementation,and to break away from the influence of habitual policy thinking;in the subfield of school education,to strengthen the responsibility of schools in educating people and to improve the teaching evaluation system for educators in compulsory education;in the subfield of family education,to repair the family education concept system and to establish a synergy mechanism between the family,the school and the community;in the subfield of extra-curricular training education,to make good use of extra-curricular education;In the subfield of extra-curricular education,we propose to make good use of extra-curricular education,which has its own advantages and characteristics in comparison with schools,so that schools can make full use of it and explore it,and take its essence as an effective supplement to school education.