Editorials

Raise school efficiency

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-02 07:46

Removing bureaucracy from the school system is the key to the current education reform to make schools efficient so they can cultivate talent needed for economic development and social progress.

Bureaucracy in the management of schools at various levels from both governments and within schools will nullify any measure to inject life into the education system.

More government input into education, for example, has long been a public concern. The central government has promised that by 2012 expenditures in education will reach 4 percent of GDP, a goal first set a decade ago. But an even more important issue is whether the money that the government invests in education can be used in an efficient and sensible manner.

If much of the money is used to only enlarge campuses, pad the income of administrative officials on campus, or is wasted in areas that have nothing to do with teaching and scientific research, any increase in government spending would be meaningless.

If schools are managed as government institutions and their leaders are responsible only to their higher authorities, how can we expect policies, aimed at stimulating the enthusiasm of teachers and students, to be implemented?

If policies are always tilted in favor of administrative officials rather than for teachers and professors, which is happening in many schools right now, how can we expect teachers to devote themselves wholeheartedly to work?

We have little hope that any reform to promote fairness and efficiency in the education system will be fruitful as long as government officials or administrators on campus have absolute power over the reforms. Getting rid of bureaucracy will be the deciding factor in whether the reform is a success or not.

(China Daily 03/02/2010 page8)