Compulsory education funding should be guaranteed by an accountability system, says a signed article in Dazhong Daily. An excerpt follows:

The draft amendment to China's Law on Compulsory Education, aiming to ensure a stable investment system for rural education, was submitted to lawmakers last Saturday for the first review at the beginning of a four-day legislative session.

Compulsory education is a public good and the government should be obliged to provide it. But such a public good has not been fully enjoyed due to insufficient government input into basic education over a fairly long period. People are charged for compulsory education, and in many cases, overcharged.

The government had promised to increase educational input to 4 percent of the gross domestic product by the end of last century, but the percentage was only 2.79 in 2004.

It is not easy to provide free compulsory education for more than 200 million students. But according to research by the Asia Development Bank, about 170 countries have realized free compulsory education, including Laos, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Nepal whose average per capita GDP is even lower than China's.

The input structure is not adequate either. County-level governments, whose fiscal situations are generally poor in a national perspective, are the major contributors for rural compulsory education at present. The proportion of educational funds shouldered by the central government and provincial governments is only 2 and 11 percent respectively. The central government has given too much emphasis on higher education while not guaranteeing input into basic-level education.

The draft amendment places emphasis on specifying the funding responsibilities of central and local governments for rural schools, which is expected to lift the burden off poverty-stricken rural families.

But the key still lies in implementation. Without a strong accountability system, the implementation cannot be guaranteed.

(China Daily March 1, 2006)