How to view educational equity

Since the founding of New China, especially over the past 30 years of reform and opening up, great achievements have been made in education. We have organized the largest education program in the world and basically formed a socialist education system with Chinese characteristics; free compulsory education has been fully realized in urban and rural areas, and the gross enrollment rate of high school education has increased from 1.5% in 1949 to 79.2%; vocational education has developed rapidly, with significant The structure and quality of the new labor force have been improved; the scale of higher education has ranked first in the world, with the gross enrollment rate reaching 24.2%, entering the stage of popularization; the national education level has significantly improved, and the average number of years of education for people over 15 years old has increased from 1.6 years in 1949 to 8.7 years. Educational development has guaranteed the people's right to education, improved the quality of the entire nation, and made significant contributions to economic development and social progress.

At the same time, it should be noted that the current educational reform and development are not consistent with economic and social development, and the requirements and expectations of the people. In particular, the issue of educational equity is still very prominent. According to a survey at the end of 2009, 56.5% of people believed that there was an unfair education problem. This reflects people's high level of concern about educational equity.

Currently, people have the strongest reaction to the issue of educational equity, which is the great disparity in opportunities to receive education, especially high-quality education, as well as the extent and quality of education. This difference manifests itself between regions, between urban and rural areas, between schools, and between different social groups. Some phenomena in real life will give us an intuitive and personal feeling about this.

For example, the “school choice craze” remains high. In many cities in my country, school choice is very common in primary and secondary schools. In order to get their children into a school with good reputation and quality, thousands of parents work hard and travel for months every year, and usually have to pay a large "school selection fee." In order to increase their "school choice" capital, children have to participate in various "recruitment classes" and cram schools, and obtain various certificates. The trend of "primary schoolization" of early childhood education and "junior middle schoolization" of primary school education is becoming more and more serious. These phenomena have been banned for many years and have not been cured, and have become a major "persistent disease" in the field of education.

For example, fair educational opportunities for disadvantaged groups have not yet been fully guaranteed. Some of the children of migrant workers are still studying in schools for migrant children whose schooling conditions are not up to standard. The national student aid system has not yet covered ordinary high school education, and has not provided “all assistance when needed”. The education level of disabled children still lags behind that of ordinary children. ,etc.

For another example, candidates from different regions have unfair opportunities to receive higher education, and students in some regions have fewer opportunities to enroll. This phenomenon has been controversial for many years, and the issue of "college entrance examination immigration" has arisen from time to time.

Education entrusts the expectations of hundreds of millions of families for a better life. Solving these problems is directly related to the vital interests of the people. For individuals, it is related to everyone's development and affects a person's life to a great extent; for the entire society, it directly affects social fairness and justice, and affects social harmony and stability. Because of this, the issue of educational equity has attracted widespread public attention.