1336.4.1 Regional Disparities
The economic divide between the richer eastern provinces and the poorer western
provinces in China is reflected in the gaps in the development of basic education.
As a result of geographical, historical and social factors the quality and man-
agement of the education system western provinces lags a long way behind the
east coast Provinces. Inequalities are associated with ethnicity, gender, and class
identities and there are wide gaps in income, high levels of poverty, and a much
lower quality of life than in the east. Urban/rural disparities permeate all aspects of
Chinese society, including education.
Historically western provinces have developed much more slowly than those
in the east and this has meant that expenditure per child has been much lower.
The disparities in education development between east and west parts were exag-
gerated under the old system of local funding of compulsory education. The rural
funding guarantee system is addressing this problem and should ensure that in
future the differences between Provinces in public funding will be much less. But
there is a long backlog of neglect and much investment in infrastructure needed to
catch up with more advanced Provinces. Fiscal capacity remains limited to sup-
plement national funding (Fan and Li 2010 ). It also remains true that central and
provincial government transfer payments to less developed regions can be delayed
when there are periods of austerity. Because personnel expenditure is the largest
item in public budgets salaries may be temporarily defaulted or reduced in volume
if there is a budget shortfall (Yu 2007 ).
The disparity between districts is especially shown in recurrent funding of
schools. In the process of allocation and distribution down to schools, recur-
rent fund is often cut and some schools do not get anything. This still happens in
Zhaojue where some schools appeared to receive no recurrent fund. Though new
schools have been built in some areas e.g. Sakai, there were still old buildings and
limited capacity in other areas e.g. Bier. Unlike in eastern Provinces where growth
in student numbers will be small, a rapid increase is expected in Zhaojue with an
increase to 36,000 in primary schools and about 16,000 in Junior secondary school
by 2015. This will need above average level investment to support the growth.
In Tongzhou in Beijing population is stable and schools will be modernized and
standardized.
6.4.2 Institutional Issues
The reform of rural compulsory education management and fund guarantee sys-
tem is being implemented progressively. There is no “long-term system design”
for ensuring funding for regular and preventative maintenance for basic school
development (Ding 2008 ) or for catching up on the history of under investment in
the past. Higher levels often try to avoid taking the responsibilities that should be