1858.6.1 Achievements and Advantages
Considerable changes in the location and size of schools have been achieved.
Since the Decision on the Basic Education Reform and Development of State
Council was issued, large numbers of small primary schools have been closed or
merged. The number primary schools fell by nearly half from 2000 (553,600) to
2009 (280,200) with about 30,000 primary schools being consolidated each year
and about 7600 junior secondary schools also closed (Department of education
2011 ). Research on 6 mid-western provinces conducted by Huazhong Normal
University shows that average schools size has been increasing after the consolida-
tion process. The increase in scale was particularly significant in the senior sec-
ondary phase. The school size increased while the number of schools decreased.
The major positive effects of school location adjustment and development of
boarding schools include the following:
First, the practice has promoted the better allocation of educational resources.
Before adjustment, here were scattered locations and too small scale of rural
schools and many dangerous school premises. Whatever the size, a school needs
a whole set of basic resources and facilities such as premises, teaching equipment,
teachers and management staff. There are fixed costs independents of size. After
the adjustment, a township normally keeps one or two complete primary schools
and only maintains very few teaching points in really remote and areas with very
inconvenient transport. In this way the resources are more integrated and effec-
tively used. Overall this has narrowed the regional gaps in educational develop-
ment in rural areas.
Second, it has promoted the improvement of quality of teachers. Before adjust-
ment, in many small teaching points, there were only one or two teachers who
normally teach every subject. Most concentrated on teaching Chinese and Maths.
Children had little opportunities to learn PE, Music, English, Fine Arts or science
and IT since such teachers were in great shortage. Quality of teaching were not
ensured. In these teaching points, teachers were often Minban teachers (non-official
teachers). Their qualification was lower than other schools. After the adjustment,
when may teaching points were closed or merged, most of the unqualified teachers
were dismissed. The overall quality of teaching force in rural areas improved a lot.
Teaching force were reorganized so that in the newly merged schools, the structure
of teachers become more efficient and effective with all the subjects having special-
ized teachers. The overall educational level of teachers increased. The percentage of
teachers with undergraduate or even master degree increased.
Third, mergers have promoted the quality of rural schools. Some research evi-
dence shows that the learning achievement of children studying in complete or
central primary schools are higher than that of teaching points for Chinese and
Math. Taking into account that most of the teaching points cannot provide English,
Music, Fine Arts, IT, the overall learning quality for complete or central schools
is much higher than for teaching points. Most of the parents support their children
studying in complete or central schools since they think their children benefit more