168 8 School Mapping and Boarding in the Context ...
the school location was optimized through the “rural school consolidation move-
ment” (Li and Jin 2011 ) which sought consolidation of small rural schools. Over
time the policy focus evolved from merger and consolidation to preservation and,
since 1980s the emphasis has been on managing access at affordable costs with-
out necessarily maximizing school size. This experience resonates with devel-
opments in other countries. In Australia school mapping has been used to merge
kindergartens and primary schools to increase efficiency and effectiveness (Wang
and Chen 2012 ). In New Zealand rural schools have been rationalized with the
aim of preserving access and quality as population shifts change the distribution
of school age children characteristics (Wang and Chen 2011 ). In the 1970s, the
Japanese government issued the Law for Vitalizing Education in Remote Areas
(偏远地区教育振興法). This introduced a new perspective after a review of
past policy and attached importance to developing a built environment for small
schools, linked to methods of managing staff and curricula to maintain efficient
operating costs. In general school mapping has allowed countries to adjust to
changing demography and falling enrolments in rural and in some urban areas,
and to anticipate and manage adjustments in school provision.
Planning the geographic distribution of schools has always been one of the
functions of educational administrative units at different levels in China. The
responsibility has been more or less centralized at different times and is responsive
to general strategies promoted by national policies. Many factors are taken into
account in the planning process including socioeconomic status, the demographic
situation, and geographic condition with detailed analysis of the population by
age, location, economic condition, and baseline data on the quantity and quality of
school premises and the teaching force. The process is designed to harmonize edu-
cational provision with the changing demand generated by economic progress and
social development so that the system responds to changes in population, employ-
ment opportunities and social development goals (Zhao and Parolin 2013 ).
The examples from other countries contain lessons relevant to China but con-
text varies greatly and empirical insights are needed. Systematic fieldwork can
illuminate key issues that will shape planning over the next decade. The Beijing
Normal research team has undertaken a comparative study of basic education
development in three areas over the last 20 years. The empirical study was carried
out on the implementation of compulsory education policy in rural China which
took place in Tongzhou, Ansai and Zhaojue as case study counties, representing
China’s comparatively developed area, poverty-stricken area and remote national
minority area. The unique point of the study was that the research group went
to the same three rural counties first in 1990 and then returned back to the same
counties in 2010. This allows us to compare progress over time as well as between
locations in order to highlight the key issues.
Within each of the three case study counties two districts were identified for
intensive scrutiny. The choice of relatively economically developed and underde-
veloped districts was made on the basis of statistics available at the county-level,
bearing in mind practical considerations of accessibility. A selection of schools
was made for intensive fieldwork. This sampled from the four main types—junior