175popularization of Mao Zedong thought. The state put forward the guideline of
“every village set up schools” and promoted “every village set up primary school,
every commune set up secondary school” in 1958.
After the Cultural Revolution the Decision on the Reform of Education System
in 1985 and the Nine Year Compulsory Education Law in 1986 put forward the
principle of local responsibility and multi-level management, in which senior
secondary schools were the responsibility of county, junior secondary schools
were the responsibility of township, and primary schools were the responsibility
of villages. The village and township level undertook the main responsibility for
implementing universal compulsory education in rural areas. Township and vil-
lages mobilized peasants and social sectors to build schools and improve school
conditions. This led to every village having a primary schools or teaching points
(Bai and Zhang 2014 ) and a high density of small local schools.
8.4.2 School Location Adjustment Since 1990s
The One-Child policy was of the causes of the number of primary and secondary
students decreasing from the mid 1980s as China experienced demographic transi-
tion to low population growth especially in rural areas. Economic migration to cit-
ies took place on an unprecedented scale as discussed above. To address the
problems that were arising from under enrolled schools the Department of
Education issued Several Opinions on Consolidation and Improvement after the
Acceptance Check of “Two Bases”^3 in 1998, inviting the development of a new
round of school location mapping and optimization to inform the policy making
agenda. This led in May of 2001, to the central government promulgating the
Decision on the Basic Education Reform and Development of State Council, in
which the order was made that the governments at all levels should start merging
schools and rationalizing their location. The reforms were intended to solve the
problem of the “small scale and scattered distribution” of rural primary and sec-
ondary schools.
The 2001 Decision introduced the principle of children “attending to the near-
est primary school, concentrating enrolments in junior secondary schools, and
optimizing the distribution of educational resources”. Rural primary schools were
merged under the premise of attending the nearest school and concentrating num-
bers in a single school. This was accompanied by an exemption that allowed small
schools in places where transport was difficult or unavailable to discourage stu-
dents drop out as a result of difficult physical access. Local governments were
invited to plan the adjustments taking account of the need to renovate danger-
ous buildings, meet standards for space and learning materials, and recognize the
needs of urbanization and migrants’ relocation. Extra resources were provided to
(^3) “Two Bases” refers to the basically eliminating illiteracy and basically popularizing compulsory
education.