roulettegame| Strong provincial capital primary school students grow rapidly: Xi'an has nearly one million people, basic education resources urgently need to be rebalanced

In the new year's junior high enrollment season, the increase or decrease in the number of students in basic education in big cities has once again aroused concern.

In recent years, with the acceleration of population mobility, the number of basic education students in many strong provincial capitals, such as Changsha, Wuhan, Xi'an, Guiyang, Nanjing and so on, has shown a momentum of rapid growth.

Take Xi'an as an example. In 2015, there were 1234 primary schools in Xi'an, with 56 students.Roulettegame. 620000 people, 78500 graduates. By 2023, there will be 1163 primary schools in Xi'an with 992200 students and 132700 graduates. In other words, the number of students in Xi'an primary school increased by 426000 in eight years, an increase of more than 75 per cent.

The number of students in ordinary middle schools has also increased significantly. In 2015, there were 413700 students and 139200 graduates in Xi'an ordinary Middle School.RoulettegameBy 2023, there will be 571500 students and 159700 graduates in Xi'an.

This really brings challenges to the big cities represented by Xi'an. In 2024, although the enrollment of primary schools in many places has decreased compared with the previous year, the total number of students is likely to continue to grow, and the degree tension in big cities has not been significantly alleviated.

Compared with the rapid population gathering to the central city, restricted by the construction cycle, planning approval mechanism and other reasons, the original public resources such as education, health care, human settlements, infrastructure and other public resources in big cities, it is difficult to fully meet the needs of the population in a short time. In this regard, how to guide and alleviate the policy, and how to build and distribute educational resources have become the key problems that need to be solved in big cities.

The difficult problem of balancing supply and demand of educational resources

The number of students in basic education is an important index to reflect the changes of urban population and public resources. In fact, urban development is a dynamic curve, such as education, health care, transportation, housing and other public resource planning and construction, will be adjusted with the changes of economic, population and other factors.

As a typical case of a sharp increase in the number of students in basic education, the development of educational resources in Xi'an has roughly experienced the stages of difficulties in going to school, educational politics, educational action, policy change and so on.

As early as 2017, the difficulty of enrollment in Xi'an has been highlighted year by year. In public reports, the issue of school attendance for children of newly established groups and children of the two-child policy has been repeatedly mentioned. Then in 2018, many times of TV education politics in Xi'an attracted the attention of the society and academic circles.

"the essence of educational politics is to reflect the real situation of educational development and the difficulties and demands faced by parents in Xi'an. Although accountability can not solve the current problems, it can also effectively contain and reduce the occurrence of unfair incidents." Wang Fan (a pseudonym), headmaster of a primary school in the sixth district of Xi'an, told the 21st Century Economic report.

Wang Fan believes that as far as Xi'an is concerned, the problem that educational resources can not meet the needs of population growth and that it is difficult to balance high-quality and general educational resources is more prominent. The balanced development of basic education needs administrative intervention and policy guidance, and the flow and balance of teachers and supporting facilities between famous schools and ordinary schools is the key issue. In addition, the construction of educational resources in some areas is too little, while the number of residential buildings is large, the population is large, and there is an imbalance between supply and demand.

A high-tech zone parent told the 21st century economic report that there are nearly 20 communities north of Science and Technology Road and south of Kunming Road, all of which are basically high-level. On the other hand, there are only a handful of school districts with tens of thousands of residents, and some schools recruit only one class per grade, not even a playground. While it is difficult to enter school, the basic supporting construction is also insufficient.

In order to solve the problem of the relationship between educational resources and residential land, in September 2018, Xi'an Housing Administration, Xi'an Education Bureau and Xi'an Administration for Industry and Commerce jointly issued the notice on banning the association of housing sales with school districts and schools. the notice points out that the enrollment policy formulated by the competent department of education should prevail, and real estate development enterprises have no right to make commitments. The real estate development enterprise shall not stipulate in the Commercial Housing Sale contract or other supplementary agreements that the commercial housing sold corresponds to the school district or school.

This means that the degree rooms and school district rooms claimed by the developers have officially retired from the stage of history. Instead, various districts (counties) in Xi'an are "randomly assigned places and lottery numbers to enroll", which also marks that the situation of "pinpoint" early enrollment in famous schools will be further curbed.

In the view of Hu Jian, an expert from the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Education, it is a legal requirement for compulsory education to be exempted from examination. Under such requirements, only in accordance with the overall goal of "school enrollment, nearby enrollment", can a more fair and perfect nearby enrollment education ecology be formed.

Bo Wenxi, vice chairman of the China Enterprise Capital Alliance, told the 21st Century Economic report that cities should appropriately plan the development of infrastructure and educational resources according to the trend of population inflow. First of all, it is necessary to increase the number of schools to meet the growth of the number of primary school students. Secondly, we should optimize the allocation of educational resources, improve the quality of education and promote educational equity.

In fact, it is not only Xi'an that is facing the increase in the number of primary schools. Many provincial capitals, especially strong provincial capitals, have ushered in a substantial population growth in recent years, and the number of primary school students has also increased rapidly.

For example, according to the statistical bulletin, there were 234600 students in ordinary junior high schools in Changsha in 2015, an increase of 0.6 percent, and 509400 students in ordinary primary schools, an increase of 5.8 percent. By 2023, there were 337300 students in ordinary junior high schools in Changsha, an increase of 7.9 percent, and 873100 students in ordinary primary schools, an increase of 7.1 percent. From 2015 to 2023, the enrollment of Changsha Primary School increased from 509400 to 873100.

In addition, in 2015, 935 ordinary primary schools in Zhengzhou enrolled 145000 students, an increase of 3.5 percent over the previous year, and 791000 students, an increase of 5.3 percent. By 2023, the number of primary school students in Zhengzhou will continue to grow. According to the statistical bulletin, in 2023, 1001 ordinary primary schools in Zhengzhou enrolled 226000 students, an increase of 16.2 percent, and 1.182 million students, an increase of 7.1 percent. In other words, from 2015 to 2023, the enrollment of Zhengzhou primary school increased from 791000 to 1.182 million.

In Chengdu, where the number of primary school students is even higher, the number of primary school students reached 1.27 million in 2023. In 2015, the number of students in Chengdu primary school was 784300, which also showed a marked increase.

Policy guides the "expansion" of educational resources

In the face of the pressure of educational resources brought about by the structural changes in population, experts suggest that while promoting the balance of educational resources, we should further invigorate the stock and expand the increment.

At the end of 2020, at the press conference on improving the quality of basic education in Xi'an, Jia Yihao, then director of the Xi'an City Education Bureau, introduced the relevant situation of Xi'an's three-year action plan to build a strong city through education.

He mentioned that Xi'an City plans to invest 13.7 billion yuan to build, renovate and expand 126 primary and secondary schools and kindergartens in the autumn of 2021, including 78 new schools and 48 renovated and expanded schools; According to the school section, there are 41 kindergartens, 59 primary schools, 19 junior high schools, and 7 high schools. After completion, 108,000 new degrees can be added.

On May 17, 2024, Shaanxi released the "Implementation Plan of the Action Plan for Expanding, Optimizing and Improving the Quality of Basic Education in the New Era", mentioning the establishment of an optimal allocation mechanism for educational resources that adapts to the development of new urbanization in Shaanxi and the changing trends of the school-age population, and promotes basic public education. Equalization of education services, build a high-quality development system for basic education that "provides excellent education for children and excellent education for learning", and significantly expand high-quality resources for basic education.

Specifically, the plan clarifies that by 2027, more than 60% of counties (districts) will meet the national supervision and evaluation standards for preschool popularization and inclusive coverage, the proportion of inclusive kindergartens will continue to be consolidated at more than 90%, and the proportion of children in public kindergartens will strive to reach 60%. More than 60%, high-quality resource coverage will reach more than 60%. At the same time, 50% of counties (districts) have met the national high-quality and balanced supervision and evaluation standards for compulsory education, and a number of "new high-quality compulsory education schools" have been built.

Zhang Baotong, a researcher at the Shaanxi Province Academy of Social Sciences, told the 21st Century Economic Report reporter: "The concentration of population in central cities is a general trend. At the same time, central cities will gradually broaden their skeleton with the inflow of population and provide sufficient land and space for the construction of public resources."

Zhang Baotong believes that while the government uses policies to guide the balance of educational resources in mature Urban area, it can also plan in advance to improve the layout and layout of educational resources in newly developed Urban area to complement the city. While attracting people to settle down and developing industries, it can also promote the further balance of educational resources and form a good ecological cycle of public resources in the region.

Bai Wenxi told reporters for 21st Century Economic Herald that it is necessary to strengthen the overall planning of provincial or prefecture-level governments, rationally allocate educational resources, and avoid excessive concentration of resources in individual schools. Financial subsidies, awards and other methods can be adopted to encourage high-quality schools to provide teachers and teaching resource support to other schools.

It is worth noting that although the number of primary school students in many places may continue to grow in the next few years, as the birth rate falls, the turning point of the total number of primary school students is approaching. At the same time, the period of rapid population inflow in many cities has gradually passed.

"Demographic changes are fluctuating. After the peak enrollment period, there will definitely be a short-term decline in the number of students." Bai Wenxi said,"In this regard, cities need to plan in advance to avoid waste of resources. For example, improve the utilization efficiency of existing educational resources, strengthen cooperation with regions, and achieve reasonable sharing and balanced distribution of educational resources."

(Author: Ling Chen Editor: Chen Jie)