Financial reform of basic education in China

Since the early 1980s, the financing of basic education in China has moved rapidly away from a centralized system with a narrow revenue base to a decentralized system with a diversified revenue base. This paper provides a critical assessment of the impacts of the financial reform of basic education in China... It consists of four parts. The first part examines the socioeconomic contexts of the reform. The second discusses the two defining characteristics of the financing reform: decentralization and diversification. The third part assesses the impacts of the reform with respect to financing structure, resource mobilisation, inequality and inefficiency in financing. The last part summarizes the lessons of the reform so far and presents a scheme for charting further developments in the financing of basic education in China. (DIPF/ Abstract und Text übernommen).