The growth of the government's educational expenditure should be ensured, says an article in Beijing News. The following is an excerpt:
Recent statistics show that one-third of the provinces in China are not spending enough on education. Although the country has increased expenditure on education, it only accounts for 3.01 percent of the GDP in 2006, falling short of the target of 4 percent.
It is still one percentage short of the requirement, which can be translated into 230 billion yuan ($31 billion). At present, China has more 200 million students at school. It means each student can get 1,000 yuan if this expenditure can be shared by all students.
In recent years, economic growth has triggered fast growth in financial revenues. But the growth in educational expenditure has failed to keep pace. A main reason is the lack of incentives under the current financial system.
According to the current system how the local governments spend their money is largely determined by their officials. Their choices may go against the wishes of the public and may show little interest in spending money on education.
It is useless to criticize the local officials since it is the fault of the system. Officials will naturally choose programs that can represent their political achievements. Education obviously does not belong to this category.
The fundamental way of solving the shortage of educational finances is to build and improve the financial system which enables the public to participate.
The financial budgeting system decides the efficiency of how local governments use resources. A better system leads to better efficiency.
We need to further improve the financial system so that the public can participate in decisions.
(China Daily January 11, 2008)
