Education Equity in Special Education Transfer Payments to Low-income Groups

Autori:

Yanmin SHAO, Wei LIU, Ming JI

Cod: ISSN: 1583-3410 (print), ISSN: 1584-5397 (electronic)
Dimensiuni: pp. 163-186

How to cite this article:

Shao, Y., Liu, W., Ji, M. (2019). Education Equity in Special Education Transfer Payments to Low-income Groups. Revista de Cercetare si Interventie Sociala, 65, 163-186. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33788/rcis.65.11

Abstract:

Under the “Chinese-style” decentralization system, transfer payments have not only become the major source of funding for most local governments to provide public services, but also become important policy tools for higher levels of government. Education transfer payment is an important institutional arrangement to narrow the educational investment gap and promote education equity. Therefore, the establishment of a standardized special transfer payment system for compulsory education is the guarantee for promoting education fairness for low-income groups. The Gini coefficient of education not only reflects the role of education in promoting economic growth and social development, but also an important indicator of the fairness of education. The Gini coefficient of education in various provinces in China shows that there is a clear gap between our country and the developed countries in education. There is also a serious gap between high-income and low-income groups. This paper uses the non-recursive structural equation method as the background to reform the rural compulsory education funding guarantee mechanism. It combines the Gini coefficient of education and the data of 423 counties in five provinces in central China in 2017. The results show that the embedding of "prize excellence" mechanism in the system of compulsory education transfer payment can inspire the government to shift resources toward basic education. In this way, a fair and efficient special transfer payment system can be established to ensure the fairness of education for low-income groups.