Decision of the state council regarding the deepening of the work of rural education

there are eight major sections in this document as follows:

1. Clarify the important position of rural education in the overall project of building the "Xiaokang Society", make rural education the important work of the important work in education.

(wikipedia has an entry regarding the "xiaokang society" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaokang_society which notes that this is a classical phrase used to indicate a middle class society.

The vision of a xiaokang society is one in which most people are moderately well
off and middle class, and in which
economic prosperity is sufficient to move most of the population in mainland
China into comfortable means, but in which economic advancement is not the sole
focus of society. Explicitly incorporated into the concept of a xiaokang society
is the idea that economic growth needs to be balanced with sometimes conflicting
goals of social equality and environmental protection.

2. speed up the the promotion of the fortifcation fo the "two basics", consolidate and improve the results and quality of the universalization of compulsory education.

3. continue to work in the direction of the "three rurals", vigorously develop vocational education and adult education and deepen the reform of rural education.

4. implement the requirements of the "county level responsibility" system, increase investment, improve the financial safeguard system.

5. establish a comprehensive system for assisting students from families in need, ensure that all children have access to the right to receive compulsory education.

6. speed up the promotoin of the reform of the personnel system, vigorously raise the quality of the teaching force

7. implement the rural primary and middle school distance education project, speed up the sharing of excellent teaching resources by both city and rural areas, raise the quality and effectiveness of rural education.

8. earnestly strengthen the leadership, motivate forces from all of society to care about and support the cause of rural education.

I use my preliminary matrix to analyze the paragraphs in this document. the categories are for educational purpose: economic development, sociopolitical control, social justice.

there are a total of 35 paragraphs in the document: econ dev (12), social control (10), social justice (25)

some paragraphs are coded for more than one category.

Examples of coding for economic development include:
Raise the quality of the workforce (tigao laodongzhe suzhi), speed up the transformation fo traditional agriculture to modern agriculture, transfer the surplus labor in the rural areas into industry and urbanization, turn the problem of overpopulation into the advantage of having rich human resources. There is heavy emphasis on vocational and adult education in rural areas to meet the specific needs of the rural areas, to be relevant and to ensure that people learn knowledge that can be useful and can be applied. This fits with a more functionalist approach to education that emphasizes the cultivation of a productive workforce. For example, one goal is to encourage the development of diversified opportunities for technical and vocational training in order to adapt to the adjustments in the structure of agriculture production and to transfer labor into the "second and third industries."

As for curriculum reform it seems it is also couched in the language of economic development as in paragraph 31 of this document:

"Promote experimentation in rural education reform, work hard to discover the new road for rural educational reform. Each region must, based on the foundation of summarizing experience in reform, go to the next step in the liberation of thought, seek truth from the facts, keep abreast of the times, abolish the thinking and concepts that have fettered the development of rural education as well as the structural barriers to educational development, and implement reforms to the rural educational system, operating mechanisms, educational structure, and educational content and methods etc. The governments of each province (autonomous region, municipality) must all choose a certain number of experimental counties/districts, and each district must select a certain number of experimental townships where 1-2 schools will implement the new curriculum. They must, through experimental reform, establish effective models of new educational establishment for the "three rurals", in order to create educational experience that is relevant to the needs of the system of the socialist market economy and is in accordance with educational regulations and is infused with rural characteristics."

sociopolitical control:
improving rural education will strengthen spiritual civilizaiton in rural areas, raise the thought and moral values of the rural dwellers. we must begin with the important guiding principle of the "three represents." In the final section about leadership there is an emphasis on leadership according to the law.

Social justice:
the idea of the xiaokang society, the emphasis that working to improve rural education would benefit 800 million farmers:

Paragraph 2 "developing rural education and enabling the large rural masses and their children the opportunity to receive a good quality education is to realize educational equity and is also an important aspect of the realization of social justice and is the essential requirement of socialist education."

There is a continued effort and investment in the universalization of compulsory education for example there is the plan for the central government to invest directly in the central and western provinces. There is also an emphasis on raising quality of schooling in rural areas.
There is the call for raising up of "social forces" to contribute to rural education through the hope project, the spring bud project, and through pairing up of cities in the east with provinces in the west (e.g. from my own experience and knowledge shanghai with yunnan, tianjin with gansu etc. )

Cities and towns are enjoined to take in the children of migrant workers and be responsible for their education. there will be a strict enforcement of control over school fees (punishments for all who violate "yi fei zhi". the establishment of a student assistance program for poor rural families, the call for greater interaction between teachers in rural schools and those in city schools, the distance education system and the electronic teaching resources. The establishment of satellite system for the training of rural teachers