Mun C. Tsang

Financial reform of basic education in China

Abstract 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, focusing on issues of structure, resource mobilization, inequality, and inefficiency. It concludes that while the reform has been successful in achieving the objectives of structural change and mobilization of additional government and non-government resources, the current system is marked by notable weaknesses in terms of glaring inequalities and significant inefficiencies. Further improvements of the financing system require interventions both inside and outside the education sector.

Cost Analysis for Educational Policymaking: A Review of Cost Studies in Education in Developing Countries

Given the major challenge of improving education under tight budgetary constraints, educational policymakers in developing countries today are concerned with issues regarding educational costs. Using an economic framework, this paper reviews the issues and synthesizes the findings in a diverse literature on costs of education in developing countries. Four key educational-cost issues are considered: (a) What are the costs of education? (b) What are the major determinants of educational costs? (c) In what ways can cost analysis improve policymaking in education? and (d) What are the informational needs for cost analysis in education? The paper concludes that although cost analysis can contribute significantly to informed decisions on education, greater efforts must be undertaken to strengthen the informational basis of cost analysis and to incorporate cost analysis in educational policymaking.

Costs of Education in China: Issues of Resource Mobilization, Equality, Equity and Efficiency

This paper is a survey of the costs of education in one Asian country, China. It focuses on three areas of education costs: (1) national expenditures on education; (2) unit costs of education; and (3) educational cost functions. It relates the analysis of education costs to four enduring policy issues in education in China: resource mobilization, inequality, inequity and inefficiency. The analysis is based on primary and secondary data sources and on existing studies in both the Chinese and English literatures. Whenever appropriate, comparative discussion is made by drawing on cost studies on other (mostly Asian) countries. The paper is aimed at providing a review of the current state of knowledge, and identifying knowledge gaps and areas for future research on education costs in China.

The cost of vocational training

Discusses the methodological issues in costing two common types of vocational training programmes: institutional vocational training and enterprise‐based vocational training. Points out that the survey/interview approach should be used to collect data from institutions instead of from the government in costing institutional vocational training, and that more frequent use should be made of the case‐study and survey methods in costing enterprise‐based vocational training. Based on empirical studies on both developed and developing countries, analyses the costs of different types of vocational training programmes. Shows that training costs are influenced by such factors as the technology of training, teacher costs and their determinants, programme length, extent of wastage, extent of underutilization of training inputs and scale of operation. In general, vocational/technical education is more costly than academic programmes and pre‐employment vocational training is more expensive than in‐service training. Discusses the implications of these findings for training policies.

The Impact of Intergovernmental Grants on Educational Expenditure

In this paper we assess the impact of intergovernmental grants on educational spending. First we discuss the theoretical effects of different types of grants. Next we present the general features and findings of 40 published works from the past two decades within this theoretical frame-work. We highlight the studies for the specific problems they set out to analyze, the models constructed, and the statistical procedure used. Finally, based on the review of these studies, we provide some approximate estimates of the impact on educational spending of categorical grants, matching grants, block grants, and general revenue sharing grants. We also discuss some of the conceptual and statistical issues involved in assessing the impact of intergovernmental grants on educational spending.

Vocational education and productivity: A case study of the Beijing General Auto Industry Company

Abstract This paper examines the economic rationale for the current vocationalization of secondary education in China by comparing the performance of vocational education graduates and general education graduates in the workplace. It uses a model that recognizes the importance of work effort and group dynamics on production, employs a more direct measure of productivity, and presents an empirical study in the context of the current educational and workplace reforms in China. Based on data from the Beijing Auto Industry Company, China, the study finds that vocational-technical education graduates engaged in factory work relevant to their previous training were more satisfied with their job and were more productive than general education graduates. It also found that a workers education had a lesser impact on productivity when the worker performed in a more co-operative environment.

Household Decisions and Gender Inequality in Education in Rural China

This study employs a multidisciplinary approach to understand household education decisions and their implications for gender inequality in education in rural China. Based on a household survey of poor rural counties in Gansu and Hebei and local accounts, the study finds that parents have higher educational expectations for boys than for girls. Household education spending is a heavy economic burden for poor rural households, and school non-attendance rates are higher for girls than for boys in the majority of the counties. School attendance is related to economic burden, gender and other factors, but the relationship differs across the counties.

Education and Earnings in Rural China

This is a study of education and earnings in rural China, based on data for 3709 residents from 23 counties in six provinces of central and southwestern regions in 1991. It found that education was singnificantly and positively related to earnings; an additional year of schooling raised the earnings of rural resindents by 4.8 yuan per month. The earnings effect on education was stronger for males than for females. The education and earnings relationship was also stronger in economic sectors with more market-oriented reform; and economic returns tended to be higher in economically more advanced provinces and regions. According to the Mincerian method, the average private rate of return to education was 4.8%. The Mincerian rates were similar for males and females, but were higher for ecnonmically more advanced provinces and regions. According to the elaborate method, the unadjusted private rate of return was 9.0% for promary educaion and 11.2%for lower-secondary education. Thus, investment in compulsory education in poor rural areas in China was quite profitable for the individual and could also be profitable from the perspective of society.

Comparing the costs of government and private primary education in Thailand

Most of the discussion on the relative efficiency of government schools and private schools focus on educational outcomes, with little attention paid to educational costs. Using primary education in Thailand as a case, this paper highlights the methodological issues involved in properly accounting for and comparing the resources devoted to government schools and private schools. Based on a national survey of 301 primary schools and 2075 parents, the paper shows that the cost of private schools relative to government schools will be significantly underestimated if one confines cost accounting to institutional expenditures, without considering private resources to education. Also, given that there are different types of government schools and private schools which operate in different social contexts, cost comparison that treats government schools and private as two homogeneous systems will not lead to meaningful evaluation of the relative efficiency of the two types of schools; rather comparison should be made of schools which operate in similar social contexts.

Private resources and the quality of primary education in Thailand

Abstract This chapter studies the characteristics and determinants of three categories of private resources to primary education in Thailand: direct private costs of education, household contributions to school, and indirect private costs of education. The chapter finds that (a) private resources to primary education are substantial and are an important source for financing educational inputs that are directly related to student learning; (b) there are significant variations in such resources among different types of school and students of different backgrounds; (c) in general, private resources to education are related to both family and school factors; and (d) the economic burdens of private resources to education are heavier for lower income, less wealthy, and agricultural households. The implications of private resources to education for policy and research on education quality are also explored.