By She Yu, Research Team on “Survey on People’s Livelihood in China”, DRC

Research Report, No.79, 2019 (Total 5579) 2019-5-27

Abstract: according to the household survey of 2018, nearly 60% of the households acknowledged the improvement of the overall education in their place of residence. However, in light of the telephony survey, the overall satisfaction of education still lags far behind among 12 livelihood issues. With regard to the result of the household survey with detailed data, the imbalanced allocation of education resources remains an eminent issue with great impact on families; households’ education expenditure is still disproportionate, particularly in the aspect of expensive preschool education; and some families have to deal with the difficult situation of picking up their kids at “three thirty” in the afternoon”. In this regard, the following policy options are recommended: the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress and the National Education Conference needs to be faithfully implemented with the focus on responding to public concern, earnestly summing up experiences and drawing lessons from failure to further deepen comprehensive education reform so as to truly optimize the allocation of education resources, especially to push ahead with the sound and even development of compulsory education; multiple measures are called to be taken so as to effectively ease the education expenditure pressure on households; motivation mechanism needs to be enhanced and the service modes need to be innovated so that after-class services for primary and middle schools students can play a major role.

Key words: livelihood, education, survey