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Stop abusing public resources
2005-05-24
China Daily
To guarantee each child's access to education, the abuse of public education resources must be stopped, says an article in Shandong-based Qilu Evening News. An excerpt follows:
According to a report by Xinhua News Agency, several well-known public schools in Nantong, in East China's Jiangsu Province, have opened their own "private schools."
The principals admitted to the reporter that they opened these private schools because they could legitimately collect high tuition fees.
The State sponsors primary education so that every child has access to it. The public schools in the report opened these private schools only to further their own interests. The high fees for these private schools make it impossible for many students from less well-off families to get educated in these schools.
We do not oppose opening private schools, which could trigger competition in the whole education system. But such private schools should be entities independent from public schools, as the Ministry of Education has ruled.
The private schools opened by the public schools in the report are using money taken from the public schools' budgets. The teachers there are also from public schools. Even the principal of one private school holds the same job in the institution's "parent" public school.
Under such conditions, how can these private schools be independent entities?
Public schools get their rich teaching resources and their fame through good practices over a long period of time. The material resources and the intangible asset their fame are based on the government's investment under the precondition that they provide compulsory education.
When these resources are used by these so-called private schools to earn high tuition fees, they are abusing the resources meant for public education. Moreover, such abuse of public resources will also cause unfair competition among private schools.
To sum up, the private schools opened by public schools harm people's equal rights to get education. It is also against the Law of Compulsory Education and must be corrected as soon as possible.
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