Introduction

Abstract

This special issue collects six interesting case studies on the so-called 15-year free education in four Chinese societies including Hong Kong, Macau, Mainland China, and Taiwan. The selected works analyze the target education policies based on the theoretical framework of 3A2S—affordability, accessibility, accountability, sustainability, and social justice. Together, they provide a multifaceted account of the merits and limitations of the 15-year free education policies implemented in Greater China. The authors examine the education policies in their respective socioeconomic contexts and aim to suggest new research agenda for early childhood education in these Greater Chinese societies.

In the past 30 years, education has increasingly become a prominent focus in every reform in Greater China. Higher education and basic education have been transformed, gradually but dramatically, to promote the local fitness and global competitiveness of manpower resources. Early childhood education (ece), however, is the last item on the reform agenda. Over the recent decade, a noticeable yet controversial campaign has swept Greater China, and fighting for 15-year free education has become the ‘sound bite’ in the nationwide debates. As most of them have already implemented 12-year free education for many years, the 15-year free education is actually appealing for 3-year free early childhood education. For instance, Macau and some provinces in Mainland China have already implemented this policy and have made ece free to the target group in addition to the 12-year free education. Hong Kong and Taiwan, however, are still debating and struggling, as this promising initiative has triggered some controversies. The most controversial part of the debate, is why the 3-year non-compulsory ece should be free. Other heated arguments center on the feasibility, workability, and sustainability of this new initiative. These debates should be carefully addressed with empirical evidence and systematic studies before we carry on with this new, but very important, initiative. This special issue, as the first collection of these studies, is thus dedicated to the common theme—evaluating the free ece policies with the 3A2S framework, which refers to accessibility, affordability, accountability, sustainability, and social justice.

The Complicated ece Systems in Greater China

The ece systems in Greater China have been severely fragmented, underfinanced and bureaucratically neglected for decades. Since the fragmented policies and programs were solely created in response to the crises and changing goals in the past decades with limited foresight, childcare service and early childhood education are provided by childcare center and kindergarten, separately and respectively. Although by policy, harmonization has taken place to integrate childcare services and kindergarten education into a 3-year ece paradigm in Greater China, the childcare-kindergarten dichotomy is still observable and influential. In addition, ece has been underfinanced in the past decades, although some programs are implemented to fulfill both public demands and political agenda. During the economic reforms, for instance, the ece system in Mainland China has rapidly transitioned from public enterprises to market and private provision. This transition has left many of the nation’s young children school-less in the early years. So did the ece system in Hong Kong, which has been bureaucratically neglected by the colonial government, resulting in ece being primarily operated by private sector. The quality of ece provision, therefore, has always been widely disparate.

In Hong Kong, 9-year free education was in place before her return to China in 1997, and 12-year free education policy was just launched in 2008. Meanwhile, prompted by rising public complaints about the affordability of ece, Hong Kong launched the Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme (pevs) in 2007. The pevs, however, has confronted constant criticisms from both educators and the public, who appeal for authentic provision of 15-year free education (12-year free education plus 3-year free ece). Even the current-term Chief Executive (ce) of Hong Kong, Mr. Leung Chun-ying, has promised to provide 15-year free education when he was running for the ce in 2012. It seems that 15-year free education has become one of the “sound bites” in Hong Kong.

In Mainland China, the central government has allocated 16.03 billion yuan (USD 2.61 billion) to boost ece recently, and 42.24 billion yuan has been invested in ece since 2011. About 65,000 kindergartens have been built and 139,000 children subsidized by the end of 2012. In 2010, the State Council of China government published the National Program for Medium and Long-term Educational Reform and Development (2010–2020) (referred to as Educational Program below). This political emphasis on ece speaks of growing expectations for better accessibility, accountability, and affordability in China. Governments at all levels have significantly increased the input in ece. In this connection, some provinces have implemented the 15 year free education policy, which made the cases for analyses and discussions in this special issue.

In Macau, the 15-year free education policy was implemented in the 2007 school year. All permanent Macau residents aged between 3 and 18 are eligible to receive free formal education at public schools and private schools that have joined the free education system. As the first region in Greater China to implement a 15-year free education system, Macau has been striving to improve the educational welfare and benefits of her young generation through this system. Seven public kindergartens were established to provide free education to needy children. However, have the educational authorities achieved their targets? What are the pros and cons of this 15-year free education policy? Is this policy accountable and sustainable? All these questions are of great interest to the educational authorities of other Chinese societies that have yet to expand their free education framework to 15 years.

In Taiwan, similar efforts have been made by the educational authorities to promote accessibility, affordability and accountability in the past decade. Education laws have been imposed to launch the ece voucher to provide free education for the 5-year-olds, as an additional support to disadvantaged families, and an attempt to establish government-funded private kindergartens (Chen & Li, in press). 1 However, it is unclear whether these initiatives help solve the problems in terms of the accessibility, affordability, accountability, and sustainability of ece. An empirical evaluation of these policies is needed.

In summary, we have witnessed expanded public investment in ece in the name of a so-called 15-year free education in Greater China. While the policies are still in their initial stage, it is critical to examine whether they are genuinely dedicated to the improvement of educational quality and equality, or it is just another round of political campaign to restore the government’s image. Research in this special issue offers empirical evidence to answer the above-mentioned questions and sheds new light on the relationship between politics and policymaking in the field of education.

Understanding the Free Education Policies with the Framework of 3A2S

This section will introduce the brand new 3A2S theoretical framework to analyze all the 15-year free education policies in Greater China. In Li, Wong and Wang (2010), we proposed a theoretical framework of 3A’s to evaluate ece policies in three dimensions, namely, Accessibility, Affordability and Accountability. Now, we tend to believe that a truly scientific and appropriate free ece policy should also be sustainable and should uphold social justice. That being said, we further develop the 3A’s into the 3A2S framework: (1) Accessibility: every young child can have unimpeded access to a kindergarten in the neighborhood; (2) Affordability: every family can easily afford the fees of the chosen kindergarten, and some exemptions could be offered to the needy families; (3) Accountability: for every kindergarten, be it public or private, the extra fiscal input provided by the policy should be accountable to the government for improving education quality: (4) Sustainability: the strong financial support to free education should be affordable to the government and accordingly the policy could be sustainable; (5) Social justice: all young children should have equal access to and fair treatment of ece, without any discrimination against their gender, race, religion, age, belief, disability, geographical location, social class, and socioeconomic circumstances. The free education policies should advocate the notion of fairness and equality in both procedures and outcomes.

The six articles in this special issue have jointly demonstrated that this 3A2S framework is a useful and powerful theoretical tool to analyze education policies. Using this broad perspective to analyze all the free education policies in Greater China, we can arrive at a solid conclusion that none of them has resolved the 3A2S problems. Though partially, the Mainland policies studied in this issue appear to be more effective in solving the problem of affordability, but not the accessibility, accountability, social justice and sustainability problems. The case of Macau, however, is an exception. Her free education policy has successfully and strategically resolved the problems in accessibility (every young child can easily attend the nearby kindergarten), affordability (every family can easily afford the fees of the chosen kindergarten and free education is available to needy families), accountability (quality assurance measures in place to make the policy accountable), and sustainability (Macau is capable of such strong financial support). Yet, it is observed that children of ethnic minorities and those with special educational needs experienced discrimination (concentrated in public kindergarten), and therefore, social justice is still a problem in Macau. Taiwan can learn from Macau, if the financial burden is acceptable to the government. Hong Kong, however, cannot directly transplant Macau’s policy as it has no public kindergarten due to its historical heritage. Policy innovations are urgently needed to help achieve a balance among accessibility, affordability, accountability, sustainability, and social justice. In this connection, this special issue serves as a springboard for policy research in the field of ece provision in Greater Chinese societies.

About This Special Issue

This issue starts with an innovative study on the public concern in Hong Kong regarding the 15-year free education. Ricci Fong, in the opening article, “15-Year Free Education in Hong Kong: Perspectives from the Online Communities”, sets the stage for the discussion of this policy. She conducted online content analyses to understand how the online communities argued for or against the policy of 15-year free education. She found that the supporters and opponents shared the same interests, whereas the policy itself might encounter difficulties in implementation given the unique context of Hong Kong.

This policy, however, has been implemented in many regions in Mainland China. Cai and Hai, in the second paper, “Free Early Childhood Education in Rural China: A Case Study of Ningshan”, analyzed the case of Ningshan County in Shaanxi Province. They reviewed the coverage and the level of governmental subsidy, the public-private kindergarten divide, and the other impacts of this policy. They question whether the so-called free education policy is really suitable and sustainable for the local economic and social contexts, and suggest that the local governments should facilitate the development of ece in a feasible and sustainable manner.

Pan, Liu, and Yang, in the third paper, “Free Kindergarten Education in City D: A Case study in Shandong”, examined the preconditions for free kindergarten education in rural China with a focus on City D in Shandong. They found many difficulties in the process of implementing the free education policy, such as the lack of funding support, the absence of supporting policy and assurance measures, and the discrimination against migrant children from rural areas. They propose a multiple-stage method for developing a practical and continuous model, and for moving the funding responsibility from district and county government to those of the upper levels.

Lau, Li, and Leung, in the fourth paper, “A Multiple Case Study on the Perceived Impacts of the 15-year Free Education Policy in Macau”, explored the perceived impacts of this policy based on the affordability, accessibility, accountability of ece in Macau. They conducted a multiple-case study in four private kindergartens in Macau and found that although the free education is only dedicated to the public kindergartens and the private ones benefit less from the policy, the parents under study were very supportive of the policy. The teachers, however, were not so positive about the impacts of the policy and they urged the government to enhance teacher qualification and teaching resources. Although already enjoying free education, some parents further demanded even larger subsidies from the government to make extra-curricular activities free. In addition, it is interesting to find that some private kindergartens that did not join the free education system and charged very high tuition fees were much more attractive to parents than were the free public kindergartens.

Li and Wang, in the fifth article, “Understanding the 15-Year Free Education Policies in China: An Online Study of Four Cases”, reported an online research on Western China. The policies of the four counties/areas were analyzed in light of the 3A1S framework. They found that the “free” education policies, which were neither “all kids free” nor “all fees free”, could solve the problem of Affordability. However, the problems of accessibility, accountability and sustainability were primarily left untouched. The research reveals that the policies are unlikely to be sustainable as they entirely rely on the local coal economy and fiscal investment at the county level.

Leung, in the last paper, reviews the free ece policies in Taiwan with the 3A2S framework: Accessibility, Affordability, Accountability, Sustainability, and Social justice. She studied Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan, as a case which has always been revolutionary in improving ece. She found that the competition for financial support between private and public kindergartens, and that between kindergartens and daycare centers, were so fierce that it has become the roadblock in the way of promoting the quantity and quality of ece. This article concludes this special issue on the 15-year free education policies in various Chinese societies and brings to light some common themes in ece policymaking and implementation.

Future Research Agenda

This special issue provides a multifaceted account of the merits and limitations of the 15-year free education in Greater China, with special attention to ece. Where shall we go from here? What issues beg for further investigation? All the articles included in this volume hint at the social and economic cost of an absolutely free ece system. A considerable number of problems loom large and deserve more rigorous empirical studies.

The public-private divide. Government funding strategies differ between public and private kindergartens in Mainland China, Macau, and Taiwan, where the governments make more commitment to financing public kindergartens that are limited in quantity and quality. Private kindergartens are either being left behind or are only partially subsidized by the governments, which have enlarged the gap between the young children enrolled in public and private kindergartens. This public-private divide in education policy risks perpetuating educational inequalities and social justice problems in these Chinese societies and further studies are warranted. The sound bite of “free education” needs to be interrogated in terms of its accountability—the type of investment, evidenced-based mechanisms, targeted beneficiaries, and effective strategies to address the educational inequality and social justice.

Free Education for All. The second set of unresolved questions might be: Is free ece for all desirable? Should the governments provide full subsidy to private kindergartens? In particular, should taxpayers pay for the early education of children whose families can afford the cost of high-quality private programs? Will free ece better contribute to the purposes of education? If so, what are the purposes of ece? All these questions have not been thoroughly addressed and would thus demand future inquiries and debates.

Nevertheless, we can conclude that the often heard sound bites, such as “we will invest in ece by providing 15-year free education”, have oversimplified the wide discrepancies in how ece has been conceptualized, financed, and implemented in different Chinese societies. The political rhetoric regarding ece touches upon the field’s growing emphasis on educational quality, equal access, and the need to ensure accountability on behalf of all young children. With this, we argue that a central element in the conversation for the improvement of free education policies must focus on the affordability, accessibility, accountability, sustainability, and social justice. We believe that the achievement of desirable quality does not come with an easy recipe. A sound bite like “free education” might not be adequate to solve all the problems in the education systems of Greater China.

Understanding the Political Spectacle. This special issue also draws upon Edelman’s (1988) theory 2 of political spectacle to analyze the 15-year free education campaign that we observed in Greater China. Political spectacles refer to the political constructions of reality that are produced intentionally to shape the public policy thus ultimately, to meet the needs of a small group while purporting to meet the greater good. The public, as the audience, can only see the show on stage, which is exactly the “political spectacle”. The real happening on backstage is not visible to them and is often concealed by the political actors. Political spectacle theory defines the policy process as a “set of shifting, diverse, and contradictory responses to a spectrum of political interests”. 3 The media “constructs the social reality to which people respond, and in the process, reinforces established power structures and value hierarchies”. 4 The politicians present political spectacle as benefiting public good, and use emotional appeal through language and symbols perpetrated by the media to build audience receptivity to policy agendas. It is about the forming of mental pictures in the minds of people. Thus audience acquiescence is crucial to its success.

This theory provides a perfect theoretical framework to understand how the so-called 15-year free education policy was promoted to the public in Hong Kong. First, the sound bite of “15-year free education” was used to create a compelling vision and a beautiful impression to the public—Free for 15 years. Second, political spectacle locates policy formation in the dramatic elements of casting actors as leaders, allies, and enemies. In Hong Kong, for instance, the educational authorities such as Education Bureau were labeled as the enemies, whereas the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union (ptu), the Striving for 15-year Free Education Union, and like-minded scholars have coalesced into allies, under the leadership of some politicians (casting actors). Third, they used emotional appeal through language and symbols perpetrated by the media to build audience receptivity to the concept of “15-year free education”, a political spectacle produced intentionally to sell to the public. In this way, they successfully formed mental pictures in the minds of Hong Kong people and made the public believe that this political spectacle was purporting to meet the greater good of society. However, the empirical articles collected in this special issue have concertedly proved that the problems they listed in the appeal for 15-year free education could not be solved simply by the means of making 15 years of education free. Worse still, all the papers collected in this special issue unanimously showed that the so-called 15-year free education is neither “all fees free” nor “all kids free”. The political spectacle is nothing but a man-made illusion indeed.

In contrast, we tend to believe that educational policymaking should be a rational process that begins with an identified problem and ends with an appropriate policy for resolving the problem. Although policy formation is inevitably political, policymakers should have the best interests of the public in mind. 5 In addition, evaluation of policy implementation could produce information to enhance the policy for schools. 6 The best policies should be the result of sensible responses to public needs arising from debates and democratic participation, 7 rather than the outcome of political spectacle campaigns. Therefore, in this special issue, we invited scholars in the field of ece, education policy, and Chinese education to evaluate the implementation of 15-year free education in Greater China in terms of affordability, accessibility, accountability, sustainability and social justice. All the findings, jointly and repeatedly, cast doubt on the feasibility and sustainability of these free education policies. More studies, however, are needed before we can conclude that it is just, a political spectacle.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.