Author: Lan Jian. : G 1/ pedagogic contribution number 1-85
Original source "educational research"
Original name Beijing
Original issue No.200008
Original page number 70 ~ 75
Classification number G 1
Classified name pedagogy
Replication cycle number 200 10 1
Urban-rural Dual Structure and Education in Developing Countries
Zuo Zhe Lan Jian
Author brief introduction Lan Jian, Associate Research Fellow, Comparative Education Research Office, National Academy of Educational Sciences. Beijing 100088
Upper guide bearing
The dual structure of urban and rural areas is one of the most important characteristics of developing countries. Education not only has an impact on this urban-rural relationship, but also is an important aspect of this urban-rural relationship. Under the condition of urban-rural dual structure, developing education to promote the transformation from traditional society to modernization is a problem faced by education in all developing countries.
First, the dual structure of urban and rural areas in developing countries
According to the general theory of urbanization model, modern industrial society is an urban society to a great extent. Most people live and work in big cities, which cover most developed countries in the east and west. Cities, especially central cities, are not only the main places for population growth and migration, but also the main places for urban-rural integration. The development of cities ignited the fire of agricultural economic explosion, which made rural commodity production flourish rapidly. New culture and ideals are spreading among urban residents, and they are constantly "spreading" or "infiltrating" into the countryside, making the countryside greatly active. Farmers appreciate the goods of city people and buy more and more goods from the city. It is through this material and cultural exchange that urban and rural areas prosper together.
Urbanization in developing countries is far from this model. The process of urban development in developing countries is strongly influenced by colonialism, and a considerable number of cities are developed for the investment needs of colonialism. Therefore, these cities are relatively alienated from the surrounding areas in culture, and are regarded as transit stations for export products in economy, rather than markets for promoting the development of domestic commodity economy. Although all countries have implemented the policy of urban redistribution after independence, because of the "growth without development" of the economy, it is impossible for big cities to spread their development to poor rural areas, and cities cannot play a role in diffusion. Therefore, the relationship between urban and rural areas is not only mutually beneficial, but also forms a growing gap, which is a basic feature of developing countries: the urban-rural dual structure. The differences between urban and rural areas in the process of transition from traditional society to modernization in developing countries are clearly reflected in the characteristics of urban-rural dual structure.
The duality of urban-rural structure in developing countries refers to the fault and differentiation of political, economic and cultural structures in society. Its essence is the split between modern structure and traditional structure caused by the coexistence of modernity and tradition in a society. Although there are differences in the degree of economic development in different regions of any country, the internal differences in developed countries are caused by regional differences, while the internal differences in many developing countries are the essential differences in the development stage. Because the modernization choice of developing countries is imposed on traditional society from the outside, rather than the natural development and continuation of traditional society, the social structure has undergone strong changes and faults, forming a dual society. Judging from the development process of modernization, developing countries are in the process of transformation from traditional society to modern society.
These two components of the dual society are manifested in many opposing ways, forming a strong contrast, and the gap between urban and rural areas is its concentrated expression. The city is dominated by industry, with large production scale and advanced technology. Products are mainly sold in the market, with high labor productivity and wage income, while agriculture is the main industry in rural areas, with small production scale and simple tools. Products are mainly consumed by themselves, not sold in the market. On the basis of this dual structure of economy, there is also a dual structure of society, culture and morality, including the gap between old and new values, the gap between modern civilization and traditional customs, the gap between democracy and legalization, and so on.
The urban-rural dual structure has its historical conditions in a certain historical period, but in the long run, it is a major obstacle to the development of developing countries. The development of urban and rural areas is out of line, and a unified domestic system cannot be formed, which seriously affects the process of national modernization. The transition from dualism to unification is a major problem that developing countries generally face.
Second, the impact of urban-rural dual structure on education in developing countries
The gap between urban and rural development in developing countries has seriously hindered the economic and social development of developing countries and threatened the political stability of the country. According to the different conditions and levels of economic, cultural and social development in different countries, it is an important task for developing countries to formulate modernization strategies for urban and rural development in order to finally overcome urban-rural contradictions and eliminate urban-rural opposition. Education is an important part of the modernization strategy of developing countries. Education not only affects the urban-rural relationship, but also is an important aspect of the urban-rural relationship. Historical development has proved that education may play a role in bringing the relationship between urban and rural areas closer, but if the strategy is wrong, education may also aggravate the contradiction and opposition between urban and rural areas and even cause social unrest. The gap between urban and rural education development is a reflection of social education development. For a long time, the government's "urban preference" has caused serious consequences to education in developing countries. Mainly in the following aspects.
(A) the dual structure makes the urban and rural education conditions in sharp contrast.
-Urban-rural differences in education investment. The economy of most developing countries is still underdeveloped, and the overall scale of education investment is still very limited. In the choice of development strategy, whether it is the economic development strategy focusing on enriching material capital in the early stage or the strategy focusing on enriching human capital in the later stage, the development of rural education is excluded from the investment focus. Therefore, due to the shortage of funds, there are almost no educational institutions in rural areas of many developing countries. The government only bears part of the education expenses, and the rest is raised by rural students, parents, teachers and principals. Due to the widespread poverty in rural areas in developing countries, even if families have some income, they can only maintain food and clothing, and it is impossible to invest heavily in education. Poor families can't even afford the basic cost of education, and often don't see the benefits of education and are unwilling to invest in education. In rural areas of most developing countries, other sources of education investment are generally few, and the occasional assistance provided by international organizations is not enough to be discussed as a general situation. All these indicate that education in developing countries has originated and promoted the inequality between urban and rural areas.
Differences between urban and rural areas in teacher allocation. Because high-level teacher training institutions are located in cities, schools in cities have benefited a lot. However, due to the rapid increase in the number of educated people in developing countries and insufficient investment in education, the number of trained teachers can never meet the needs of education. Most trained qualified teachers are willing to stay in urban schools with good school conditions, superior social environment, stable income and promising personal development, resulting in a shortage of teachers in rural schools, few qualified teachers and no teachers in some disciplines. Rural teachers' working conditions are poor, their wages are low and often insecure, and they lack or have no opportunities for further study and training, which makes their promotion and development more difficult. In addition, rural teachers have a heavy task. In addition to teaching tasks, they sometimes have to take care of students' transportation and food, and sometimes they have to pay some fees for students. Rural teachers in some developing countries often live in central areas far away from schools and with good and comfortable social services, so it is difficult to form a sense of belonging and undertake the obligation of community mutual service, which makes lateness and truancy common and has a negative impact on teaching quality. This also separates the relationship between teachers and the community. Teachers are not members of the community. Because they spend a lot of time on the way back and forth, they have little time to do community work outside of teaching. They often feel uneasy about working in the countryside, or want to move to a better town, or want to give up their teaching career.
-The gap in school days between urban and rural areas. Due to the different nature of the economic structure and mode of production between urban and rural areas, modern formal industry is the main industry in the city, which works and rests according to the working days and rest days stipulated by the law or the government, and urban schools arrange their own teaching activities accordingly. However, in rural areas, people's daily life is carried out according to the laws of agricultural production, while agricultural production in most developing countries is traditional or relatively traditional, simple, manual or manual labor, and modern technology is less. Therefore, rural schools must adapt to the local people's work and rest and work habits. Teachers and older students should take part in agricultural labor during sowing or harvesting season. In addition to the regular national statutory holidays, rural schools should also arrange various agricultural holidays suitable for agricultural production. In addition, due to other special reasons, there will be no classes in rural areas, resulting in fewer classes in rural schools than in urban schools.
-The urban-rural gap in school distribution. Generally speaking, there are many schools in cities, and students can use various means of transportation to go to school. Because of the convenient transportation, the enrollment rate of schools at all levels in cities is higher than that in rural areas. In rural areas of developing countries, there is often a lack of educational institutions and the distribution of schools is very sparse. Even primary school students sometimes go to other towns to go to school. Rural transportation is generally inconvenient, and there are often no means of transportation between villages and roads are not good. Sometimes children have to go over mountains to go to school, and the dropout rate of rural children is much higher than that of cities.
-the gap between urban and rural areas in the material conditions of schools. In almost all developing countries, the gap between the material conditions of urban and rural schools is very large. As the infrastructure of schools, rural schools in some developing countries often have no school buildings, and the materials used to build school buildings in urban and rural areas are also very different. In addition, due to financial reasons, rural school buildings are poorly maintained, which leads to dilapidated rural school buildings and often becomes dangerous buildings. Rural areas in many poor countries lack the most basic teaching material conditions, with no school buildings, blackboards and textbooks.
-Urban-rural differences in students' conditions. Many factors prevent children from making full use of the education provided by schools. The difference in living conditions between urban and rural areas is one of them. Due to poor living conditions, lack of basic necessities, lack of clean drinking water and electricity and other material difficulties, it is especially difficult for rural children to receive proper education. Children are in poor health, and all kinds of labor also prevent them from going to school on time. In addition, children with poor family conditions have no access to written materials except school textbooks, especially the mothers of these families often have low or no education, which limits their parents' support and help for their children's education.
In addition, the principals of urban and rural schools not only have a big quality gap, but also have a big task. Basically, all principals in rural schools have both teaching and management tasks, but this situation is much less among urban primary school principals. Another example is supervision. There are many opportunities for urban schools to accept supervision, and the supervision of rural schools is often not institutionalized in many developing countries. (b) The specific situation of several developing countries (UNESCO: "Quality of primary schools in different development backgrounds")
Puebla, Mexico. The state is located in central Mexico, 0/20km away from Mexico City/Kloc. The state has comfortable living areas, semi-desert areas and indigenous communities. The level of education development in this state is equal to that of the whole country. Judging from the material conditions of urban and rural primary schools, 75.0% of urban primary schools have sports facilities, and 50.0% of rural primary schools have sports facilities. 85.3% of urban primary schools have different types of maps, and rural primary schools have 31.8%; 65.0% of urban primary schools have scientific charts, while rural primary schools have 1 1.4%. From the perspective of teachers, 58% of urban primary school teachers have received technical secondary school education or above, while rural teachers only have14%; The working experience of urban primary school teachers in our school is 7.3 years, while that of rural teachers is 2.4 years, which reflects the poor stability and high mobility of rural teachers. Among urban teachers, 10. 1% want to transfer, and rural teachers account for 40.9%. From the perspective of educational management, 4/5 principals in urban primary schools have received training in management, supervision and leadership, while only 2/5 principals in rural primary schools. Judging from the students' situation, both urban students and rural students are absent from class, but the reasons are completely different. Urban students are less absent from class, and most of them cannot go to school because of illness. In rural areas, students are often unable to go to school because of housework or farm work. At the same time, parents also lack a sense of responsibility, do not urge students to go to school, and poor living conditions lead to physical discomfort, which is also an important reason why rural students can't go to school. From the overall teaching ability of teachers, 48.4% of urban teachers and 33.3% of rural teachers have mastered the teaching materials; 5 1.6% for urban teachers and 20.8% for rural teachers. 54.6% urban teachers and 33.3% rural teachers actively participate in classroom teaching. From the teaching attitude, 5 1.6% of urban teachers and 4 1.7% of rural teachers are interested in children. The number of urban teachers is 4 1.9%, and the number of rural teachers is 4.2%. From the perspective of teaching organization ability, 48.8% of urban teachers and 16.7% of rural teachers can organize teaching.
Conakry, the capital of Guinea, is home to 80% of the country's urban population, compared with the forest area of a county in Nzerekore in the south. From the perspective of educational facilities, there are 12.7% school buildings in cities that need to be rebuilt, and 30.2% in forest areas. Urban primary schools with intact school buildings account for 12.0%, and forest areas account for 3.2%. Since the 1990s, due to the limited financial resources of the government, public education funds can only meet the needs of urban school construction, and the task of rural primary school construction has gradually shifted to communities and parents of students, thus widening the gap between urban and rural education conditions. Parents of rural students must participate in school construction and provide desks and chairs for students. Judging from the situation of teachers, the number of primary school teachers who have not finished junior high school or only finished primary school is 0, and the forest area is16.6%; 56.6% of primary school teachers have completed secondary education in cities, and 40% are in forest areas; The number of teachers who have received college education is 1 1.7% in cities and 3.4% in forest areas.
Madhya Pradesh, India. This state is located in the middle of India, with many tribes and diverse languages. Madhya Pradesh is also one of the most backward 10 states in India. In terms of material conditions, many rural schools do not have any basic conditions for effective teaching. For example, many schools have no school buildings, blackboards, textbooks and suitable reading and writing materials. In India, because textbooks are bought by parents, it is not a small expense for rural parents. Parents are generally reluctant to pay this fee if they are not sure about their children's prospects. In rural areas of Madhya Pradesh, primary school students in grade one usually have no textbooks. With the increase of grade, the number of students with books gradually increases. As far as teachers are concerned, the number of teachers with college degree or above is as high as 62.5% in cities and only15.4% in rural areas; The average life span of primary school teachers in urban areas is 2 1.4 years, while that in rural areas is only 13.4 years. From the perspective of educational management, 30% of principals in urban primary schools are engaged in management, supervision and leadership, while in rural areas, it is 100%. From the perspective of supervision, all urban schools can supervise for one year, but 4 1.6% rural schools can't supervise once. From the perspective of teaching methods, in Madhya Pradesh, India, 45.5% of rural primary schools are often just teachers reading textbooks, while urban primary schools are only 13.8%.
(c) The dual social structure makes the demand for education in urban and rural areas very different.
Although there is a huge difference in the level of social development between urban and rural areas in developing countries, we can also see the gap between urban and rural education from the above analysis and specific examples, but the school system actually implemented in most developing countries is still inherited from the colonial period, not only completely urbanized, but also completely imitated or transplanted from western-style formal schools. This kind of school is an academic institution that focuses entirely on cities, industrialized societies and elite selection. This system has played a certain role in personnel training and management in some modern economic fields of government departments and cities. However, in most developing countries, more than 70% of children live and go to school in rural areas. More than 80% of these children spend a lot of time farming or being unskilled workers to earn a low income to make a living. Most of them will spend their lives in the countryside. However, the courses offered by western academic education have a strong tendency of urbanization, and hardly provide students with the knowledge, skills and ideas they need to play an effective role in the rural environment. This kind of primary education is for middle schools. It trains students to read, write and calculate, including reciting, reciting and practicing repeatedly, but it does not cultivate students' ability to think and solve problems independently. Therefore, a large number of rural schools in developing countries have little impact on improving agricultural labor productivity and helping rural students play a greater role. This educational model has prompted a large number of talented rural youth to leave the countryside.
Third, the new education development strategy: the overall development of urban and rural education
The social development system is isomorphic between urban and rural areas. The urban-rural relationship is a complex relationship in the dynamic process of urban-rural interaction, including various elements. The relationship between urban and rural areas affects the quality of social development. The core problem of urban-rural relationship is simply how these resources can be effectively distributed and circulated between urban and rural areas or between groups living in different forms in the same society under the condition of relatively scarce resources, so as to realize the overall progress of society.
Due to the disadvantages of the "city-industry" oriented development model, the rural population in developing countries is the majority, the urban residents are much higher than the employed population in industrial sectors, and the labor force in developing countries is in an infinite supply state. Therefore, the relationship between urban and rural areas in developing countries cannot adopt a simple "city-industry" oriented model, which can only lead to the unbalanced development of urban-rural structure. In the long run, it is not conducive to rural development, which will lead to the widening gap between urban and rural areas and worsen the existing underdeveloped problems in developing countries.
The strategy of sustainable development points out the direction for developing countries to deal with the relationship between urban and rural areas. The sustainable development of the whole society is not only based on economic stability and sustained growth, but also on social stability, including balanced development among regions, fair distribution of income and so on. Therefore, sustainable development is no longer a simple pursuit of output value and scale benefits, but an excessive bias towards cities and industries. It recognizes the different roles of cities and villages in social development, and they have different practical interests. In fact, they have different needs. Sustainable development will give cities and rural areas, industry, agriculture and other industries the same development opportunities, and modern cities and rural areas will play their own unique roles. We call it the coordinated development model of urban and rural areas.
The education system in developing countries is also composed of urban education and rural education, and there is no so-called "universal phenomenon" or "universal problem". When formulating policies and implementing plans, we should establish the concepts of different educational functions, different practical interests and different practical needs in urban and rural areas. When discussing and solving the problem of education development, we must realize that it is absolutely not enough to study only the average and general education situation of the country. We must reveal the differences between urban and rural education and find out the different situations of educational development under different conditions in urban and rural areas.
Developing education according to the coordinated development mode of urban and rural areas and promoting the transformation from traditional society to modern society are problems that need to be solved in the development of education in developing countries. In this regard, we put forward a new education development strategy: urban and rural education development as a whole or urban and rural education development as a whole model.
The idea of overall development of urban and rural education is to change the practice of dividing and ruling urban and rural education and the tendency of attaching importance to urban education and neglecting rural education. According to the principle of communication and combination of urban and rural education, urban education and rural education should be brought into a unified educational development system and a new coordinated relationship between urban and rural education should be established. It is not enough and unwise to emphasize that it is not necessary to change urban education at the same time but simply change rural education and simply study urban education. We must consider the educational development of the country from the overall relationship between cities and rural areas. Its purpose is to improve the function and structure of urban and rural education, realize the rational allocation of urban and rural educational resources, and coordinate the needs and interests of urban and rural education, so as to accelerate the process of educational modernization in developing countries and gradually eliminate the gap between urban and rural education.
Coordinating the development of urban and rural education is to look at the relationship between urban and rural education from a comprehensive perspective, rather than emphasizing the role of rural education in isolation. In the process of analyzing and studying educational problems, we should fully consider the differences and different functions between urban and rural areas, which is the balance of urban and rural education. Only by attaching importance to the role of various regions can we realize the truly balanced and effective development of urban and rural education. Coordinating urban and rural education development does not emphasize rural education, but emphasizes the role and different functions of urban and rural education in development.
When the development begins to turn to people-centered, the inequality and unfairness between urban and rural areas should naturally become the central issue of development, so the education development plan itself should be the coordinated development plan of urban and rural education. The traditional unequal and unfair educational development plan between urban and rural areas should be gradually transformed into an educational development model that can promote equality and justice between urban and rural areas.
However, for a long time, the lack of understanding of the difference between urban and rural education and the coordinated development of urban and rural education in the educational development planning of developing countries has become the main source that affects the educational development of developing countries, especially the function of rural education. The division of urban and rural education has brought extremely adverse effects on the education of the vast number of developing countries and the development of the whole society in developing countries, especially leading to the long-term backwardness of rural education, which is divorced from the needs of social development and exacerbates the division and underdevelopment of urban and rural areas in developing countries. Developing countries should improve the modernization quality of urban and rural population, especially rural population, through the coordinated development of urban and rural education, so as to gradually overcome the contradictions between urban and rural areas and eliminate the dual structure.
Four, several specific problems that should be paid attention to in the practice of coordinating the development model of urban and rural education.
According to the mode of coordinated development between urban and rural areas, education in developing countries needs to be reformed and adjusted from macro and micro, internal and external, urban and rural areas. On the macro level, when formulating educational development policies and implementing educational development plans, we should pay attention to the differences between urban and rural areas and establish the awareness of urban and rural education differences and the coordinated development of urban and rural education. In order to test the influence of education plan on cities and rural areas, the model of coordinated urban-rural development needs to pay attention to such things: who benefits and who suffers in this plan; Rights and obligations in education, rights and privileges in urban and rural education; The balance between urban education and rural education and so on.
As a developing country with a large rural population, we must speed up the cultivation and rational allocation of all kinds of talents needed for the overall development of rural (rather than agricultural) society. In addition to the fact that the modernization of agricultural economy and agricultural technology lags far behind that of industry, the root of the urban-rural dual structure lies in the fact that the overall development level of rural society lags far behind that of cities. Therefore, the focus of the coordinated development of urban and rural education in the future should be to speed up the cultivation and allocation of all kinds of talents needed for the overall development of rural society.
Microscopically, in rural education, in addition to vocational skills training, we should also pay attention to the diversification of education and training content. Rural development is not only economic development, but also improving the quality of life of rural population in an all-round way. Therefore, the development of rural education should not only expand the number of educated population and prolong the years of education, but also ensure the quality of education, that is, the content of education is closely related to local life, thus ensuring the improvement of the quality of life of rural population in all aspects. In rural education, we should pay attention to the cultivation of non-agricultural economy and non-agricultural technology in rural social development, such as cultural education, science and technology, medical care, society, service, social security, transportation, post and telecommunications, consumption, lifestyle and living conditions, and adapt to the new psychological state, values and behavior norms of modern society. In rural areas, according to the characteristics of knowledge economy, we should not only develop and rely on formal education, but also vigorously strengthen and develop informal education at all levels. This is of great significance to the development of rural education. The government, non-governmental organizations or volunteers organize the rural population to participate in various educational activities by taking advantage of their leisure time and activity opportunities according to their labor characteristics and organizational structure types.
As far as cities are concerned, it is necessary to strengthen the support and help of urban education to rural education. For example, strengthen the investigation and study of rural education, put forward practical theories and suggestions for the development of rural education, strengthen the cultivation of all kinds of talents needed in rural areas, help popularize compulsory education and continuing education in rural areas, and improve the modernization level of rural population. Another example is to speed up the construction and development of small towns, so that small towns can become the intermediary and link between urban and rural education coordination and flow, and become the center of rural education.
In a word, the coordinated development of urban and rural education requires: the coordination of the allocation of educational resources, the rational flow of educational talents, technology, information and resources, the establishment of urban-centered education networks at all levels of cities, towns and communities, and the formation of a relatively stable and regular combination and coordinated development of urban and rural education.