The school choice market in China: a case study

Background:

In contrast to the top-down government-designated school choice programmes in many countries, e.g. in the UK and USA in particular, school choice in the Chinese context is a bottom-up movement initiated by parents and is characterised by the payment of a substantial ‘choice fee’ to the preferred school, and by competition by parents through the use of cultural, social and economic capital in order to obtain a place for their child in a preferred school.

Purpose:

This exploratory study aims to investigate the role of economic capital in the school choice process, i.e. how do parents realise their school choices for their children by financial means and what are the respective financial motivations and rewards of schools and the government in the school choice process?

Method:

This paper is a report on a case study conducted in Nanning, the capital city of a province in South China where school choice is actively taking place. Questionnaires were distributed to 450 parents from three state junior middle schools of different quality (a first-tier school, a second-tier school and a fourth-tier or below average school) with a response rate of about 80%. Follow-up, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 representative parents (10 from each school) and three administrators (the head teacher of the first-tier school, a middle manager from the second-tier school and another middle manager from the fourth-tier school).

Results and conclusion:

The research findings indicate that economic capital has played a vital role in helping children to accumulate sufficient cultural capital for admission to oversubscribed schools, which can in turn reduce the required extra payment for preferred schools. As a unique ‘made in China’ product, choice fees paid by parents to the school of their choice have effectively motivated schools and the local government to cooperate with parents in creating a school choice market. In such a money-oriented school choice process, school places constitute the best value for money, as they generate substantial additional income for both the schools taking choice students and the local government. To many parents, such school places are worth buying. as they believe they will increase their children’s chances of entering a first-tier school at the next level of education, and eventually find a high-paid job. However, such highly income-biased school choice tends to exclude children from the working class families and exacerbates the educational inequality that already exists in society.

Keywords:

• economic capital
• choice fee
• extracurricular classes
• tutoring
• certificates
• buying or renting houses