Case Study II: Improving The Lot Of Teachers

Teacher-standards policy illustrates many important aspects of the education bureaucracy's behavior and authority structure. A second case involves policy related to improving the living and work conditions of teachers. It offers us a second vantage point on educational policy by illustrating horizontal connections, rather than vertical links. This case represents a distributive decision, as opposed to the regulatory quality of teacher standards.

Despite these differences, these two cases share many qualities. Each has evolved slowly, outside recurrent rhythms of yearly work confer-

ences or the patterns of annual budgets. They involve the Center and localities groping for and experimenting with solutions to complex and pressing problems. Each demonstrates the surprising power of lower-level actors, as well as the need to try multiple avenues toward the SEdC's goals. Finally, each reveals the severe constraints under which education policy is made. Below I quickly outline the policy problem in the second case and specify the process of response. This chronology reveals an ever-widening circle of involvement and the need for cross-sectoral cooperation, in this case culminating in a 1987 agreement that was intended to produce a 10 percent wage hike for teachers. Nonetheless, the weakness of the education sector is very apparent in this story.

The Problem

Economically, teachers ranked among the lowest-paid professionals in the country during the post-Mao years (Zhishifenzi Wenti Wenxian Xuanbian 1983, 136; ZGJYB, 6 September 1988, 1). Politically and socially, their position—never high—was very low. Professionally, they represented poorly trained and demoralized individuals. The resultant problem of recruitment, noted above, coupled with school expansion, has produced shortages, especially in rural areas, particular subject areas, and vocational and technical education, clearly an impediment to national efforts to transform the once virtually uniform academic secondary school system into a highly differentiated, multitrack system in which a majority of students receive vocational or technical training.^[23]

Compounding the problem is teacher attrition. Particularly since 1978, discouraged teachers have left teaching in large numbers. Of special concern is the fact that departing teachers tend to be strong, experienced, middle-aged faculty, known as "backbone teachers" (gugan jiaoshi ). Though aggregate national figures are not available, frequent reports from individual provinces, counties, and districts suggest that the scale of the problem is large.^[24] Between 1985 and 1988, 100,000

secondary school teachers a year (or approximately 3–4 percent of that group) have left their jobs (Xiang 1989). Of the remaining teachers, it is estimated that only 37.5 percent are qualified ("Zhongxue xiaozhang" 1988, 17).

The SEdC described this situation as a major obstacle to education reform and diagnoses the problem as having social, political, and economic roots (ZGJYB, 23 August 1988). The prescription has been a series of policy moves aimed at reversing the devaluing of teachers. But, as the narrative below suggests, horizontal or cross-sectoral action has been essential. Only when the SEdC could move the issue onto the agenda of other ministries and the State Council has any substantive progress been made.

Strategies for Improving the Teacher's Lot

Social Work

The common explanations for teachers' problems are social—lack of prestige and respect, as well as repeated instances of violence against teachers.^[25] These incidents have received increasing publicity; consequently, one of the SEdC's first targets for change has been the social position of teachers.

Several specific efforts have been made by the central education bureaucracy to change social attitudes toward teachers. The most visible of these has been the institution of a national holiday to honor teachers. Inaugurated on September 9, 1985, with much publicity and elaborate public ceremonies, Teachers' Day honors the teaching profession and individual teachers. The message in the stories, reports, poems, and photographs of the day is clear: teachers play a valued role in society; they are supported by the country's top leaders; and they are appreciated by ordinary people.^[26]

Similar themes appear in other socially oriented reforms as well. These range from the "respect teachers, love students" campaign (zunshi aisheng ), to the 1986 Compulsory Education Law's stipulation to prosecute assaults on teachers, to the establishment of a system of honors for exemplary teachers (mofan jiaoshi and teji jiaoshi ) (Cai 1985, 8; Zhongguo jiaoyu nianjian 1949–1981 1984, 200).

Each of these efforts, initiated by the SEdC, has been largely symbolic and used few material resources (although, in the case of teacher awards, the actual recipients do get material benefits). Yet there has clearly been the hope that these symbolic gestures would both placate teachers and remind the general public of the importance of teachers' work. My interviews with teachers suggest, however, that while these symbolic gestures have been somehow comforting to "backbone teachers," they have provided little solace to young teachers and little attraction to people considering teaching (Paine 1987). Teachers interviewed noted both cryptically and cynically that these social reforms were "not hard to carry out."

Political Efforts

A second area of relatively early attention, often discussed in connection with social efforts, centered around political gestures. These have required the cooperation of a wider range of units and individuals, have ultimately required going beyond symbolic action, and have proven more difficult.

The goal has been to confer political legitimacy on teachers. The two major efforts involve (1) the lending of credibility to the teaching profession and its work by state and Party and (2) the acceptance of teachers into the Party. Within the activities of the state bureaucracy there is evidence of success. Teachers interviewed often cited Teachers' Day, the 1985 National Meeting on the Work of Elementary and Secondary School Teachers, and the transformation of the Ministry of Education into the State Education Commission as important state activity.

A more direct yet less successful attempt to improve the political status of teaching is seen in the efforts to recruit teachers to the Chinese Communist Party. This has occurred as part of the Party's active recruitment of intellectuals (Jiaoyu gaige 1986; Zheng Lizhou 1986). Moreover, teachers have been the specific object of recruitment efforts: Party leaders have been urged to go to schools to encourage strong candidates to apply for Party membership. Despite official policy, however, reports indicate that local areas sometimes continue to experience resistance to the political legitimation of teachers. A 1984 study found that 15.7 percent of teachers complained of being denied Party membership after many years of testing, and some schools had stopped recruiting new Party members (He 1985). More recently, inadequate support from the Party was listed as a key concern for 62.5 percent of rural teachers surveyed in Ningxia and Inner Mongolia.^[27] The experience of political efforts demonstrates again the SEdC's use of symbolic policy, but the difficulties encountered in implementing nonsymbolic aspects of the policy (such as Party recruitment) illustrate the limits of the SEdC in overseeing compliance.

Economic and Material Reforms

Reforms in this area can be grouped into four major categories: housing, health, family economic security, and income. One notes certain patterns across these: the difficulty the SEdC has had in procuring resources; its tendency therefore to delegate responsibility for these changes to lower levels of authority; and its work to persuade other sectors to take part in these efforts.

Housing shortages in urban China are notorious. Teachers (particularly at the primary and secondary levels) are more vulnerable to this problem than almost any other urban workers, since schools—unlike factories, enterprises, and government offices—typically have not been able to provide dormitory housing for their employees. Researchers in 1985 estimated that nationally 32.3 percent of urban elementary and secondary teachers lacked housing (Li 1985), and in Beijing the principal of a prestigious high school reported that 80 percent of his faculty had housing difficulties ("Zhongxue xiaozhang" 1988). Acute housing problems count as an important reason for the current instability of the teaching force.

Therefore, the central government has encouraged provincial and municipal initiatives to solve the problem. The SEdC has primarily played a facilitating role, with an SEdC vice-minister in 1986 explaining that teachers "need to rely chiefly on local areas" for help (Jiaoyu Tongxun 1986, 16). The SEdC organized national meetings to coordinate discussion of teachers' housing problems and publicize local successes (Zhang Hongju 1985, 5–6). There has followed increased provincial and local activity. In one province, an education official interviewed in 1986 illustrated the changes: during a two-year period (1984–86) there was a fourfold increase in funds set aside for housing, with 24 million yuan allocated in 1986. Jinzhou's range of strategies, held up nationally as exemplary, typified many local solutions. These included directing 2 percent of the annual city and town housing investment to construction of housing for elementary and secondary teachers, returning to the provincial BOE (rather than other departments) the housing of teachers who leave, using income from school factories to buy housing, and, in cases of couples where one person is a teacher and the other not, relying on housing allocated to the nonteaching spouse. Nationally, housing problems had been resolved for some 90,000 families of teachers by 1986, but, according to SEdC vice-minister Peng Peiyuan, this was "still very far from what we need" (Jiaoyu Tongxun June 1986, 7).

Solutions to the housing problems, like those in Jinzhou, have tended to come from local initiatives and cooperation with noneducation sectors. Bargaining by school leaders with other units has been one important means by which housing (and other problems) of teachers has been addressed. In one instance, for example, high school leaders I inter-

viewed explained that they negotiated with a nearby factory to admit a set number of its workers' children in exchange for construction and money. In another case secondary school administrators agreed to exceed their student enrollment quota to admit, for a fee, local students with lower entrance exam scores. Each "high-priced student" brought 2,000 yuan to the school. In both cases a portion of these earnings was allocated to teachers' housing.

These contractual agreements and informal bargains have been applauded by superiors as examples of how the grass roots can cope with scarcity. They represent some increase in decentralized authority and highlight the value of personalized ties, as well as the tendency for bureaucrats to negotiate in ways that support the needs of their institution. The increase in entrepreneurial solutions to educational problems illustrates the need for negotiation with organizations outside of education and the importance of Party policy in legitimating bureaucratic action. Certainly the heavy engagement of school principals in "creating income" as a solution to teachers' problems is only possible through its congruence with the Party's agenda for national reform.

The issue of health insurance and health care for teachers, in contrast to housing, is more a rural teacher problem, but it has been addressed in much the same way. Teachers hired by the state as public teachers (gongban jiaoshi ) have the same benefits as employees in Party organs and cadres in enterprises. But minban teachers, who are hired by rural communities to work in community-run schools, do not automatically have comparable benefits. For these 3.6 million teachers, the situation is bleakest. Moreover, recent increases in the costs of health care are worrisome for the minban teachers, given their lack of guaranteed insurance. The patterns of bureaucratic action are familiar: reforms have been encouraged by the central government, but resources and action are expected to come from local areas.^[28]

A third problem for teachers involves family economic security. Teachers, unlike their colleagues in factories and enterprises, have few ways to assure their children of a secure and desirable job. Though the problem is of concern to the SEdC, the commission serves chiefly as an information clearinghouse, spreading "success stories" to help local areas learn how other areas have addressed the problem. An SEdC report claimed that cooperation with the Ministry of Labor and Personnel was needed for more direct action (Jiaoyu Tongxun, 10 June 1986).

Finally, and most significant for this discussion, are reforms in wages and bonuses. This issue has been at the heart of discussion concerning

the treatment of teachers. Unlike many other areas, this issue could not be handled with symbolic gestures, the delegation of authority, or the spread of success stories. SEdC efforts alone were insufficient. For wages and bonuses, cooperation with other sectors has been essential.

There has been clear state action in recent years. For most elementary and secondary school teachers, there have been three wage increases in the ten years between 1977 and 1987: in 1977, in 1978, in 1980 or 1981.^[29] The 1985 wage-system reform also resulted in higher wages. That reform replaced the previous system, based solely on rank, with a wage structure reflecting the sum of a basic wage, a wage for the years of employment, and a "teacher's years of service" wage, or jiaoling, which is money included only in salaries of teachers, computed on the basis of years of service in education.^[30] This reform favors job stability for teachers and, in the formal wage structure, rewards teachers over and above other urban or industrial workers. Finally, as in the industrial sector, there has been room for bonuses within schools. While the presence, size, and allocation methods vary greatly by school, my interviews suggest that, in all cases, bonuses are a smaller percentage of the total income for teachers than for industrial workers.

These wage increases, the restructuring, and bonuses represent attempts by the central government to prompt provincial and local governments and schools to improve pay. Nonetheless, the ability of the central education bureaucracy to effect economic improvement for teachers has been very limited, being constrained by the entire national economy. Wage changes for teachers have not kept pace with improvements experienced by workers and, especially in the late 1980s, with inflation. My interviews reveal that teachers were frustrated as their recent wage increases, although ostensibly aimed at redressing inequities, were followed almost immediately by comparable and even greater increases in the wages for workers and others. The official teachers' union journal took a critical stance in assessing the problem: "Generally speaking, the economic and social situation of teachers has continued to rise. ... But it is still not enough. ... In recent years when teachers had their salaries

raised a level, soon after other fields would also raise theirs a level, and the disparity in incomes which had just been reduced was once again created" (Zhu 1985, 20).

In addition, as a Ministry of Education official explained in 1984, "with expanded enterprise autonomy and workers in enterprises having increased bonuses ... secondary and elementary teachers' salaries have dropped in comparison" (Zhang Wensong 1985, 3). Bonuses in 1986, for example, accounted for 13.4 percent of the total wages of staff and workers in state-owned units, but a 1988 study shows that bonuses contributed only 3.4 percent and 3.2 percent to the average secondary and elementary teacher's income (State Statistical Bureau 1987, 101; Wang 1988). Opportunities for augmenting wages with outside income, one feature of the 1980s reforms, have been quite limited for teachers, with Beijing teachers ranking lowest of twelve occupational groups for outside income generated (Xiang 1989, 15). Workers' income is thus often three times that of teachers (Wei 1985).

The wage changes have also failed to keep pace with inflation. Inflation in the mid and late 1980s cut sharply into increases in allocations to education. One Beijing principal, for example, showed that the 7.3 percent increase in budget allocations to Beijing education and the 7.8 percent increase to Beijing's Xicheng district fell below the official Beijing inflation rate of 8.7 percent, a rate he and others saw as an underestimate ("Zhongxue xiaozhang" 1988, 14). In 1987 the nation's teachers received only a 5.8 percent increase in wages, whereas the industrial workers received 10.8 percent. Teaching's position relative to other occupations remains weak, and inflation contributes to the increasing disparity (ZGJYB, 6 September 1985). "With price increases in recent years the real standard of living of teachers has not only not risen but actually declined" (Yuan 1988, 25). Thus, whatever headway had been made in teachers' living conditions tended to evaporate with the combined impact of inflation and the relative increases in the actual income (wages, bonuses, and outside earnings) of workers in other sectors. A 1987 report found the average income of teachers ranking eleventh out of twelve occupations (Yuan 1988, 25).

It was not until late in 1987 that the SEdC was able to work out an agreement with other ministries that would allow a teacher-specific wage hike, this time for 10 percent across the board for teachers. The story of that wage hike, the most significant act in the ten-year history of the government's efforts to improve teachers' lives, indicates the high level of dependence of the SEdC on the cooperation of other sectors. Through long years of persuasion, the SEdC was able to achieve its objective, which, ironically, was announced in the name of another ministry (the Ministry of Labor). As one SEdC official explained, it was the

SEdC that called for the wage hike, but it did not have the power to do this on its own. Rather, they had to approach the Ministries of Finance and Labor, who agreed. Together they wrote the proposal for submission to the State Council. This project took about half a year's work, "since people agreed" on it.^[31] The problem was not agreement about need, but resources—could the Finance Ministry get the money?

Several conditions appear to have contributed to the SEdC's apparent speed in bringing about the agreement on 10 percent wage increase. Together they created a "policy window" of opportunity that allowed the SEdC to get agreement on the salary raise (Kingdon 1984). First, as an SEdC official I interviewed implied, the Finance Ministry had to be convinced that there were sufficient resources. Second, social campaigns and partially successful political reforms had done little to solve the problem of teachers' conditions. The inadequacy of these symbolic actions made clearer teachers' demands. Further, it is likely that the persistence of frustration among teachers about wages, the increasing sense of relative deprivation, and the subsequent attrition problem all contributed to the sense that this raise was necessary. The passing of the "Education Decision" and the Compulsory Education Law (with its scheduled deadlines) added legitimacy, specificity, and pressure to the need to raise teachers' salaries. Finally, that the education reforms (and, indirectly, much of the modernization drive) hinge on getting and keeping good teachers at their jobs gave urgency to the policy. There was a policy fit with the national mood and agenda.

The change in wage-increase policy is significant for what it tells us of the SEdC's need to seek alliances and to persuade other ministries, particularly those with resources. Like the teacher-standards issue, policy regarding teachers' conditions shows the value of piggybacking on other important reforms and being perceived as pivotal to their success. But the policy change is also important for what it may suggest about the ability of constituents to plead their case or apply pressure from the grass roots—even if through negative action.

Finally, the story of the teachers' wage increase may tell us more of the education bureaucracy's failures and limitations than it does of its success—the wage increase may simply be one more symbolic gesture. Announced in 1987, the distribution of the increase by late 1988 was still being hammered out in provincial and county-level debates (ZGJYB , 6 September 1988). Moreover, basing the increase on a percentage of an already low wage is little solace too late for most teachers. Given inflation rates of that year (the year of China's steepest price increases since 1949, with food costs in large cities rising 20–30 percent) the 1987 raise represents an actual decline in standard of living (He 1987). And with provincial-level delays in the increase being distributed to teachers, the actual value of the increase has declined further.