As the term centralized decentralization indicates, in the tension between
centralization and decentralization, the former is weighted heavily by the central state.
In other words, the authoritative position of the central state is intentionally reinforced
in the current curriculum reform. The particular emphasis on centralization at this
crucial moment is never an isolated phenomenon. In fact, it is related to the transitions
in China‘s education system. In fiscal reform, the state has retreated from the previous role of the sole provider of education services in China. With the increasingly
diversified funding, schools have become the site where different social forces are
manifesting their own positions in Chinese education and seeking the maximized
interest in the school system. With the fiscal reform has come a diversified
administrative management in Chinese schools. The central government and the MOE
started to allow their administrative subdivisions to participate in building a multi-
layer management structure in Chinese education, where the central agencies function
at the level of macro-regulation, but the local agencies work at a more immediate
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paradoxical role of state in the tension between education centralization and
decentralization has become prominent. The central state is somewhat willing to
relieve itself of the heavy burden of maintaining a highly centralized education system
financially and administratively. However, the reduced role of central state in
education becomes a pressing concern of loss of control, when more work is
transferred to the local level. Compared to the fiscal and administrative reforms in
Chinese education, the curriculum system is the last area over which the central state
is willing to loosen its control.
Historically, the unification of school curriculum is seen as the core of Chinese
education. In imperial China (134 BC - AD 1912), the dynasties kept changing, but
the supreme position of Confucianism in state schools was never replaced. One of the
central beliefs in Confucianism is li (礼), which stresses the structured order for
society and proper behaviors for individual members. Thus, a hierarchized
governance model was justified by Confucianism. By legitimizing Confucianism as
the state ideology, the dynasties justified a highly structured governance model and
thus strengthened the centralized state power. The idea about unification and
centralization were continually reinterpreted by the followers of Confucianism, and
practiced by the regimes for thousands of years. Ultimately, the emphasis on China as
a unitary nation under centralized controlling has penetrated into the core of Chinese
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After 1949, the political philosophy of Confucianism was rejected by the
socialist regime, but the tradition of espousing a sole dominant ideology in schools
has been continually used to maintain a centralized controlling over China‘s education system. In 1949, as the Chinese Communist Party gained the full control of the
Chinese Mainland, the Party found it was far from fostering a strong identification
with the state, especially since the state had been disintegrated for such a long time
and had witnessed so many regime shifts. Furthermore, the socialist regime faced
daunting problems in economic and social stability inside the country and hostility
against communist China outside the country. To tie the country together under the
name of People‘s Republic of China, the Party was dedicated to building a cohesive national identity for all Chinese people. Following the tradition of building a unitary
nation through indoctrinating a set of unified ideology, schools were seen as site for
the distribution of prescribed knowledge promoting the superiority of communism
and the importance of political loyalty. Thus, it became imperative to exert tight
control over the school curricula. Centralization was the most direct and effective
means to ensure the unification and conformity of school curricula taught in schools
across the state.
Since the initiation of Chinese economic reform in 1979, the national goal of
China has already shifted from building national cohesion and identification with the
socialist regime to developing socialist modernization. However, what has not
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unified national goal of a particular historical moment rather than an autonomous
social device with its own scope and purpose. With the resurgence of market ideology
and global discourse of decentralizing public services, various social sectors in China
are calling for a more inclusive curriculum system to address their diverse needs and
interests. The curriculum system built in the reform has become more open to local
innovations and incentives in province-based and school-based curricula.
In order to restrict the strength, direction and process of the current curriculum
reform in China, centralized decentralization is more like a strategic imperative in
reinforcing the monopolistic authority of the central state over Chinese education in
nature. In fact, as Mok Ka-Ho (2001) observes, ―[E]ssentially, the role of the state
changes from one carrying out most of the work of education itself, but it still
determines where the work will be done and by whom‖ (p. 127). The crucial point to
make is that, by tightly holding authority in hand, even though more work can be
done at the local level, the central state continues to steer the Chinese curriculum. In
fact, in Chinese schools, the content of schooling is accredited by the central state
system and under the hierarchical supervision, and the flexibility in designing local-
based curricula is administrated by the central state. In this sense, the curriculum
system in China is still highly nationalized.
To a great degree, the decentralization reform in the form of deconcentration is
largely under the realistic pressure of fixing the narrowness of the unified national
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reform remains at the superficial level. The central state does not intend to transfer
any real authority of curriculum governance to the periphery, but rather uses the
national curriculum as a powerful tool to boost a strategic control from the top over
China‘s curriculum system. The unification and conformity in the implementation of the national curriculum fits P. Watkins‘s (1993) argument that the centralized decentralization becomes the means to ―avoid the loss of control, authoritative communication and managerial scrutiny‖ (p. 10).
In the early years of the People‘s Republic of China, the urgent need to form a unified national identity explains why the central state could easily exert its
coercive force across the entire state. However, when the education system
expands in complexity and reform goes deep in all aspects, the centralized
decentralization reform in the curriculum system must be reexamined. Why is the
central state unwilling to transfer its authority over its curriculum system? What
factors distinguish curriculum reform from other reforms in Chinese education? How
is the central authority actualized through a unified curriculum system? The answers
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