素质教育与应试教育的经济学分析

The Economic Analysis of All-round Development Education and Examination-oriented Education

在现代教育中,作为以卓越为目标追求的学校,将个人素质或学习能力作为招收学生的一个决定性因素。考试是个人素质与学习能力考核的替代性安排,这种制度安排既节约交易费用,同时又产生社会资源浪费。资源浪费的表现形式体现为提高考试分数,而不是在提高素质上加大投入,即应试教育的产生和壮大。学校招生制度的变革能够在一定程度上减少这种浪费。

As for modem education, a school in pursuit of excellence should take personal all - round development and learning ability as a decisive factor when enrolling students. Examination is an alternative artangement for testing personal all - round development and learning ability. Such arrangement saves trading costs on one hand, but generates waste in social resources on the other hand. The society spares no efforts not in all- round development but in improving the test scores, which leads to the emergence and development of examination- oriented education. The reform of school enrollment system would restrain the waste to some extent.