面临挑战的教育公益性

Challenges to the Public-Welfare Nature of Education

在市场经济条件下 ,教育这种公共物品经过转化 ,是可以进入市场的 ,是可以通过市场来运作的。经过转化后的教育 ,尽管是以私人物品或者准私人物品的面貌出现 ,但仍应将它看作是一种市场化的公益行为 ,而不是纯私益的行为。现行法律所规定的“不得以营利为目的”并不是教育公益性所固有的性质 ,而是法律赋予它的一种外在性质 ,教育的公益性质并不必然排斥营利性行为的存在。当前我国的公共教育体制应当是一个多元化的体制 ,从事的是公益性事业。构成公共教育的各级各类学校教育机构应当是一种非政府的和非企业的社会组织 ,提供的是公共物品。由于教育的非垄断性质 ,这种公共物品在一定的条件下可以转化为私人物品或准私人物品来向社会提供。提供公共教育的机构可以是公益性机构 。

Under the circumstances of market economy, education as a kind of public property can be transformed to enter the market and operated according to the objective law of the market. After being transformed, education appears in the market as private or quasi private property, but it should be still considered as a marketized public welfare behavior instead of an act for pure private interests. Although it is provided in the present law that “education shall not be aimed at making profit”, such provision is actually not to fix the public welfare as the original nature of education, but to entrust a kind of external nature to education. In other words, the public welfare nature of education does not exclude the existence of profit oriented behaviors through education. The present public education system in China should be a pluralistic undertaking for public welfare, while varieties of public schools and educational institutions should be non governmental and non enterprise social organizations for offering public property. Due to its non monopoly nature, education as a kind of public property can be offered to the society after being transformed into private or quasi private property under certain conditions. Therefore, both the public welfare and the profit oriented institutions can offer public education.