THE EVOLUTION OF CHINA'S PRIVATE EDUCATION POLICY: HISTORICAL REVIEW AND PATH ANALYSIS

Based on the policy texts of private education since the founding of the People's Republic of China and from the perspective of historical institutionalism, this article draws the following three conclusions. First, being shaped by changing policies from the state, the development process of China's private education could be divided into four mainstages: the stage of being eliminated(1949~1978), recovery and preliminary development (1978~1992), thriving continually(1992~2016), and under classified management as well as standardized development (from2016). Second, the evolution of private education policy has experienced punctuated equilibrium and gradual transformation as two main modes, which is determined by critical juncturesand path dependence. Third, government power and market mechanism play the role of dynamic mechanism of institutional change. To conclude, the article suggests that the state should further clarify the respective responsibilities of the government and the market mechanism to realize the positive mutual interaction.