Lock-in Analysis on Risk-taking by the Third-party Education Evaluation Agencies

The “moral hazard” of the third-party education evaluation agencies has drawn extensive attention under the separation system of supervision, running and evaluation. The emergence of “moral hazard” is bound to be accompanied by other risks. In fact, the third-party education evaluation agencies will “transfer” risks to the government in order to protect their own interests in the education evaluation. If the risks are solely taken by the government for a long period, the evaluation system will not work well. Introducing the “lock-in” in economics into education field, this paper attempts to clarify the reasons of the third-party education evaluation agencies locking the government and the reasons why the government is willing to be locked by the third-party education evaluation agencies. By using critical discourse analysis, this paper shows that costs and cognitive limitations are the main reasons for lock-in. Accordingly, measures are put forward from the third-party education evaluation agencies and the government, which, to a certain extent, can reduce the degree to which the government is locked in by the third-party education evaluation agencies in order to promote the education evaluation work. This paper is of great significance in laying a solid foundation for further research on how to avoid the “moral hazard” of the third-party education evaluation agencies in the future.