The Reform of Basic Education Management System from the Perspective of Fiscal Guarantee: A "Prefecture City-County Integration" Approach

The management system of "county based" basic education in China has played an important role in the popularization of compulsory education. However, in the context of uneven regional development, the huge differences in county-level financial security capabilities have become the core bottleneck restricting the high-quality and balanced development of education. The "Outlineof the Plan for Building a Styong Education Country (2024-2035)" proposes a basic education management system that combines prefecture cities and counties, which aims to enhance the overall planning and financial support responsibilities of municipal governments and improve the overall support and guarantee of regional basic education. In response to the deep-seated problems of mismatched expenditure responsibilities and financial resources, lack of prefecture city level coordination, and insufficient sustainability under the prefecture city county segmentation system, it is recommended to improve the legal, regulatory, and policy system, clarify the responsibilities and coordination mechanisms of various levels of government; Explore the establishment of a classified and graded financial sharing mechanism to steadily improve the financial security of governments at all levels; Enhance the overall financial planning capability at the municipal level, optimize the allocation structure of educational resources, and improve the efficiency of financial fund utilization. Through systematic institutional restructuring, the financial security model can be transformed from "passive protection of basic needs" to "active promotion of quality", thereby providing solid support for the high-quality development of regional basic education.