ALLOCATING RESOURCES: A CASE STUDY OF EARLY EDUCATION IN ZHEJIANG

Abstract

Educational resources are varied by regions in China and early education has no exception, whereas student-teacher ratios, school facilities, teaching quality, and school curricula differed. Researching how educational resources are allocated could potentially improve the efficiency and equity of student learning despite regional differences. Zhejiang Province ranged from metropolitan cities such as Hangzhou to small cities and towns in rural areas, which provides diverse educational contexts to study this issue. Historically, Zhejiang has been a model for providing equitable student access and decreasing the cost of early education in China. However, the province has not provided solutions in addressing the equitable resources among various early education institutes. This study examines the differences in allocating educational resources by comparing the selected counties in Zhejiang. We will first employ the rough set theory to filter out the factors that might result from regional differences. In doing so, we could eliminate the possibility of multicollinearity and how it might affect the causal relationship in our regression model. Our initial findings reveal that the quality of teachers, the number of full-time teachers and staff, and the county’s economic index had various effects on teaching and learning. The study may provide a solution in addressing similar issues in other early education settings. The results suggest strategic planning for allocating early educational resources equitably and efficiently.