ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the forms of public service provision – from 'people-managed' rural schools, private schools for urban elites, hybrid 'public–private' models and the 'shadow education' system, to 'black schools' for migrant children. Just as the school curriculum has reflected growing tensions between values of competition and solidarity, or individualism and collectivism, the ethos of the market has also permeated educational institutions themselves, spurring the emergence of new forms of provision. The chapter begins by asking to what extent the promotion of privatisation and marketisation has been influenced by external forces, or betokens an ideological convergence between Chinese state elites and their neoliberal counterparts in the West. Just as broader economic marketisation began in the countryside, so did the emergence of pseudo-private or non-state schooling. When both college and college-preparatory senior high schooling were confined to an elite, the market for supplementary education remained relatively small.
