明确公共机构的作用是改革关键

As one of the legacies of the centrally planned economy era, public institutions in China still often serve as sub-branches to government departments, which overlap and sometimes have confusing roles and functions.

This situation prevailed as a minor issue of functional redundancy until market reforms started to unleash entrepreneurial forces and lured many such institutions into transforming themselves into business enterprises.

Over time, many public institutions have changed from purely social service providers to de facto businesses.

But what didn't change were the public budget sponsorship and all the benefits and welfare to which those who work in such institutions were entitled.

Professor Song Shiming from the Chinese Academy of Governance argues that clarifying the status of public institutions is key to the reform.

"We need to examine the different statuses of the institutions before we embark on the reform. Without this examination, the reform would have no bottom line to start with. And this examination means we have to clarify the factual status of existing public institutions."

That clarification translates into categorizing the existing public institutions into three groups.

Those with strong administrative roles would be merged into government departments.

Those already in businesses would be eliminated from the system and transformed into enterprises.

And finally, the purely social service providers, such as compulsory education and basic health care providers, would see their roles strengthened and their funding increased.

Xiang Rong, a junior high school teacher at Yanlin Middle school in central China's Hunan Province, is explicit about what a public institution means to him.

"There should be a difference between compulsory education and higher education. We don't make money. Compulsory stage education provides the basic education children are entitled to. We should have nothing to do with business."

Professor Yao Yongling at the Institute of Public Administration at Renmin University in Beijing, says clarifying the roles of existing public institutions boils down to simply sorting out the proper relations between those institutions and the government.

"The reform doesn't mean cutting down the scale or doing away with some public institutions. It means either cutting off or sorting out a more proper relationship between those institutions and the government, so that the public institutions are restored to their rightful places as social service providers. Ultimately, it's aimed at raising the efficiency and quality of social services."

According to the plan, the first stages of the reform will focus on clarifying the different statuses of existing public institutions and dividing them into categories.

This is expected to be finished in five years before the reform is finally completed by 2020.

For CRI, this is Su Yi.