| Summary/Abstract |
The tension between mobilizing resources to meet education-related growth targets and regularizing educational funding for a more stable and sustainable growth is structurally rooted in China’s educational system, which features growth-oriented, centralized mandates and county-based, decentralized financing. It was manifested in 2012, when China experienced a ‘great leap’ in educational expenditure. Based on interviews and school-level data from a province in western China, this article suggests that the ‘great leap’ was real rather than fabricated. Local governments have demonstrated remarkable capacity in resource mobilization involving both formal and informal strategies. It also shows the scarring effects of too much mobilization. The ‘great leap’ has clearly stressed and strained local governments to the extent that there is clear evidence of policy non-compliance and greater irregularity in government funding for education in the aftermath.
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