Fan Yongmao. “College Matriculation Policy for Migrant Children: An Analysis on Policy Changes from the Perspective of Advocacy Coalition Framework”.Chinese Public Administration, 2016 (5): 94-101.

The making and changing of public policies are usually caused by complicated reasons and mechanisms. Since 1980s, the western public policy scholars put forward such theoretical frameworks as punctuated equilibrium theory, multiple streams theory and policy entrepreneur model to describe the complex dynamic process of policy making and changing. Among these theories, the famous Advocacy Coalition Framework has particularly strong explanatory power and is applied in the analysis on various policy domains, for example, education policy. Education policy is widely discussed and studied by both Chinese and Western policy scholars and is frequently applied in reality. Particularly for the past three decades in China, there were numerous major changes in education policy. For the current Chinese education policy, one of the most essential issues is the fairness of education. With the acceleration of urbanization, the education problem for the enormous migrant children is increasingly prominent. Take the matriculation exam for instance, due to the existing system, a large number of migrant children are unqualifiedfor this important exam which may change their future.It badly affects the fairness and inclusiveness of education, which causes widespread concern and heated discussion.Since 2013, under the support and guidance of relevant authorities, the college matriculation policy for migrant children has been implemented in some regions. However, it still faces heavy resistance.

This paper studies the cases in the most influential and concerned cities ofBeijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, whichreflect most contradictions. Advocacy Coalition Framework is applied to analyze the change process of college matriculation policy for migrant children. From the perspective of the stakeholders and their game process, this paper strives to figure out the difficulties and key points of the reform, and explore the way to further advance the reform. Specifically, this paper focuses on the following three questions. First, what is the relationship between the public policy and the dominant coalitions in the government system? Second, how do the internal stakeholders of the policy subsystem use the external events to increase their impacts? Third, what strategies do the stakeholders take to stabilize the core faith and express their interests?

The issue of “matriculation for migrant children” refers that the candidates take the matriculation exams outside their registered permanent residence. There are two main solutions: the candidates are enrolled according to the local policy of the areas they take the exams; or the candidates are enrolled according to the policy of their registered address. The saying of “matriculation for migrant children” has not been officially recognized yet. During the fourth Session of the 11^th National People’s Congress, the Minister of Education Yuan Guiren claimed that the saying was inaccurate. Actually the issueis that how the migrant children take matriculation exams after they receive compulsory education in the migrant areas. The saying could be misunderstood as “college entrance examination immigrants” who seek to improve the probability of being enrolled. It will cause divergence of the identification definition for the migrant children. Nevertheless, its connotation has been widely accepted. The major media all use the saying of “matriculation for migrant children” when they report related issues. Furthermore, its connotation derived from the matriculation issue for the children of migrant workers to the issue for the children of non-agricultural migrants. In this paper, the saying refers to the issue that children of all migrants take matriculation exams outside their registered address.

After carefully reviewing the Advance Coalition faith, policy learning process and the role of policy subsystem of the college matriculation policy for migrant children in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, this paper believes that according to the policy making and change in the central government and the three representative municipal governments, the fundamental cause of policy changes lies in the conflicts between the original system and the social, economic and international contexts. As long as the system is unable to perform its function, the government will make changes to meet the requirements of the time. The immediate motivation for policy changes is the interest demands displayed by the policy actors through their faith system, and the adaptation process of policy subsystem.The changes of the college matriculation policy for migrant children suggest two policy change paths: the induced institution change path, in which the changes are induced by the stakeholders’ pursuit of potential interests and exogenous variables in the institutional environment; and the compulsory institution and policy change pathdominated by the government during the transfer from informal institutions to formal institutions. The former change is achieved through conscious actions based on the mutual recognition of the stakeholders, whereas the latter one is realized through compulsory measures by the state or governmentsdriven by the potential interests. In spite of the different causal mechanisms, these two sorts of pathsact on particular policy changes alternately orsimultaneously. For the interrelationship between policy institution and environment, a prominent phenomenon is the conflict between the original institution and the actual demand of social mobility. The change of college matriculation policy for migrant children itself is not the overall patterchange. Instead, it belongs to the innovation or evolution of a specific policy on the premise that the basic development pattern has been established. Since the higher education resources are sort of public products, the management system determined by the government is a prominent factor for the realization or increase of the interests of the stakeholders (Pareto Improvement). Besides, the informal concepts, habits, attitudes, ethnic and public opinions will influence the behavior choice of the stakeholders in an invisible way. That is the reason why the changes of the matriculation policy and many other policies bear the political imprint and the imprint of the time.

Interest system and faith system have reflected the common challenges China is now facing: themaking and implementing of public policy stays in a multi-valued environment and involves a wide range and a large number of stakeholders. Due to the great impact, the policy changes are affected by various factors. The change of college matriculation policy for migrant children demonstrates that the policy actors may change the policy through the indirect factors of the power structure of policy subsystem, basic rules and culturalenvironment. China is entering a period of dramatic social transformation, the stakeholders rapidly differentiate and integrate, and there are distinct discrepancies of the expectations and requirements for the metrication policy reformamong various stakeholders.The key to promote the cooperation of the stakeholders is to create a new system of balanced interest mechanism. Under this system, the group rationality can be achieved based on the individual rationality of the stakeholders. Probably this is the only way to achieve cooperation betweenthe stakeholders.