Educational think tanks are an important starting point for promoting the modernization of the national education governance system and governance capacity. Educational think tanks focus on national public policies, important strategic issues and educational hot and difficult issues that people care about. They can build a "public policy discussion space" covering the Party Committee and government, the CPPCC Central Committee, mainstream media and the public, and play a role as a link and catalyst in policy makers, academia, society and even the international community.
Educational think tank is an important way to realize the close cooperation between the "inner brain" and "outer brain" of the party and the government. As the "external brain" resources of the party and the government, educational think tanks need to establish a mutual trust relationship with the "internal brain" resources of the party and the government, effectively connect supply and demand, and interact deeply, and become a "think tank" that the government wants to use, will use and cannot do without; The "inner brain" plays the role of guiding and promoting the "outer brain".
Educational think tank is an important window to carry out "second track" diplomacy and realize effective communication between China and foreign countries. The development of educational think tanks is inseparable from the gathering of first-class talents. World-class educational think tanks all take the construction of an international, highly educated and interdisciplinary talent team as an important starting point for development. They can carry out "second track" diplomacy on behalf of the government, that is, carry out bilateral or multilateral international exchange activities between official diplomacy and non-governmental exchanges. Therefore, the construction effect of educational think tank is also the embodiment of national educational soft power.
Research on the Present Situation of Educational Think Tank Service Decision-making
Many educational policies draw lessons from the achievements of educational think tanks. Educational think tanks are also actively establishing research teams, strengthening research capabilities, actively acquiring resources and projects, and forming a multi-level and complementary healthy competitive relationship including official, semi-official and private think tanks. However, in practice, there are still some problems to be solved urgently.
First, the decision-making of educational think tank service is not procedural, institutionalized and normalized. Influenced by the traditional decision-making system, most party and government decision-making departments follow the line of top-down, first inside the party and then outside the party, and the decision-making system is relatively closed. In addition, the state has not specified the relevant contents of the educational decision-making consultation system in detail, and the informal communication channels are not smooth, which leads to the lack of participation of think tanks and stakeholders in some party and government educational decisions.
Second, the scientific level of decision-making consultation in educational think tanks needs to be improved. Influenced by the "circle structure" of educational think tanks, the independence of official think tanks is relatively lacking, university think tanks are easy to be out of touch with social needs, and social think tanks are easy to face embarrassing situations, leading to "scattered, weak and small" development and low decision-making influence. For example, some think tanks do not attach importance to front-line research, which leads to poor pertinence of their suggestions, and the service form focuses on a single thematic compilation or briefing, resulting in less in-depth processing of results and long submission period, which leads to the loss of timeliness of results.
Third, educational think tanks have broken the complete "policy circle" of participation. The existing assessment indicators of educational think tanks are biased towards high-level instructions. For this reason, the decision-making consultation of think tanks pays more attention to the front-end links such as policy agenda setting, discussion, policy report and internal reference writing, and does not participate in the follow-up links such as policy consultation, policy implementation, policy evaluation and policy feedback modification, resulting in a lot of repetitive work in think tanks, which makes it impossible to evaluate and feedback the implementation of policies in time.
Fourth, the all-round functions of educational think tanks have not been effectively integrated. Educational think tanks serve decision-making, innovate theory, guide practice and lead public opinion, which is a process of integration and complementarity. Some think tanks pay more attention to single function and ignore the overall transformation effect of think tank results.
Four paths of service decision-making of educational think tanks
Strengthen the top-level design. The state should issue opinions on government purchasing decision-making consulting services, clarify the important position of different types of think tanks and the responsibilities of party and government decision-making departments, establish consulting mechanisms for major and routine matters, and explore the road to industrialization of decision-making consulting; Give full play to the advantages of big data and "internet plus" and establish a decision-making consultation demand release mechanism and a think tank information sharing platform; Establish a "revolving door" mechanism between the party and government decision-making departments and educational think tanks, and narrow the gap between academic and political levels by rotating government officials to think tanks or seconding think tank personnel to government departments as consultants; Strengthen the openness of the decision-making process, announce the adoption results of think tank suggestions to the public and accept social supervision; Establish an evaluation system and accountability system for educational think tanks that focus on applied research such as consultation, process management and result orientation, and rationally supervise the services provided by educational think tanks.
Improve the scientific level of educational think tank achievements. Educational think tanks should find a balance between theory and application, academics and politics, independence and service, and strengthen team building by selecting high-end innovative talents, building leadership teams, and establishing consulting and political backbone talent pools. Find out the needs of decision-making departments, strengthen cooperation with schools, associations, enterprises and international educational think tanks at all levels, establish educational quality evaluation standards suitable for national conditions, and then accurately diagnose educational practice problems; Integrate the demands of different interest groups, carry out forward-looking, strategic and reserve research, and provide targeted policy suggestions to decision makers through research reports, seminars and lectures.
Play an indispensable role before, during and after decision-making. Educational think tanks should give full play to their own advantages, build a decision-making service system driven by basic data information base, and transition from the traditional service role of "slapping the head" to the technical support role focusing on investigation, data collection and analysis, modeling and calculation. Realize the backward and downward shift of business focus, publicize, interpret and evaluate educational policies, find problems in the implementation of educational policies through practical research, adjust the direction of research services in time, and then provide scientific evaluation feedback, continuously improve educational decision-making, and make decision-makers credible and available.
Pay attention to the organic combination of various functions of educational think tanks. Educational think tanks should adhere to the correct direction while serving decision-making, innovate the presentation, dissemination and application of educational theories and achievements, strengthen policy education, and effectively promote the improvement of teaching practice and the ecology of educational public opinion. We can cooperate with government departments to promote the rational trading of knowledge and the construction of knowledge market, transform scientific research achievements into productive forces, and provide effective support services for regional education and even national educational exchanges. In the context of globalization, we should also strengthen the integration and cooperation with international think tanks, promote the international dissemination of results, and provide effective solutions for global education governance.