Spatial Equity of Basic Education Resources and Coordinated Regional Development in Xinjiang, China

Public services, including education, are important elements that affect people’s living standards. Promoting spatial equity in education resources is a crucial indicator of China’s coordinated regional development in the new era. Xinjiang, a border area and home to many ethnic minorities, is a relatively underdeveloped region in China. Optimizing the cross-regional allocation of basic education resources and forming a coordinated regional development is of great significance for achieving the general goal of social stability and long-term peace in Xinjiang. This study adopts a spatial equity analysis framework that incorporates spatial scale, time dimension, factor indicators, and educational stages. The Gini coefficient is used to examine the variability of spatial equity of educational resources in Xinjiang. Results show that the spatial variability of educational resources in Xinjiang increases as the spatial scale becomes lower. The coefficients of variability at provincial, prefectural, and county levels are 0.207, 0.257, and 0.302, respectively. The spatial variability shows an increasing trend before 2010 and decreases significantly after 2010. In terms of elementary indicators, the spatial variability of the number of schools per 10 000 people is the largest, with Gini coefficients in the range of 0.207-0.302. The teacher-student ratio has a Gini coefficient in the range of 0.068-0.174, and class size has a Gini coefficient in the range of 0.040-0.058. In terms of educational stages, the spatial variability is most prominent in elementary schools, with a coefficient of variation of 0.246-0.339. Senior high schools have a coefficient of variation of 0.220-0.260, while junior high schools are the most balanced, with a coefficient of variation of0.181-0.235. The study also discussed the coupling and coordination relationship between educational resources and regional economic development in Xinjiang. Economic development plays a facilitating role in promoting balanced education, and the coupling and coordination is higher in northern Xinjiang than in southern Xinjiang. The 14 regions and states in Xinjiang form a high-high coordination type, a medium-medium coordination type, and a high-low uncoordinated type. Finally, the study analyzed the reasons for the spatial equity variability of educational resources, including administrative governance levels, information technology construction levels, common national language penetration, and superior talent attraction environments.