On the Position of the Education Law in the Legal System and Its Codification

Over the past three decades, there has been no agreement in the debate on the positioning of education law in the legal system, which indicates that we should not follow the traditional mindset, but create new research paradigms. The legal system is not immutable. The structure of the legal system and the position of education law are influenced by many factors including the separation and integration of public and private sectors, the evolution of the relationship between nation and society, the binary distinction between public laws and private laws, the construction of education governance system, and the soft-law orientation of education law. The ongoing social transformation of Chinese society has led to the creation of a public domain, a private domain, and a third sector in between. Legal regulation of education is no longer limited to the traditional public law branch, but has taken on a branch-crossing nature. The stability of and social compliance with education law will be enhanced only by way of its systemization, which can help it become a legal regulation mechanism featuring multi-party participation and various forms. The systemization of education law can be achieved through legalization or codification; the stage of systemization is indispensable no matter what theoretical position and practice approach are adopted. The only thing that needs to be considered is how to choose a faster and better way to achieve the systemization of education law.