以1978年党的十一届三中全会胜利召开为标志，我国社会改革的序幕正式拉开。改革首先从经济领域开始，并很快对我国政治及社会其他领域的改革产生了深远的影响。随着改革的不断推进，人们开始关注政府职能转变问题，试图通过调动社会各方面的积极性，来提高公共服务的质量和效率。政府教育职能的变迁就是在这一大的社会背景下开始的。为实现“初步建立起与社会主义市场经济体制和政治体制、科技体制改革相适应的‘教育新体制’”的改革与发展目标，1985年5月颁布的《中共中央关于教育体制改革的决定》正式拉开了高等教育管理体制改革的序幕，它标志着建国以来所形成的政府“全包”教育，高等学校办学自主权缺失的局面开始被打破。如何形成一个既有利于政府进行宏观管理，高等学校又有较大的办学自主权的新型的政校关系，成为了改革的主思路。对于政府职能的讨论，并不仅仅是一个应该“加强”或者“弱化”的问题，它更多的体现为在哪些领域政府应该发挥积极的作用，以维护社会公共利益的实现；而在哪些领域政府又应该退出，将其不该管也管不好的事情交由社会自己去处理。要想实现上述目标，政府职能确定时的价值基础就是一个非常重要的问题。本文将政府公共性作为政府职能确定的价值基础，由此出发对政府职能及政府的教育职能进行理论上的阐述。政府公共性是指政府在依法行使公共权力的过程中，既要保障公共利益的实现，充分履行其为公众谋福祉的责任，又要尊重社会组织的自主与独立，保障社会组织的自治性时所具有的性质。将政府公共性作为政府职能确定时的价值基础，就需要用公共性来引导和约束政府职能的界定，为政府权力介入社会生活设置价值的规范，逐渐理顺政府与社会之间的关系，使得政府更好地为社会进步和经济发展服务。对政府教育职能的界定也遵循这一思路，要求政府在履行其教育职能时，既要有利于高等教育的健康有序发展，确保公共利益的实现；又能尊重高等学校的自主性与独立性，保障高等学校的办学自主权，避免政府对高等学校的过度干预。通过对我国不同时期相关政策文本的解读而对政府教育职能进行实然层面的描述，从政府公共性这一视角来挖掘20世纪80年代以来我国政府教育职能到底发生了哪些变化，尚存什么样的问题，进而为我国政府教育职能的展望奠定现实的基础。纵观我国20多年来的高等教育体制改革实践，总体来说，它反映了中央决策层伴随着对政府公共性认识的不断深化而对政府的教育职能进行更加适当与理性的调整，践行着“在加强宏观管理的同时，坚决实行简政放权，扩大学校的办学自主权”的改革主思路。然而，有一个倾向是我们不能忽略的，那就是伴随着市场在高等教育领域的影响力日益强大，在高等学校获得了法人地位之后，高等教育领域开始出现权力失控的现象。自此，政府有通过直接的行政调控而对高等学校的办学自主权重新进行控制之嫌。政府公共性又显示出倒退的端倪。本文通过挖掘政府教育职能尚存问题的原因、借鉴西方国家政府与高等学校关系的经验，进而在政府公共性的视角下对我国的政府教育职能进行展望，使政府在依法行使公共权力的过程中，既要追求高等教育公共利益的最大化实现，同时也要尊重高等学校的自主性，保证高等学校办学自主权的真正实现。

Marked by the victory of the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee in 1978, the prelude of our national social reform has been officially pulled open. The reform was initiated first in economic field and soon exerted a profound influence in politics and reforms of other fields. As it proceeded steadily, people became aware of the problem of government functional transformation and attempted to mobilize people in all walks of society to raise the quality and efficiency of public service. That is the background of transformation of government educational function. To realize the target of reform and development that “Build a preliminary ‘New Education System’ which corresponds with structural reform of social market economy, politics and science”, The Decision on Reform of Educational System by the Central Committee of The Communist Party of China in May 1985, formally, set the reform of management system of higher education, which marks a break in the educational situation since the founding of China that institutions of higher learning lack self-decision and government “Decide Everything”. It becomes main thought of reform about how to form a new government-school relationship that can enable easy management of government and great autonomy of institutions. For the discussion of government functions, it's not only an issue about something should be "strengthened" or "weakened", but also an issue about in which areas should the government play an active role to safeguard the realization of public interests, and in which areas should the government stay out and leave the matters that are not within its jurisdiction to be disposed of by themselves. In order to achieve the objectives above, we should place great importance to the value basis when determine the government functions. The essay puts public nature as basic value of government function, from which point a theoretical elaboration of government function and its educational function is made. Public nature of government means that in the process of public authority execution, government should both ensure realization of public interest to fulfill its obligation of seeking well-being for people and respect autonomy of social organizations to attach great importance to nature of society and the public when they participate in public affairs and interact with each other. To put public nature as basic value of government function is to lead and restrict it with the public nature and to introduce norm of social life value to government authority so as to rationalize relationship between government and society to enable a better service for social progress and economic development. Define of government function abides by this thought also to enable higher learning a healthy and orderly development and autonomy and independence. Thus when government is performing its educational function, it can both realize public interest and ensure autonomy of higher learning to avoid overdue intervention of the government. Government educational function is described from the practical respect according to interpretations of relevant policies in different periods of our nation to study from the perspective of public nature of government to explore changes and problems of its educational function since 1980s. Prospect of government educational function is based on this reality. Practices of structural reform of higher learning in the past two decades, generally speaking, reflect that the central decision-makers make a more appropriate and rational adjustment as their understanding of public nature deepens. They are implementing main thought of reform that “when strengthening micromanagement, resolutely practice simple policies and devolution and extend running autonomy of schools”. However, there is a tendency that can not be ignored that as influence of market to education field grows, power is getting out of control after schools become legal representatives. As such, government is suspected to manipulate running autonomy of schools by direct administrative domination. Meantime, government public nature is inclined to lose. The essay studies the remaining problem of government educational function and draws experiences of western government-school relation to give a prospect from the perspective of its public nature. So when government is executing its public power in accordance with the law, it has to base on public needs of society and people to maximize public interest of higher learning. Also, it has to consider autonomy of institutions of higher learning to ensure its successful achievement.