Discretion Under Resource Constraints: School Administrators and China’s Silver Age Teaching Program

Abstract

Population aging and the uneven distribution of public service capacity are accelerating countries’ efforts to encourage retirees to participate in public services. China’s “Silver Age Teaching Program” recruits retired teachers to work in rural schools with scarce educational resources, thereby improving basic education provision in under-resourced areas. This study takes Bobai County in Guangxi—the county with the largest number of teachers recruited under the program—as the research site. Drawing on street-level bureaucracy (SLB) theory and employing a qualitative case study design involving field observation and semi-structured interviews, we analyse how school administrators’ discretion reshapes implementation pathways and policy outcomes. We find that, under conditions of persistently high student enrollment, chronic teacher shortages, and broadly defined policy texts, administrators prioritize practical solutions to immediate operational challenges through situational role allocation, selective task assignment, and experience-based judgment. These discretionary practices produce several outcomes, including the practical contraction of developmental objectives, the institutionalization of a gap-filling implementation mode, and the instrumentalization of silver-age teachers’ roles.