A large number of international studies have shown that education plays a significant role in poverty reduction, enhancing individual capabilities, human capital, and social mobility, and promoting economic and social development (UNESCO, 2020). Against this global context, China has established education poverty alleviation as an important component of its national poverty reduction strategy and achieved the complete elimination of absolute poverty in 2020 (China's MFA, 2023). Although there has been an increasing number of studies on China's education poverty alleviation policies in recent years, studies that adopt a social group perspective and focus on policy satisfaction are still relatively insufficient (Chen, 2019). This study takes Sichuan Province of China as a case and focuses on the implementation of education poverty alleviation policies. Sichuan Province has a large population, complex terrain, uneven regional development, and includes multiple national-level contiguous poverty-stricken areas. It has long been a key area for poverty alleviation work in China (The People's Government of Sichuan Province, 2015). Although Sichuan has achieved the national poverty alleviation goal simultaneously with the rest of the country, poverty alleviation requires continuous policy evaluation to prevent the risk of relapse and enhance long-term policy effectiveness. In this context, examining the effects of education poverty alleviation policy implementation from the perspective of public satisfaction has potential research significance.

The overall objective of this study is to evaluate the outcomes of education poverty alleviation policies in Sichuan Province from a social group perspective, with a particular focus on public awareness and satisfaction with these policies. By shifting the analytical focus from policy texts and macro indicators to the actual experiences of social groups, this study aims to bridge the research gap between policy design goals and public experiences. To achieve this objective, the study raises the following three research questions: (1) During the period from 2016 to 2020, which education poverty alleviation policies and specific measures were implemented in Sichuan? (2) How did the social groups in Sichuan perceive and evaluate these education poverty alleviation policies? (3) What are the potential paths for enhancing the satisfaction with education poverty alleviation policies in the future?

At the theoretical level, this study adopts the basic needs theory and the human capital theory as the analytical framework. The basic needs theory regards education as a fundamental need for human development, emphasizing the responsibility of the government in ensuring educational equity and equal opportunities (UNESCO, 2020). From this perspective, educational poverty alleviation is not only an economic means but also a necessary condition for realizing social rights and human development (Nakamura, 2020). The human capital theory understands education as a long-term investment, highlighting the role of education in enhancing individual productivity, increasing income, and promoting macroeconomic growth, and demonstrating the rationality of government intervention and public education investment (Schultz, 1960). By integrating these two theories, this study conceptualises the significance of educational poverty alleviation policy implementation from the dual perspectives of social equity and economic efficiency.

This study adopted the post-positivist research paradigm and employs a mixed research methods approach to analyze the implementation outcomes and public satisfaction of education poverty alleviation policies in Sichuan Province, China. Post-positivism emphasizes the existence of objective reality while acknowledging the necessity of explanation through multiple evidence sources, and is applicable to research on policy implementation and effect evaluation (Saunders et al., 2023). Under this paradigm, this study combines qualitative and quantitative methods to enhance the explanatory power and credibility of the research conclusions. The research strategy adopted a combination of case study and online questionnaire survey. Sichuan Province was selected as the research case, and the research time range was from 2016 to 2020. The case study part was based on public secondary data, including educational poverty alleviation policies and statistical data released by the Sichuan provincial government and relevant departments, as well as reports from international organizations such as UNESCO, UNDP, and World Bank. Through the organization and descriptive analysis of policy content and related indicators (such as educational investment, teacher-student ratio, and compulsory education coverage rate, etc.), the implementation background and effectiveness of Sichuan's educational poverty alleviation policies were comprehensively presented. The quantitative research part employed an online anonymous questionnaire survey, aiming to examine the social groups' perception and satisfaction with the education poverty alleviation policies. The questionnaire referred to existing satisfaction scales for policies and was adjusted based on the characteristics of the education poverty alleviation policies in Sichuan. It consisted of 23 items, covering dimensions such as basic information, policy understanding, policy satisfaction, and future improvement pathways. Some items were in the Likert scale format. The questionnaire was distributed through snowball sampling, with respondents including policy beneficiaries, policy implementers, and the general public in Sichuan. The data will undergo reliability, validity tests and descriptive statistical analysis using SPSS, and will be comprehensively analyzed in conjunction with the case study results. In terms of ethics, this research has undergone ethical review. The questionnaire survey was conducted anonymously, and personal privacy information was not collected. All data were sourced from public sources or collected with informed consent, and were properly stored and used solely for academic research purposes.

This is a case study and a large-scale questionnaire survey (sample size 6,315) on the education poverty alleviation policy in Sichuan Province. The study initially indicates that the education poverty alleviation policy in Sichuan is relatively systematic in terms of financial input, school construction, teacher support, and student aid. The policy has wide social coverage and the overall policy satisfaction is at a relatively high level. Society generally recognizes the positive role of education poverty alleviation in improving the educational level, the situation of poor families, and promoting educational equity. Among these policies, the direct aid policies for in-school students, employment-oriented policies, and school infrastructure construction have received high evaluations. However, the study also found that there were differences in satisfaction among different policy types. The perceived awareness and satisfaction of vocational education-related policies are relatively low, and the income and long-term incentive mechanisms for teachers have been repeatedly mentioned as key areas that need improvement. Based on this, this study does not regard the conclusion of this master's thesis as the end, but rather as the starting point of a continuous tracking study. The next stage of the research plan is to return to some of the original survey areas in Sichuan under the premise of re-applying for ethics review, and conduct semi-structured interviews. This study will focus on the individual feelings and satisfaction changes of policy beneficiaries, policy implementers, and social groups in recent years. Through longitudinal comparison of policy experiences in different periods, this study hopes to gain a deeper understanding of the continuous impact of education poverty alleviation policies in the post-poverty alleviation stage, and provide empirical evidence for the long-term evaluation and optimization of education policies.

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