SECONDARY EDUCATION IN CHINA : Challenges and Priorities

1. SECONDARY EDUCATION IN CHINA:Challenges and Priorities YANG Jin B.Sc M.Ed Ph.D Deputy Director-General Department of Basic Education Ministry of Education, P.R.China Dr YANG Jin

2. Contents • Background of education development and reform • Enhance equity and quality of general secondary education • A SWOT Analysis of Vocational Education in China • General Remarks Dr YANG Jin

3. 1. Background of education development and reform Dr YANG Jin

4. General social and economic policies • Building a well-off society all-roundly • Improving the socialist market economic system • Developing a new type of industrialization which includes higher scientific and technological intensity, better economic benefit, less environmental pollution, better use of the advantage of human resources • Adhering to people centred, well-rounded, coordinated and sustainable concept of development • Making great efforts to build a socialist harmonious society Dr YANG Jin

5. Major Challenges • Clear trend of the globalization of production and work, major multinational manufacturing and trading companies move their production and service into China. • Market mechanism has played a more and more important role in social and economic life. • Very fierce international economic and technological competition, the Chinese enterprises are facing heavy pressure for technological innovations. • The innovations of enterprises and improvement of efficiency lack strong qualified human resources support. Dr YANG Jin

6. Manufacturing is China’s comparative advantage, and China is in the process to become the “world factory” (the third largest producer of the world). The manufacturing sector constitutes: • GDP: 40％ • Revenue: 50％ • Urban Employment: 50％ • Rural migrant workers: 50％ • Export: 80％ • Foreign exchange income: 75% Dr YANG Jin

7. In 2001, on average, the employees in the manufacturing sector of China received 9.47 years of education, but that of Japan was 12.33 years. • In 2004, on average, the population of 15 years old and above had received about 8 years of education, similar to education level of the USA population 100 years ago. • The average productivity of a worker in China’s manufacturing sector is 1/23 of an American worker, 1/25 of a Japanese worker and 1/18 of a German worker. Dr YANG Jin

8. The Education System in China Schooling year Age 27 22 Ph.D 26 21 25 20 24 19 Master’s degree 23 18 22 17 21 16 Bachelor’s degree 20 15 本 科 Higher vocational ed. 19 14 18 13 17 12 General high school education Vocational high school education 16 11 15 10 14 9 Vocational middle school education General middle School education 13 8 12 7 11 6 10 5 9 4 Primary education 8 3 7 2 6 1 5 4 Pre-school ed. 3 Dr YANG Jin

9. 2004 Major Data of the Education System Dr YANG Jin

10. Expenditure on Different Types of Education in China (2002) RMB 548,002,776,000 Yuan Source: The Educational Finance Statistics Yearbook 2003. Beijing: China Statistics Press. Dr YANG Jin

11. Dr YANG Jin

12. Quantitative development target: Universalizing 15 years of education is one of the major targets in 2020: • 3-year preschool education; • 9-year compulsory education; and • 3-year high school level of education, the ratio between the enrollment of the general and vocational track will reach and remain 50:50. Dr YANG Jin

13. 2. Great efforts to enhance equity and quality of general secondary education • Improving education provision in rural and western areas • Making great efforts to carry out curriculum reforms • Expected changes of teaching/learning pedagogy Dr YANG Jin

14. Improving education provision in rural and western areas • 800 million of the 1.3 billion people of China live in the rural areas. Of the students receiving secondary education, 70% is in the rural areas. • The Central Government of China has been earmarking special funds for building boarding schools, providing free textbooks and subsiding living expenses for students from poor families and promoting modern distance education. Dr YANG Jin

15. Making great efforts to carry out curriculum reforms • From Sept. 2005, new curriculum is going to be implemented for all new enrollment in junior secondary schools Dr YANG Jin

16. Fields of study Subjects Credits Chinese 10 Language and literature Foreign language 10 Mathematics Mathematics 10 Ideology and Politics 8 Course structure in general high school Humanity and social science 6 History Geography 6 Physics 6 Science Chemistry 6 Biology 6 Technology Technology 8 Art Art 6 Physical education and health Physical education and health 11 Exploratory study activities 15 Practical activities Community service 2 6 Social practice

17. Some features of the new curricula • Curriculum matter relates more to real life context; • More practical hands-on experiences; • More project-based inquiry learning; • Leave rooms for local and school based curricula • Offer more choices to students (core and optional modules) Dr YANG Jin

18. The Planning of Curriculum Reform for High School Education

19. Challenges to curriculum reform • Developing inquiry-based, high-quality teaching materials • teachers’ professional development • Unified university and college entrance examination • Changing concept of quality of education Dr YANG Jin

20. Source: World Bank (1996) World Development Report 1996: from plan to market. Oxford University Press. Dr YANG Jin

21. Expected changes of teaching/learning pedagogy • From teacher-centred approach to student-centred approach • From the delivery of knowledge to foster the students’ creative competence • From paying attention of the commonalities of students to paying attention of the individualities of students • From paying great attention on “good learners” to paying great attention on students with learning difficulties • From a rigid and examination-oriented type of assessment to a formative and “value-added” assessment system Dr YANG Jin

22. 3. A SWOT Analysis of Vocational Education in China • Strengthens • Weaknesses • Opportunities • Threats Dr YANG Jin

23. Strengths • The system of vocational education has been formed, and the size of enrollment is increasing; • There are several thousands of key vocational schools which have relatively favourite educational resources; • Vocational and technical teaching/learning resources have been created in many fields of courses; • Intrinsic development capacity of vocational education has been formed particularly due to the learning of international good practices such as the dual system of Germany, CBE of Canada, TAFE of Australia and BTEC of the UK; Dr YANG Jin

24. Weaknesses • The management of vocational education is compartmentalized and it’s hard to form congruent development policy; • The concepts of running vocational schools are out of date, and methods of teaching and learning obsolete; • The system of the administration of vocational schools is quite rigid and schools have got less autonomous power for operation; • Many vocational schools are in rather poor conditions, there are acute shortages of and practical training resources and qualified teachers/instructors; Dr YANG Jin

25. Opportunities • The central government of China has attached great importance to the development of vocational education; • The adoption of the scientific concept of development has create favourable conditions for vocational education; • There are great demands for skilled human resources in the labour market; Dr YANG Jin

26. Threats • Social and culture barriers: many people still think vocational education is inferior to general education and most junior secondary school leavers would like to apply for general high schools; • Budgetary financial resources for vocational education is very much limited, and some students and their parents cannot afford to pay tuition fees of vocational schools; • The responsibilities of trades and enterprises for running vocational schools have been weakened, and private sectors’ involvement in vocational education is limited; • The employment permission system and the vocational qualification system are incomplete, and there are difficulties for vocational schools students to get vocational qualifications; Dr YANG Jin

27. Major policies for strengthening vocational education • Improve conditions of vocational schools by establishing more “model” vocational schools as well as practical skill training bases; • More financial support from the central and local governments; • Reform the teaching and learning process; • Enterprises’ and private sectors’ strong involvement in vocational education; • Improve the national qualifications framework; • Enhance political and economic welfare of skilled workers; Dr YANG Jin

28. The trends of teaching and learning reform of VET • Concreted educational aims and goals of VET program • Functionalizing general education within VET • Actionalization of the teaching/learning process • Actualization of vocational knowledge and skills • Flexiblization of regulation and control • Diversification of curricula and teaching materials • Socialization of quality assessment and assurance • Localization of management authority and responsibility Dr YANG Jin

29. 4. General Remarks • In the last 20 years or so, China has made tremendous progress in social and economic development. But, after all, China is still a developing country. • China is running the biggest education system which enrolls 20% of the world’s students with only 2% of the world’s educational funding, so education in China has to be cost-effective. • On the one hand, education in China needs to inherit Chinese cultural and educational traditions, on the other, it needs to keep up with the trend of globalization. Dr YANG Jin

30. International Education Development Dr YANG Jin ©Knowledge for Development WBI

31. Thanks yj1@moe.edu.cn -86-10-66096369 Dr YANG Jin