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February 28, 2006 |
I. Major educational achievements during the 10th Five-Year Plan During the 10th Five-Year Plan, under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, the educational sector in China continues to adopt Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thoughts of Three Represents as the guidance and to set up and implements a rational philosophy of development. We have consolidated achievements, deepened reforms, improved quality and pursued sustainable development. New progresses were scored for the nation’s education reform and development, making new contributions to the nation’s modernization process and socio-economic development. (1). Education in rural areas has experienced fundamental changes and new progress made for the universalization of nine-year compulsory education The CPC Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance
to education in rural areas. During the 10th Five-Year Plan, the State
Council held National Working Conference on Basic Education and National
Working Conference on Education in Rural Areas, specifying educational
development in rural areas as a strategic priority. The central government
initiated and implemented a series of projects and policies aiming to
accelerate the development of education in rural areas, such as the
State’s Compulsory Education Project in Poverty-Stricken Areas,
The Project for the Reconstruction of Dilapidated School Buildings in
Rural Primary and Secondary Schools, and the Project for Making Breakthroughs
in Universalizing Compulsory Education and Eradicating Illiteracy among
Middle and Young-aged Groups in Western China. Through these projects
and policies, condition for education provision in rural areas, especially
in poverty-stricken areas, has been greatly improved and the difficulty
of schooling for students from poor families has been further relieved.
At the end of 2005, the State Council decided to reform the funding
assurance system for compulsory education in the countryside, thus bringing
rural compulsory education expenditure into the overall public funding
assurance framework. This strategic measure will benefit millions of
farmers and bring fundamental changes to compulsory education in rural
areas. (2). Secondary Vocational Education developed with readjustment and the scale of High School Education has been significantly expanded During the 10th Five-Year Plan, the State Council held two National Working Conferences on Vocational Education. In the conferences, it was clarified that vocational education will be service-based and employment-oriented. Vocational education has incrementally realized the change from being plan-based to market-oriented, from the direct involvement of the government to the macro-management of the government, from the traditional graduation-oriented to employment-oriented. To meet the nation’s need in new industrialization and find out solutions for the problems in agriculture, rural areas and farmers, the Chinese government adopted Training Program in Vocational Schools for Urgently-needed Talents in the Manufacture and Service Industry and Training Program for the Transfer of Rural Labor Forces. In 2005, China had 15,591,900 students in secondary vocational schools, 2,747,300 more than that of 2000 with an annual increasing rate of 3.95 percent. In 2005, the total enrollment of secondary vocational education reached 6,640,000, fulfilling the earlier-set target of recruiting 1,000,000 more students than the year 2004. The sliding of secondary vocational education has been successfully reversed. In the meantime, non-degree education and training at various levels have also witnessed robust development. During the 10th Five-Year Plan, 403,467,200 person/times were trained through various types of vocational education with an annual number of 80,690,000 person/times. At the same time, the scale of high school education has been rapidly expanded with significant increase in the gross enrollment rate. In 2005, students in senior secondary education (including regular high schools, adult high schools, regular secondary special schools, vocational high schools and adult secondary special school) amounted to 39,900,900, 14,719,700 more than that of 2000 with an annual increase rate of 9.64 percent. The gross attendance rate reached 52.7 percent in 2005, a 9.9 percent increase over the year 2000. During the 10th Five-Year Plan, the number of regular high school students has been doubled. In 2005, it amounted to 24,090,900, representing an increase of 12,078,300 students of the year 2000 with an annual increase rate of 14.93 percent. (3). Higher education gains a steady and sound growth, contributing to the social and economic development in terms of human resource and knowledge In 2005, there were 23,000,000 students recruited by various higher education institutions (HEIs), 10,710,000 more than that of the year 2000. China has realized the internationally recognized “mass higher education”, with a gross enrollment rate of 21 percent, an 8.5 percent increase of that of year 2000. In 2005, 6,972,500 students were newly recruited by HEIs (including regular HEIs, adult colleges and postsecondary/technical colleges), 3,204,900 more than that of 2000, with an average annual increase of 13.1 percent. Among those, 5,044,600 were admitted to regular HEIs and postsecondary/technical colleges, an increase by 2,838,500 of that of the year 2000, with an average annual growth rate of 17.99 percent. In 2005, 364,800 students were admitted to graduate schools, 236,300 more than that of the year 2000, with an average year-on-year increase of 23.21 percent. Also in 2005, a total number of 978,600 postgraduate were studying on campus, 677,400 more than that of the year 2000, with an average annual increase of 26.58 percent. The capacity of education provision and social contribution of HEIs has been further improved. The 211 Project and 985 Scheme have successfully moved forward. Teaching quality has been improved and greater importance attached to the students’ capacity of innovation, hands-on application and entrepreneurship. Statistics show that HEIs play a greater role in solving important social and economic problems than before. During 10th Five-Year Plan, HEIs have won 75 National Natural Science Awards, 55.07 percent of the total; 64 National Invention Awards, 64.4 percent of the total; 433 National Science and Technology Progress Awards, 53.57 percent of the total. Among them, there is one First Prize of the National Science Awards, and two First Prizes of the National Invention Awards, with the latter filling a 6-year blank. In terms of social science, HEIs also have actively participated in the research of Marxism theory. The Action Plan of Prospering HEIs’ Humanity and Social Sciences has developed smoothly, boosting the development of humanity and social sciences in HEIs. (4). Quality education and moral education have gained a new momentum Quality education has been comprehensively promoted with the central government taking the leadership and emphasizing breakthroughs in key areas. In September 2005, a new round of curricular reform in basic education was started with the participation of all primary and junior secondary schools across 31 provinces/autonomous regions/municipalities and the senior secondary schools in 4 provinces/autonomous regions/municipalities. Great efforts are being made to improve the teachers’ quality, particularly in rural areas, to balance the development of compulsory education and to reform the poor schools, so as to create a favorable environment for further promoting quality education. Meanwhile, in order to better implement the CPC Central Committee’s directives on promoting moral education of minors as well as university students, efforts have been made to formulate a system of moral education for primary and secondary school students, which integrates moral education of primary schools, secondary schools and universities together to improve the purposefulness, effectiveness, attractiveness and influence of moral education in China. As part of the campaign, the curriculum reform and textbook development have also been strengthened while the party building among educational sector has been further enhanced as well. (5). All the reforms have been deepened to create a more stable basis for educational development Progress has been witnessed in reforming and improving the management mechanism of education. The new mechanism for rural compulsory education has been established in which “the State Council takes the leadership, local governments assumes the responsibility with proper division of management and the county-level governments takes the main the main responsibility”. A new mechanism for vocational education has also been preliminarily established in which “the State Council takes the leadership, local governments at various levels undertakes the main responsibility for educational provision with proper division of management, governments provide coordination and overall planning and the whole society participate in this process”. In addition, the mechanism for higher education has been also improved, in which a two-tiered management system involving both central and provincial governments take shape with the latter assuming the major role. With the acceleration of the reform on schooling regulations, non-governmental education has made rapid growth. In 2005, there were 30,575,500 students taking formal and non-formal programs in non-governmental institutions, an increase of 16,854,500 of the year 2000, with an average annual increase of 17.38 percent. The framework, in which government plays a major role with contribution from various social sectors, and public and non-state institutions advance together, has further been formulated. Great progress is made in educational legislation. The Law on the Promotion of Non-state Education, Regulations on Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools and their respective implementing measures are issued, while breakthroughs are made for the amendment of Compulsory Education Law and the preliminary research for a series of important amendment and legislation, therefore improving the educational legislation system at large. International cooperation and exchange in education has being enhanced, improving the international competitiveness of China in the field of education. Mechanism for regular consultations with relevant countries has been established and multilateral cooperation has been actively promoted. The Ministry of Education of China actively plays its role in UNESCO and other international organizations. The amounts of Chinese students studying abroad and international students coming to study in China have greatly increased, and the on-schedule return rate of overseas governmental sponsored Chinese students and scholars has reached 97 percent. The international promotion of Chinese as a foreign language has made new breakthroughs. For example, the Chinese Bridge Project has been carried out and the development of Confucius Institute in other countries has made encouraging progress. Moreover, those studying Chinese in other countries and regions have outnumbered 30 million. (6). We have earnestly solved focus problems with most difficulty and worked hard to ensure that educational provision meets with the needs of the public Efforts have been made to financially aid the students from poor families and the policy of “two remissions and one subsidy” (remission of miscellaneous fees and textbook fees, and the subsidy of a living allowance for boarding students) has been fully implemented. In 2005, 34,000,000 students from poor families in central and western regions were supplied with free textbooks. In the 592 counties under a national poverty alleviation program, students from poor families receiving compulsory education have all enjoyed the remission of miscellaneous fees. Loans for poor students have also been carried out in accordance with new policies and mechanisms. Indiscriminate collection of educational fees is resolutely curbed. The single-fee system for schools offering compulsory education has been practiced in 31 provinces, which actually has relieved the economic burden of the public and effectively prevented unreasonable collection of educational fees from further spreading. With the charging activity being standardized, people’s satisfaction with education is further enhanced. In addition, problems in university enrollment have been earnestly dealt with as well. The Sunshine Project has been implemented, and more open and transparent enrollment system established and perfected to better accept supervision from the public and the media. The employability of university graduates is further improved. In 2005, the amounts of university graduates reached 3,380,000, a new record in history. With the austere employment situation of the whole society, the employability of university graduates has been progressing smoothly in general and the rate of graduates immediately finding a job after graduation is being kept at over 70 percent. The educational situation of children of migrant workers has greatly developed and education for children in rural areas has attracted great attention. The development of Chinese education in the 10th Five-Year plan shows that our strategy of taking education as the priority is more materialized, the achievement of education development is refulgent, and reform is fruitful. Rapid educational development has realized the goal of changing China from a country only with a huge population to a country with rich and valuable human resources. By 2004, the average schooling year of those over 15 years old reached 8.3 years. More than 70, 000,000 had received education at or above the levels of secondary and higher education. The general education level of the work forces has improved from primary education to junior secondary education. II. The main goals and tasks of educational development during the 11th Five-Year Guidelines On the fifth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCCPC), it is proposed that the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education and the strategy of strengthening the country by human resources will be unswervingly carried out. It is also proposed that education will be placed on a priority status in the nation’s modernization process. Also on this session, China’s educational reform and development during the 11th Five-Year Guidelines has been clearly clarified. The Outline for educational development in China during the 11th Five-Year Guidelines is being drafted and our preliminary ideas are as following. First, under the theoretical guidance of Deng Xiao-ping Theory and Three Represents, with quality-oriented education as a main theme, we will try to cultivate builders and successors who are fully developed morally, intellectually, physically and aesthetically for our socialistic mission. Secondly, with popularization, development and improvement as main tasks, which means to universalize and consolidate compulsory education, vigorously develop vocational education and improve the quality of higher education, we will promote the all-round, coordinated and sustainable development of educational undertakings. Thirdly, with the reform of educational system and mechanism as a main force, we will enhance the dynamics of education and continue to provide educational services which can satisfy the public so as to usher China’s educational reform and development into a new stage The main objectives of educational development for the 11th Five-Year Guidelines are as the following. We will completely popularize the nine-year compulsory education across China and cover 100 percent of the relevant age groups. We will achieve more development in pre-school education and special education, increase the enrollment rate of senior secondary education to nearly 80 percent, and fulfill an equivalence in the enrollment of the secondary vocational education and general secondary education. Furthermore, the gross enrollment rate of higher education is expected to reach 25 percent and vocational training, further education and adult education of various forms will witness more development. The establishment of a learning society will enter into a new era. For the above mentioned purposes, we will try our best in the following aspects. 1. We will fully implement the educational policy of the CPC and the nation, and substantially promote quality education We will continue a student-centered policy to cultivate constructors and successors with full development morally, intellectually, physically and aesthetically for our socialistic cause. We will also strengthen the moral education for pupils and college students and to explore the most effective methods to make moral education more purposeful, efficient, attractive and appealing. We will take a correct attitude towards education, and promote the reforms on basic education curriculum, training patterns, teaching contents and teaching methods in order to enhance the quality of education. Additionally, we will adopt measures to reduce the overloaded burden of the students by correcting the wrong attitude which only emphasizes on the attendance rates of graduates to the next stage education. Meanwhile, we will strengthen and improve physical and aesthetical education by encouraging and organizing students to take part in all kinds of productions, social activities, volunteer programs and rich on-campus activities. We will improve the abilities of teachers to implement quality-oriented education. Moreover, we will reform and improve the examine evaluation system to establish a reasonable evaluation system which is in accordance with the demand of quality-oriented education. In addition, we will actively explore the reform of enrollment system, and strictly implement the policy concerning primary schools entrance (which means that pupils can be exempt from entrance exam, but they must choose schools in vicinity of their home) during the period of compulsory education. We will strengthen the combination of school education, family education and social education in order to call on the whole society to strive together to form a favorable environment for quality-oriented education. 2. We will try to fulfill the tasks of universalizing compulsory education,
developing vocational education and improving the quality of higher
education so as to promote a balanced and sustainable development of
education in China. Secondly, we will strive to develop the vocational education. We will
further establish the employment-oriented and service-oriented concept
to radically change of thought, model and development of vocational
education in order to meet the urgent demand for qualified labors and
skillful workers in the process of establishing a well-off society.
Vocational schools should base their education on the needs of our society,
market and social production and then take diversified training patterns.
Vocational education will mainly focus on vocational and practical skills.
At the same time, professional ethic education with commitment, honesty
and accountability as the core will be also emphasized. We will improve
the capacity of vocational education of contributing to the social and
economic development. For this, we will implement the National Training
Program on Skillful Workers?Training Program for Labor Force Transfer
from Rural Areas to Urban Areas?Training Program for Application Skills
in Rural Areas and Training Program on Further Education and Re-employment
Training for Adults. In terms of the infrastructure of vocational education,
we will try to improve the capacity building by implementing the Program
for Building Vocational Education Training Bases?Program for Developing
Vocational Education Centers in Counties?Program for Developing Exemplary
Schools in Vocational Education and Program for Improving The Quality
of Teachers in Vocational Schools. With all of these programs, we will
build 2000 vocational education application centers, 1000 vocational
education centers in countries, 1000 exemplary secondary vocational
schools and 100 exemplary senior vocational schools. In addition, we
will further expand the scale of vocational education and promote a
balanced development of vocational education and regular education. 3. We will intensify our efforts to teaching cohort building and to comprehensively improve the quality of teachers In this area, our efforts are mainly as follows. We will strengthen the establishment of a teaching cohort for primary and secondary schools, with an emphasis on rural areas. We will also strengthen the aiding partnership between teachers from cities and countryside while encouraging more university graduates to teach in rural areas. Effective training will be offered to teachers to help them substantially improve their capacity and a new teacher training system with more openness and flexibility will be created as well. In addition, we will reform the criteria of professional access and the payment system of teachers, introduce a new mechanism for the employment of all teachers and improve the incentive mechanism and self-obligation mechanism for teachers. We will prioritize the ethics of teachers when developing the teaching cohort. Furthermore, we will enhance the training of qualified bilingual teachers (Chinese and the ethnic language) for the ethnic minorities and of teachers with two qualifications (qualification in both theory and practice) for vocational schools. With new mechanisms and methods, the teaching cohort for vocational education at various levels will be greatly boosted. In higher education, we will implement the strategy of “developing the institution through human resources”, producing a group of academic masters with international excellence. In addition, we will also produce a large group of middle-aged and young leading academics and a number of groups which can undertake national key tasks and participate in international competitions. 4. We will Deepen educational reform and expand international cooperation The reform on management system will be further deepened. We will consolidate and improve the newly established management mechanism for compulsory education in rural areas, vocational education and higher education. In accordance with relevant laws and regulations, schools are given the authority for self-administration. Relations among government, schools and society will be smoothed out and a modern school system will finally take shape. We will promote the reform of running schools so as to develop non-state education and explore new models for educational development, which will then lead to a variety in educational development process. We will also continue to deepen the reform on internal management system and the personnel mechanism of schools. Educational legislation is another part of our efforts. Four existing laws are under amendment, namely Law on Compulsory Education, Education Law, Law on Higher Education, Law on Teachers, while five new laws are under drafting, namely Law on Academic Degrees, Law on Examinations, Law on Schools, Law on Lifelong Learning, and the Law on Educational Input. International cooperation and exchanges in education have been further strengthened. Teaching Chinese as a foreign language in other countries has been accelerated with more Confucius Institutes to be established. Meanwhile, steps are being taken to improve relevant regulations and to establish a system for the evaluation of quality of overseas educational services 5. We will improve the management capacity for a healthy educational development We will promote the stipulation of regulations concerning school management with the principles of “rigorous observation of school regulations and development of relevant norms and standards”. We will establish new mechanism for school management, which guarantees effective regulation, management, supervision and thrifty. In addition, we will enhance the capacity building of leading officials and intensify our efforts in corruption prevention by creating a punishment and prevention system which equally emphasizing education, system building and supervision. We will further improve educational auditing, regulate financial management of all educational institutions, especially universities, and ensure the safety of the funds. We also will correct various bad practices for the healthy development of education. 6. We will try to solve the problems of the common concern of the public and promote the openness, fairness and equity in education We will continue the socialist and non-profit nature of education and
to try our best to deal with the issues of common interests and ensure
that all the people will have an equal access to education. We will
further improve the policies and systems for providing financial support
to poor students and to increase our aiding efforts so that poor students
will complete their courses and studies. An aiding system for high school
students, particularly for those in vocational schools will be established.
We will also improve the facilitation mechanism for poor students in
HEIs with student loans as the main intervention, so that no students
will drop out of school because of economic difficulties. We will continue
the Sunshine Program in university recruitment to ensure the whole recruitment
process will be open, fair and justifiable. Moreover, we will try every
endeavour for the employability of university graduates and encourage
them to take the jobs at the grass-root level. We will also improve
the warning system on safety and the counter-plan for emergencies and
catastrophes. Health care and epidemic prevention will also be developed
to guarantee the safety, stability and peace of all schools. Finally,
we will take effective measures against unreasonable charges in the
field of education.
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