Material for the press conference of the State Council Information Office 

Pushing Forward the Scientific Development of Educational Undertaking and Striving to Build up an Education System to the People’s Satisfaction

-----An overview of the implementation of the National Outline for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010-2020)

(September 6, 2012)

Ministry of Education

In July, 2010, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council convened the first National Working Conference on Education of this century, and issued the National Outline for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010-2020), defining the directions for the scientific development of China’s educational undertaking. The conference, together with issuance of the National Outline, has opened a new historical journey for China to stride forward from a country with a rich human resource into one with a strong human resource. Over the past two years, in line with the requirements of “attaching priority to development, taking cultivation of people as the foundation, carrying out reforms and innovations, promoting equity and improving quality”, governments and education institutions at all levels have made great efforts to push forward the scientific development of the educational undertaking, strived to run education to the people’s satisfaction. By now, some results begin to emerge.

I. Adherence to attaching top priority to educational development and forming a concerted effort to promote the educational reform and development

Over the past two years, giving priority to educational development has become a consensus of the whole Communist Party of China and all social sectors. A concerted effort to promote the educational development has taken shape throughout the country. Firstly, the relevant authorities of the government at all levels have joined hands in pushing forward the educational reform and development. The State Council has set up a National Leading Group for Reform in the Education System, with membership of 20 departments of the Party, the government and the social sector, and established a task decomposition mechanism for implementation of the National Outline. The CPC committees and governments at all levels regarded attaching priority to educational development as the Top Leader’s Project, and the index of education development was brought into the performance assessment system of the leaders at all levels. A new mechanism of close collaboration and concerted efforts has taken shape across the country. Secondly, solid steps have been taken to implement the “three priorities”. The local governments have adhered to coordinating the social and economic development with the education development, while underlining the guiding, supporting and driving role of education in the national strategy, regional development and industrial upgrading. Efforts have been taken to guarantee priority in the government spending on education and overall arrangements have been made to ensure its statutory growth, to expand the channels of financial resources and to achieve a reasonable allocation of the funds. It is expected that the government spending on education will account for over 4% of GDP in year 2012. Persistence is attached to guarantee that public resources should first meet the needs of education and human resource development, to ensure a healthy growth of students, to improve the operational conditions of education institutions at all levels and to promote the coordinated development of education of various kinds and at all levels. Thirdly, all social sectors have formed concerted efforts in promoting educational reform and development. The National Education Advisory Committee, first of its kind in the Chinese history, was set up. The first group of 64 members comes from various sectors and industries. The Committee conducts investigation, argumentation and evaluation of key policies on educational reform and development. Efforts have also been made to encourage the social forces to be involved in school management, by setting up parents committee in schools, by forming 43 industrial steering committees for vocational education, and by exploring the system of university council or board of directors. Through the above methods, education institutions, families and the society all get involved in the educational reform and development.

II. Adherence to cultivating people as the foundation and boosting students’ healthy growth in a well-rounded way

Students are regarded as the principal subject of education and full play is given to their initiative, so as to boost their healthy growth in a well-rounded way. Firstly, moral education is given top priority. The Guidelines for Integrating the System of Core Socialist Values into School Education was promulgated and a program for overall planning of moral courses in universities and schools was launched to build up a complete moral courses system with clear objectives, scientific contents, reasonable structure, linkage through schooling stages and proper sequence. The Outline of Moral Education in Secondary Vocational Schools was revised and the Interim Standards of the Courses on Ideological and Political Theories in Higher Education Institutions was issued, so as to bring the latest results in China’s localization practice of the Marxism theories into the textbooks, classrooms and student minds. Secondly, competence building is regarded as the emphasis. The curriculum standards of compulsory education were revised comprehensively. Exploration was taken in establishing mechanisms such as disclosing curriculum arrangements to rectify actions on increasing students’ workload. National demonstration bases of social practice for schools were set up to enhance education of students through practical activities. And a National Expert Team was formed to draft a training plan to strengthen education in innovation and entrepreneurship. Thirdly, the well-rounded development is upheld. The public disclosure systems of the National Student Physical Health Standards and of the results of the University Entrance Physique Tests were established and improved. Great efforts were made to carry out the Sunshine Sports for Hundreds of Millions of Students to ensure that each school student participate in sports activities for one hour each day.  Special supervision was carried out on school sports activities.

III. Adherence to reform and innovation and injecting vigor and vitality to the education development

Systematic designing was enhanced to promote comprehensive reform. The implementation of the 20 key reform programs of critical importance was organized at the national level. The 425 reform projects in important areas and in key links were carried out as pilot projects by provincial governments and/or relevant authorities. Encouragement and support were given to all local governments and education institutions to take bold experiments in line with the spirits of the National Outline. During the past two years, such pilot projects have been carried out on a large scale and progresses have been achieved in certain key areas. Firstly, the reform on talent training system has been deepened. In basic education, teaching reform was undertaken in full operation, by setting up a new curriculum system based on the requirements of quality-oriented education, and by vigorously advocating teaching methods of heuristic teaching, inquiry learning, open classroom and participatory teaching. In vocational education, efforts were made to energetically promote talent training models of integration of school learning and workplace practice, school-enterprise cooperation and the on-the-job internship. Up to 600 vocational education groups were formed, covering 50% of secondary vocational schools and 90% of higher vocational institutions. In higher education, a pilot program was launched on training outstanding students excelling in basic disciplines, and a number of other programs on training excellent engineers, doctors, legal professionals, agricultural and forestry talents. The Action Plan on Collaboration between Research Institutes and Education institutions in Talent Training was also launched and put into implementation. Some 17 higher education institutions were selected to carry out pilot projects for comprehensive reform of colleges. Secondly, reform was taken in the examination and admission system. The National Steering Committee on Educational Examinations was set up to conduct investigation and formulation of the reform plan and to provide guidance on pilot projects. The General Office of the State Council forwarded the Opinions on Granting Access to the Children of Rural Migrant Workers Finishing Compulsory Education at Places of Residence to Examinations for Further Education formulated by the Ministry of Education and other relevant authorities. And in principle, all provincial governments will, within the year, release their respective specific program on granting access to the children of rural migrant workers to take examination for further education. Thirdly, a modern university system with Chinese characteristics is taking shape. The Interim Measures for Formulating Higher Education Institution Charters and the Regulations on Faculty and Staff Representative Congress of Higher Education Institutions were issued. Research was taken to formulate the Implementation Outlines on Rule of Law of Higher Education Institutions. Public selection of two university presidents for Northeast Normal University and Southwestern University of Finance and Economics and chief accountants for six universities including Southeast University were carried out. Fourthly, reform on schooling system was deepened. The Ministry of Education has set up an office for non-public education, and issued policies on encouraging and directing non-public investment in education. In year 2011, 5 non-public higher education institutions were approved to undertake pilot projects in offering graduate programs granting master degrees. The National Open University, Beijing Open University and Shanghai Open University were officially inaugurated. Fifthly, reform on the management system was accelerated. Guided by the requirements on building up the modern vocational education system and life-long learning system, the Department of Vocational and Adult education of the Ministry of Education took charge of the administration of higher vocational and diploma education, distance and continuing education. A new Department of Comprehensive Reform was set up to coordinate issues related to education reform. The coordinating power of provincial governments on education was also strengthened. Sixthly, opening-up of education was further expanded. The national people-to-people exchange mechanism with the USA, the Russian Federation, the EU and the UK were established successively. By end of 2011, 358 Confucius Institutes and 500 Confucius Classrooms have been established in 105 countries and regions. Shanghai New York University, a joint effort between East China Normal University and New York University, and Wenzhou Kean University between Wenzhou University and Kean University were both granted official approval. Up to date, close to 1500 Chinese-foreign joint-run institutions and projects have been established.

IV. Adherence to promoting equity and protecting effectively the people’s right to education

During the past two years, great efforts have been made to grant policy preference to the central and western regions, the rural areas and the disadvantaged schools, to narrow the gap in education development. Firstly, the regional gap was narrowed. The Collaborative Admission Plan for Supporting the Central and Western Region was continued to implement. In year 2012, a Special Admission Plan for Contract Students from Poor Areas was launched with an annual enrollment of about 10,000 students for the first-level undergraduate programs, which accounts for an increase of 10% in number of student enrollment from poor areas for first-level universities. Exploration was taken to formulate the Higher Education Rejuvenation Program for Central and Western China. The Program on Capacity Building of Higher Education Institutions in Central and Western China was launched. The partnership support for all higher education institutions in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Tibetan Autonomous Region was set up and secondary vocation education classes in inland China for Tibetan and Xinjiang Uygur students were set up, forming up a comprehensive system to provide middle school education, secondary vocational education,  diploma education, undergraduate education and postgraduate education in inland China to train human resources at all levels and of various types for the ethnic minority regions. Secondly, the rural-urban gap was narrowed. In years 2010 and 2011, the Central Government has invested 5 billion RMB yuan and 16.8 billion RMB yuan to support the Project on Renovating Disadvantaged Compulsory Education Schools in Rural Areas and the second phase of the Project on Renovating School Buildings of Junior Middle Schools in Central and Western Regions. The Project of Special Teaching Positions for Rural Compulsory Education Schools has employed 110,768 teachers for over 20,000 rural schools in 21 provinces in central and western China. Since year 2010, the Central Government has invested 5.6 billion RMB yuan to Pilot Project on Building Temporary Dormitories for Teachers Serving in Remote and Disadvantaged Areas, which has newly built or renovated 105,000 flats. Thirdly, the gap between schools was narrowed. The State Council promulgated policy document on further promoting balanced development of compulsory education and regulating the distribution of compulsory education schools in rural areas. The Ministry of Education has signed MoUs with each province (region, municipality) and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, to clarify the time table, roadmap and tasks for achieving balanced development of compulsory education in each area. Strict regulation was imposed on the procedure to reduce or merge compulsory education schools to ensure full engagement of local people and to monitor the decision-making process. Fourthly, the level of financial aid has been raised. Over the past two years, a number of projects has been set up to provide financial aid for pre-school education, to improve nutrition for rural compulsory education students, to provide financial aid to regular senior middle school students from families of economic difficulties, for veterans to receive higher education and for newly enrolled university students from families with economic difficulties. To date, a comprehensive financial aid system from preschool to postgraduate education has been established to support students from families with economic difficulties. In years 2010 and 2011, a total number of 156 million students from regular higher education institutions, secondary vocational schools, secondary middle schools and compulsory education schools were granted the financial aid, totaling 183.676 billion RMB yuan. Both figures marked historical records. In year 2011, the enrollment rate of the children of rural migrant workers in public schools reached 79.4%. Special attention was also given to left-behind children and efforts were made to solve their problem in attending schools, by building up an education and management network for them with active participation of local governments, communities, schools and families.

V. Adherence to improving quality and promoting the internal development of education.

Over the past two years, the framework for quality assurance has been strengthened. Firstly, policy orientation has been set. Great efforts were made to promote well-rounded education and student’s all-rounded growth in moral, intellectual and physical sense, and to cultivate their sense of social responsibility, innovation spirit and practical abilities. The development of a modern framework for vocational education has been accelerated with exploration on formulating the Development Plan of Modern Vocational Education Framework. A meeting was convened on raising higher education quality comprehensively, issuing the Opinions on Raising Higher Education Quality in an All-Round Way together with 18 complementing documents. The “2011 Program” with the theme of collaborative innovation was launched, and a new round of the Program for Vigorous Development of Philosophy and Social Sciences in Universities was launched and implemented in full scale. Secondly, the quality assurance framework has been improved. The investigation on quality standards for performance of all courses in basic education was launched to explore establishment of a green indicator system on quality of school students’ performance. A Leading Group and Expert Panels were set up on formulating professional teaching standards of secondary vocational education to ensure professional teaching in vocational schools develop in a scientific and standardized way. National teaching quality standards for regular undergraduate education and advanced vocational education, as well as the basic requirements for master and doctoral degrees are also in formation. In August 2012, Provisions on Education Inspections was adopted by the State Council, and the State Council Education Inspection Committee was set up. In the past two years, the Ministry of Education has successively issued documents on inspection and evaluation of preschool education, balanced development of compulsory education at county level, secondary vocational education and undergraduate teaching of higher education institutions, all of which constitutes a relatively complete inspection and evaluation framework. Public participation in education inspection and evaluation has also seen growth, and public satisfaction became an important indicator for inspection and evaluation of balanced development of compulsory education at county level. The sense of principal role of education institutions in quality assurance has also been enhanced, as 39 universities of the Project 985 published their annual reports on undergraduate teaching quality in year 2011, and all universities of Project 211 will publish their reports in year 2012. Thirdly, teacher development has been strengthened. In August 2012, the State Council promulgated the Opinions on Strengthening Teacher Development, and 6 documents were worked out with respective focuses on teacher development in rural compulsory education, preschool education, vocational education, special education, training for young university faculties, and deepening reform on teacher training. Recently, the National Teachers Working Conference will be held by the State Council to allocate tasks in teacher development. Over the past two years, by further implementing the Professional Ethics Standards for School Teachers, the Professional Ethics Standards for University and Secondary Vocational School Teachers were introduced, and Professional Standards for Kindergartens and School Teachers were issued. The high-level contingent of leading academics has also been strengthened, and universities have actively participated in such programs as the Thousand Talents Program attracting 64.4% of those recruited nationwide, and 78.7% of those recruited through the Young Thousand Program. Teacher training has been enhanced, with 3.5 million kindergartens and schools teachers in central and western China receiving training by the National Teacher Training Program since 2009, accounting for 95% of all those participated in the program. Measures have been taken to improve and enhance the free education policy for university students undertaking pre-service training for teachers, and to encourage and guide them to work at the grassroots level or to teach in schools in central and western China.