Quality (‘suzhi’) education reform in China: Its overview, conflicts, and social impact
1. Introduction
While China’s economical reform has seen impressive growth and results over the decades, continued and sustainable development in a knowledge-based economy is dependent on a modernised workforce that is able create and innovate. As such, the Chinese government has poured tremendous resources and effort in reforming the education system that favours all-round development over rote-memorization and examinations (Lin, 2010). This ideal is referred to as “suzhi jiaoyu”, roughly translated as “quality education”, emphasizes on a holistic education of well-rounded individuals to advance the qualities of the population. The central government has …show more content…
The central government officially introduced quality “suzhi” education in 1993, focusing on moral, political, and all-round development education and curriculum reform and experimental teaching detailed in the “Cross Century Quality Education Project” (Lin, 2010; Dello-Iacovo, 2009). Key directives taken by the government are the reduction of student workload, limiting school hours, mandatory 12 weeks of breaks, and the ban of labelling “keypoint” schools (Hulbert, 2007; Dello-Iacovo, 2009). Experimental learning included a reformed curriculum of integrating science, technology, society with personal experience and extra-curricular activities. And as such, education reform efforts culminated in the New York Times story featuring Meijie, a Harvard student who have experienced the forefront of quality education. Meijie’s re-education was in the form of experiencing a “less hierarchical, broader, and more flexible education”, producing kids’ news segments at the age of 9 and working on a government site designed for teens at the age of 13. She was directly impacted by experiential learning initiatives and was placed in an ordinary school as a top student instead of prestigious middle schools. Instead of taking the college entrance examination with her classmates, she went to …show more content…
Internal Tensions and Conflicts of the education system
3.1. Latent function and Conflict Perspective: Dichotomy of ideal and reality
There are many instances of mismatch between the ideals of the central government’s directives and actual implementation of quality education. This circumstance can be explored using the manifest and latent function concept of the functionalist perspective, whereby the intended purpose is not met, resulting in the unintended function of quality education policies. Liu and Dunne (2009) wrote that China’s educational reform started with the devolution of authority to the local government to improve efficiency, effectiveness and diversify funding. Though manifest purpose of the central government was of good intentions, the latent function resulted in the creation of a stratified local education market. The case study by Liu and Dunne (2009) on three schools of different levels located in the same region illustrated a negative relationship between funding and school status versus compliance with quality education policies. While the higher-achieving school, with abundant private funding, was highly coveted by parents and students and offered a quality education curriculum, the lower-performing school lack the necessary funding and resources to include extra-curricular classes. This further exacerbate the disparity and stratification between the urban and rural population, who not only lack the full benefit of quality education curriculum, but has
1. Introduction
While China’s economical reform has seen impressive growth and results over the decades, continued and sustainable development in a knowledge-based economy is dependent on a modernised workforce that is able create and innovate. As such, the Chinese government has poured tremendous resources and effort in reforming the education system that favours all-round development over rote-memorization and examinations (Lin, 2010). This ideal is referred to as “suzhi jiaoyu”, roughly translated as “quality education”, emphasizes on a holistic education of well-rounded individuals to advance the qualities of the population. The central government has …show more content…
The central government officially introduced quality “suzhi” education in 1993, focusing on moral, political, and all-round development education and curriculum reform and experimental teaching detailed in the “Cross Century Quality Education Project” (Lin, 2010; Dello-Iacovo, 2009). Key directives taken by the government are the reduction of student workload, limiting school hours, mandatory 12 weeks of breaks, and the ban of labelling “keypoint” schools (Hulbert, 2007; Dello-Iacovo, 2009). Experimental learning included a reformed curriculum of integrating science, technology, society with personal experience and extra-curricular activities. And as such, education reform efforts culminated in the New York Times story featuring Meijie, a Harvard student who have experienced the forefront of quality education. Meijie’s re-education was in the form of experiencing a “less hierarchical, broader, and more flexible education”, producing kids’ news segments at the age of 9 and working on a government site designed for teens at the age of 13. She was directly impacted by experiential learning initiatives and was placed in an ordinary school as a top student instead of prestigious middle schools. Instead of taking the college entrance examination with her classmates, she went to …show more content…
Internal Tensions and Conflicts of the education system
3.1. Latent function and Conflict Perspective: Dichotomy of ideal and reality
There are many instances of mismatch between the ideals of the central government’s directives and actual implementation of quality education. This circumstance can be explored using the manifest and latent function concept of the functionalist perspective, whereby the intended purpose is not met, resulting in the unintended function of quality education policies. Liu and Dunne (2009) wrote that China’s educational reform started with the devolution of authority to the local government to improve efficiency, effectiveness and diversify funding. Though manifest purpose of the central government was of good intentions, the latent function resulted in the creation of a stratified local education market. The case study by Liu and Dunne (2009) on three schools of different levels located in the same region illustrated a negative relationship between funding and school status versus compliance with quality education policies. While the higher-achieving school, with abundant private funding, was highly coveted by parents and students and offered a quality education curriculum, the lower-performing school lack the necessary funding and resources to include extra-curricular classes. This further exacerbate the disparity and stratification between the urban and rural population, who not only lack the full benefit of quality education curriculum, but has