Reform as hybrid model of teaching and teacher development in China

Abstract

Efforts beginning in the 1990s to raise the qualifications and quality of China's teachers have brought about new regulations, standards and systems of accountability. Reflecing broader economic, social and political changes, new policies have moved to create more standard definitions of teacher quality and common forms of accountability. Yet what seems like a process of global convergence occurs in interaction with the persistence of more organic structures that have long been part of China's teaching cultures. Chinese educators appear to be constructing hybrid models that rely on insider and outsider expertise.

Introduction

World culture theorists have argued that over time there is growing convergence in the ideas about education, the notions of school and assumptions about and definitions of curriculum (Baker & LeTendre, 2005). Recent international and comparative efforts of OECD, IEA and others to characterize teachers, their education and status appears to be offer evidence of convergence—that not only is there a growing, shared sense of the place of schooling in society, but that there is an assumption that schools require teachers who are professionally trained. One might read these international efforts as indication of a desire to explore, make comparable, and, in effect, set standards, for what should be entailed in such training.

Considering the situation of teacher and teacher development in China with a long tradition of its own cultures of teaching and learning (Paine, Fang, & Wilson, 2003), one finds a picture that both supports and complicates these arguments about global convergence. In this article, we focus primarily on inservice teachers and teacher development. We argue that the nature of Chinese teachers’ work is changing, responding to curriculum reform and its embedded notions of the good student and good teacher. Teacher reforms represent a growing site of policy action. One key focus of reform involves the subjects, processes, and responsibility for professional development. The methods of professional development, as well as the standards, reflect both the tremendous diversity of educational condition in China and some increasing pulls to regulate, set standards, and monitor outcomes. These reforms reflect broader economic, social and political changes, and they connect China to a globalized and interconnected world. “Modern” approaches—such as the use of technology—connect the hinterland to the center in China, and in so doing also connect China more to the rest of the world. At the same time, some teacher reforms involve institutionalization of traditional, local practices of teacher development. Therefore, we argue that the “case” of teacher accountability in China is one of hybrid forms, where we see both global and local practices and images in play (Anderson-Levitt, 2003). Below we first provide a brief sketch of key reforms, then consider them in terms of processes of institutionalization, accountability, and globalization. In the end we highlight one example of a professional development effort, a Shanghai-developed “action education” approach, which encapsulates many of these themes.

Chinese education has been undergoing reform in many sectors as wider economic and social transformations of the country have taken hold in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Since the 1980s, there has been an active and ongoing development of policies related to teachers. Zhou and Reed (2005) suggest that policies of the 1980s focused on repairing teacher education, while a second and third wave (in the 1990s and later, respectively) targeted issues of quality assurance and improving teacher quality. With the creation of the 1993 Teacher Law (Ministry of Education of China, 1993a),¹ for the first time teaching was formally identified as a profession and teachers’ qualifications for different levels of education were specified (http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info1428.htm). In the same year, another key central policy document, “Outline for Education Reform and Development in China,” (Ministry of Education of China, 1993b) specified new standards for teachers. Reviewing some 40 years of national development and looking ahead, it argued, “he who holds 21st century education in the palm of his hand will take an advantageous position in the 21st century international competition” (p. 1). It placed teachers at the center of this strategic mission: “A strong nation lies in its education; and a strong education system lies in its teachers” (p. 8). It suggested that building a qualified, balanced and stable teaching force is fundamental and aimed at forceful measures to raise teachers’ social status by improving the conditions of teachers’ work, study, and living so that teaching becomes the “most respected profession.” It made it a goal that, by the end of the century, the great majority of elementary and secondary teachers would have attained national academic qualification standards. Two years later, the system of certification and teacher licensure was proposed in Stipulations of Teacher Qualification Certification (Jiaoshi Zige Tiaoli) (Ministry of Education of China, 1995) and in 2000, more forceful guidelines with detailed procedures were issued to guide different levels of education administrations to implement the certification system. Since then, qualifications and standards for teachers have continued to rise, a system of certification has been developed,² and most recently licensure has been proposed.

These policy efforts represent increased specification and reinforcement of the standards for entry to teaching, even at the same time that the routes into teaching have grown more diverse in recent years. A previously monopolistic system of teacher education, relying on single-purpose teacher education institutions, now has opened up to include multi-purpose, comprehensive universities as well. Despite the institutional diversity and an apparent break from a highly centralized system of teacher education, the new era nevertheless involves attempts at control through regulation of policies related to the conduct of teacher education: “In 2004 the Ministry of Education launched 2003–2007 New Action Plan to Revitalize Education in which drafting standards for accreditation of teacher education institutions, curriculum of teacher education and quality of teacher education were outlined.” (Zhu & Han, 2006, p. 70)

Central policies have not restricted their focus only to governing entry to teaching, however. The policy emphasis for professional development in the 1980s, which concentrated on upgrading inservice teachers’ qualifications through further training, shifted as the teaching force generally met those targets, and by the 1990s the focus was on continuing education (Other-Ref: Paine & Fang (forthcoming), Paine & Fang (2007)). There have been increasing efforts to specify and create mechanisms to assure quality in continuing education. Shanghai, for example, instituted a new policy that required all teachers to complete a cycle of continuing education, accounted for in credits, for implementing the second cycle of curriculum reform (erqi kegai), and this policy has served as a model for the rest of the country.

The tradition of permanent employment, what was known conventionally as the “iron rice bowl,” has been challenged with the introduction of teacher contracts (Zhou & Reed, 2005, p. 209). Now teachers must, according to their terms of employment, satisfactorily meet regular inspection and evaluation. This represents a marked shift in control of teachers and their work; teachers actually can be fired. These policies aimed at regulating teaching and teachers do not exist in a vacuum. Other developments within Chinese education and society have helped produce the impetus for these reforms. In fact, a common justification found in each policy argument for the reform of teachers and teaching is a modernist one, reflecting visions of a modern, technologically driven society, where investments in human capital are considered crucial to economic development. Teachers and teacher education become the “machine tool” (muji) for the nation.

Arguments for the reform of teaching are not only couched in terms of development rhetoric about economic and social transformation, however. They also are tightly linked to other reforms in the education system. Among the most important is the reform of the primary and secondary school curriculum.

For many years, China's researchers, educators, and eventually policymakers criticized the dominant traditions of schooling. Many argued that schools emphasized academic achievement and promotion for the most talented. By “cramming” students with lots of knowledge, they made learning a heavy burden and killed a love for learning for learning's sake. Successful studies were, in effect, narrowly defined as the passive, speedy, and extensive accumulation of prescribed content. The new curriculum, begun experimentally in 2001 and gradually expanded to reach all grade levels by 2007, reflects those critiques and is a reaction against these traditions of schooling. The new curriculum aims at developing a new kind of ideal learner, one who loves learning, is able to solve problems in real-life situations through inquiry and creativity, and has the capacity to be a lifelong learner. This vision of a re-defined ideal student necessitates new expectations for what a qualified teacher does and what good teaching entails. The reformed vision of teaching requires a teacher to teach “students to be independent and self-initiated learners,” respect the student as a person, pay attention to individual learner differences, and meet different learning needs (China Education Daily, July 27, 2001, p. 2).

Professional development policy, in response to the curriculum reform, has made it a rule for teachers to “receive training before teaching the new curriculum” (Ministry of Education of China (2001a), Ministry of Education of China (2001b)). Efforts to institutionalize these new ideas have been organized chiefly through using a cascade model. This started with “seeding” reform-minded ideas through the training of “backbone” (gugan) teacher trainers. Through an investment of 17 million yuan, 10,000 backbone trainers were trained in 2003 with the goal of their leading full-scale training across the country (Su, 2003, p. 1).

The demand for new kinds of teachers, and new professional development, is particularly challenging given the unevenness of China's enormous teaching force.³ Given the growing disparities in wealth within the country, the State Council's Action Plan for Rejuvenating Education identified rural education as a priority area. To support teacher training targeted to the curriculum reform, the country appropriated 500 million yuan for teacher development in 372 poor counties in 15 provinces and autonomous regions (China Education Daily, December 25, 2003, p. 1). In addition, rural education development makes expanding vocational and technical education a key strategy (Ministry of Education of China, 2005b).