CHINA'S RECENT CURRICULUM REFORM: PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS

Abstract

In China, the most recent curriculum reform of basic education1 began with the National Congress of Education held by the Chinese central government in 1999. Since the decision to implement well-rounded quality education nation-wide, which was made by the central government at that congress, curriculum reform has been emerging as a centerpiece of basic education. This is seen in the key documents issued by the State Council (State Council, 2001) and the Ministry of Education (MoE) (MoE, 2004a). Stated another way, the central government has seen curriculum reform as a vehicle for holistic reform of education. Although the curriculum of basic education in China has experienced several waves of change since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the past changes have never been as profound as this recent one (Zhong, Cui, & Zhang, 2001, p. 3). The essential rationale for this assertion is that the momentum for this current curriculum reform results from the changing economic and political contexts of China over the past 20 years (see Table 1). When The People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, China copied, for ideological reasons, the pattern of economic and political systems from the former Soviet Union. The planned economy and centralized governance of China that resulted did not change until the 1980s. In 1984, the Chinese central government made a historic decision to shift China's economic system from the planned economy to the market economy. This change in the economic system, inevitably, called for a relevant change of China's political system because the new market economy would not operate well if there was not a suitable political system to match it. Consequently, the political system of China started to step toward the new orientation of decentralization and democracy (Yang, 1999, p. 7). The changes in its economic and political sectors (described in Table 1), which occurred from the 1980s through the 1990s, gradually accumulated in a high demand for a profound reform in education, especially in the curriculum of basic education. In this sense, the most recent curriculum reform of China is really a fundamental and systematic change. It is based on a framework of policy formed by eight components: purpose and objectives, curriculum structure, curriculum standards, learning and teaching process, development of instructional materials, evaluation systems, teacher preparation and development, and implementation of curriculum reform (MoE, 2001). After laying out this policy framework, this article discusses the progress and problems associated with its implementation over the past four years in 38 pilot districts that span China's 27 provinces. The author argues that the foremost challenge to the current curriculum reform in China is to find solutions to the implicit, rather than explicit, problems such as the problem of cultural dilemmas for school leadership that result from conflicts between Western and Chinese values and practices. The Policy Framework for the Curriculum Reform The Ministry of Education issued the Compendium for Curriculum Reform of Basic Education (trial edition) in 2001 after long preparation and review. In this compendium, the framework of the policy was given and the eight components of the framework were described in detail. The underpinning assumptions and values of this curriculum reform can be read between the lines of the text (MoE, 2001; China Education Research Network, 2001). Description of the Eight Components Component 1: Purpose and objectives. There is one purpose: educating students by implementing well-rounded quality education. There are six objectives: 1. Shifting from a narrow perspective of knowledge delivery in classroom instruction to a perspective concerned with learning how to learn and developing positive attitudes 2. Shifting from isolation among subjects to a balanced, integrative, and selective curriculum structure 3. …