|
Chen Xiaoya 
Vice-Minister of Education Mrs
Chen Xiaoya, graduated from Huazhong Science and Technology University
(former Huazhong Science and Engineering University), has been engaged
in educational administration over a long period of time. She has
rich experience in educational issues such as research and development
of macroscopic educational policy, management of higher education
and basic education. |
Challenges and Strategies: Quality EFA in China
In the next several years, the secondary education in China will confront with two big challenges: one is the highest number of school-aged learners, the other the increasing demands of people for receiving quality education. While the modernization step is being sped up, the rural education is still a weak link in the process, which needs to be strengthened.
Under such conditions, the government of China, as well as the whole society, should pay more attention to EFA, with more resources and financial support. The strategies for improving quality EFA include:
- Strengthening rural education to narrow basic education development gap between the rural and the urban, and between different regions. The government newly-increased budget for education will be mainly allocated to the rural areas. The Chinese government is implementing a programme and working hard to promote nine-year compulsory education in the Western poverty-stricken areas. We are also trying to carry out information education and ICT in education, by which, the quality educational resources will be shared by learners in the remote and rural areas.
- Implementing the new curriculum reform for junior high schools to enable educational contents and teaching methods adapt to the needs of the changing context. In addition, we are building favorable environments for learners’ creativity and initiation efforts, and cultivate their abilities to respond to changing society and to learn all through their lives.
- Further expanding the scale of senior high school. Through readjusting the current educational resources and mobilizing social ones, we are to provide graduates of junior high schools with more opportunities to enter into senior high schools.
- Strengthening professional training of education personnel, encouraging the community and people to participate in the learning process, help improving schools’ performance, and establish multi-function community learning centers.
As we all know that learning can change people’s life and help create a new world. The changing and developing times in which we live also need learning. We believe, through the joint efforts made by our government and people, through china’s cooperation with UNESCO and exchange with other nations, the EFA in china will achieve even greater progress. We are ready to share our experiences with international community.