Observations on the Education of China (Works by Zhu Yongxin on Education Series)

By Zhu Yongxin

China’s top education thought leader provides a thorough examination of the state of China’s education system—what’s working, what’s not, and what’s to be done

Observations on the Education of China is a guide to the current status of education and educational thought in China, based on the author's visits to nearly 100 schools in more than 20 provinces throughout the country.

Zhu contends that due to a wide diversity of educational methods throughout the nation, policy must be tailored to the unique situation of each particular area. He reveals the difficulties faced by headmasters, teachers, and officers, who spend nearly their whole lives on practical teaching, and the amazing creativity they use to overcome these issues and find solutions to a number of problems.

Zhu Yongxin (Beijing, China) is a member of National People's Congress Standing Committee, vice chairman of Association for Promoting Democracy (CAPD), and vice president of Chinese Society of Education (CSE). He also works as a professor and PhD supervisor in Suzhou University.

• Language: English
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
• Release date: Sep 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9780071838221

Book preview

Preface

There is now a very interesting phenomenon occurring in the education of China: an unprecedented strong demand for educational reform is being expressed by the whole of society; the satisfaction of the general public with education is falling; and scholars are appealing to learn from the educational experience of Western countries. At the same time, Western education experts are learning from the East, from China. For example, students from Shanghai topped the global ranking in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which attracted worldwide attention overnight.

The reform of education in China to date has brought us to where we are today. Is this right? Or wrong? In fact, it is difficult to draw a simple conclusion with regard to this complex issue.

As a university graduate from the 1980s and a scholar engaging in educational research for many years, I have visited more than 1,000 schools in over 20 provinces and cities across the country over the past 30 years. I have visited schools ranging from the renowned Beijing No. 4 High School, the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China, and Taipei Wego Private School, to rural schools, such as those in the old revolutionary base areas of Yan’an and the mountain areas of Guizhou, through research activities, meetings, making speeches, and voluntary teaching.

Through my travels, I have learned that, in such a vast country, not only should educational equality and balanced development be the primary consideration of the government in the formulation of educational policy, but also that the formulation of any educational policy must take into account the unique local situation. I have also discovered that although the education of China is faced with many difficulties, there are solutions, and there is infinite creative power among frontline educators. It is for these reasons that my book was called Education Is So Beautiful when it was first published.

This book is not only an educational travelogue; it is also an educational study. Through this book, through my recording and analysis of many regions and schools, readers will gain an understanding of what is happening in the world of education in China.

—Zhu Yongxin

June 4, 2014

1

Saibei and Jiangnan

In 2000, I teamed up with some online friends from the website Education Online (www.eduol.cn) to develop and implement a training program for teachers in western China at our own expense each summer. We went to a number of places, including An’ning City of Yunnan Province, Zunyi City of Guizhou Province, Dingbian County and Yan’an City of Shaanxi Province in both Saibei and Jiangnan,¹ and the tradition continues to this day. During this early period, I promoted the New Education Experiment (NEE)² across the country on weekends and visited numerous schools in various areas, including Cangnan County of Zhejiang Province and Baoying County of Jiangsu Province. I wrote the following reflections on these experiences when I had time off work. Passages about the education of the isolated regions of Beichuan County and Yueyuang City, which I have visited in the last two years, are also included in this chapter.

The North Parallels the South to Take Off—An Educational Trip to Dingbian

To promote exchange and cooperation between the twinning partners of Jiangsu Province and Shaanxi Province, the Communist Party of China (CPC) Suzhou Municipal Committee and the Suzhou municipal government appointed me to attend the completion ceremony of the hospital funded by Suzhou New Area in Dingbian County, Yulin City, Shaanxi Province, on July 31, 2002. Since I was going to set off at 6:30 a.m., I did my usual morning exercises online at 5 a.m. I checked out the Education Online guestbook and found that an individual with the username LIYM wrote, Professor Zhu, tomorrow, no, today, you will visit my county as a mayor, and I might have an opportunity to meet you. It was a message from an unknown friend in Dingbian left at one o’clock in the morning of July 31, which both surprised and excited me, as I realized that the Internet was truly connecting the entire world. Apart from this message, I had no inkling of Dingbian.

Dingbian is located in the northwestern corner of Shaanxi, bordering Gansu, Ningxia, and Inner Mongolia, in the transition between the Loess Plateau and the desert steppe of Ordos of Inner Mongolia. The county governs 11 towns, 14 townships, 334 administrative villages, and seven residents’ committees. Covering an area of 6,920 square kilometers, it has a population of 306,000, of which the agricultural population reaches 268,000. Divided by the Great Wall, the landscape is sand salt marshes in the north, accounting for 39 percent of the total area, and a loess-based hill-gully region in the south, accounting for 61 percent of the total area. The county is between 1,303 and 1,907 meters above sea level.

Dianbian boasts a long history of over 1,400 years, having been established in the Western Wei Dynasty (between AD 535 and 556). In the second year of the Yuan Fu Reign of the Northern Song Dynasty (AD 1099), Fan Zhongyan, a prominent politician and literary figure at that time, named it Dingbian, which means pacify the border. There are a large number of cultural relics and historical sites in this county, including Han Dynasty tombs and the Great Wall of the Sui and Ming Dynasties. Judged by the unearthed cultural relics and folk customs, Dingbian was where the Loess Plateau culture and the grassland nomadic culture met. It is also the homeland of Zhang Xianzhong, a leader of a peasant revolt at the end of the Ming Dynasty (AD 1368 to 1644), and an old revolutionary base liberated in 1936. The county has been poverty stricken since 1986.

By 2010, there were 117 schools in total in the county, of which there were two regular senior secondary schools, one high school (combining junior high and senior high school), 12 junior high schools, one nine-year coherent education school (combining a six-year primary school with a three-year junior high school), one vocational high school, one school for further teachers’ education, 61 primary schools, and 39 kindergartens. As of 2010, the number of students enrolled was 52,185: 21,510 in high schools, 1,581 in vocational school, 21,848 in primary schools, and 7,246 in kindergartens. In 2010, the junior high school graduation rate was 59.4 percent and 100 percent for the primary schools. Enrollment for school-aged children was 99.9 percent.

Government leaders of all levels in Dingbian have attached great importance to education. An official of the CPC Dingbian County Committee once said jokingly, At present, the central finances are sound, the provincial finances are tight, the municipal finances are a mess, the county finances are worse, and the township finances are the worst. The joke, though not quite accurate, more or less reflects the embarrassing status of finances at the lower levels of government. However, despite the tight government budget, Dingbian, adhering to the principle of prioritizing education in the budget infrastructure, has increased investment in education since the Ninth Five-Year Plan period (1996 to 2000) and has improved school conditions to some degree. It is estimated that RMB 35.8 million has gone into the Nine-Year Universal Education Project and the Compulsory Education in Underdeveloped Regions (Phase I) Project.⁴ Fourteen teaching buildings with a total area of 71,889 square meters have been built, and teaching equipment worth approximately RMB 5 million has been provided for 13 high schools and 19 primary schools. This investment has improved school conditions across the county. In 2001, as part of a program to renovate dilapidated buildings, the county appropriated RMB 8.4 million to renovate D-level⁵ dilapidated buildings in 63 schools, covering a total area of 17,821 square meters.

It is clear from my study that there is still considerable pressure for underdeveloped regions to universally implement nine-year compulsory education.

Of primary concern is that funding shortages have hindered the implementation of universal nine-year compulsory education. Requested by the provincial and municipal governments, the county government has accelerated the implementation of universal nine-year compulsory education since 2002. According to statistics, over RMB 80 million will be needed altogether to meet the minimum standards of the Nine-Year Universal Education Project, including RMB 29.19 million for the construction of new schools with a total area of 49,059 square meters, RMB 15.9 million for new libraries and labs with a total area of 26,449 square meters, and RMB 8.98 million for new office buildings with a total area of 14,890 square meters, plus additional funds for necessary library and lab equipment. According to these projections, even if the government were to squeeze out one-third of the disposable funds of RMB 122 million for the Nine-Year Universal Education Project in 2002, there would still have been a gap of RMB 40 million. Due to the tight government finances, it is impossible for the county to complete many infrastructure projects on schedule and according to required standards.

During my time in Dingbian, I visited Suzhou New District Hope Project Primary School in Nanyuanzi Village, Dingbian Town. Funded by the Administrative Committee of Suzhou New District, the Dingbian town government, and Nanyuanzi Village, with investments of RMB 0.6 million, RMB 0.28 million, and RMB 0.15 million, respectively, the school was completed and put into service in September 1998. Funded by the county, town, and village, with RMB 0.3 million in total, second-stage construction, including landscaping, road construction, and all other auxiliary construction, was finished in 2001. So far, it is the best school in the county. The school covers a total area of 9,338.8 square meters, with a floor space of 1,363 square meters. The teaching building consists of 12 classrooms divided among three floors. There are currently 486 students, eight classes, and six grades, as well as a preschool class. The administrative staff includes a principal, a vice-principal, and a dean of students. However, even as the best school in the county, there are barely more than 30 books in the library. As a consequence, most students have not read any extracurricular books. The school just cannot afford them. The school’s one and only television was donated by Suzhou New District. I presented a laptop and a scanner during my visit, which were presumably the most modern equipment among all the schools in the county.

A further issue affecting the implementation of universal nine-year compulsory education focuses on teachers’ salaries and benefits. In recent years, the government has adopted measures to ensure the payment of teachers’ salaries and improve their benefits. Now, teachers’ allowances, subsidies, and salaries are paid according to the national standard on a monthly basis without delay. To ensure salaries are paid on time, the government has opened a special account to pay teachers by bank card. There are 2,568 public school teachers in the county with a monthly salary total of RMB 3.4 million, which means the per-capita income for teachers in Dingbian is a mere RMB 1,320 per month. Although a small amount, the priority to pay teachers’ salaries can often impact other infrastructure projects, given that funding shortages are common.

What is noteworthy is the wages of substitute teachers. There are 1,151 substitute teachers in total in Dingbian. Seven of the 14 teachers at Suzhou New District Hope Project Primary School are substitute teachers (also called contract teachers), whose wages are only RMB 140 per month. The major reason for this low wage is that the government simply cannot afford to employ them, since the various allowances, subsidies, medical insurance, and other required expenses would increase government expenditures sharply.

A third issue affecting the implementation of universal nine-year education is the contrast between high schools and primary schools. Generally speaking, the conditions of the high schools are much better than those of the primary schools in underdeveloped regions. High school teachers are also paid a much higher salary than primary school teachers, and the facilities of high schools are incomparably better than those of primary schools. Let us take Dingbian County High School, which I visited, as an example. The school was founded in 1939 and called Shaanxi–Gansu–Ningxia Border Region No. 3 Normal School; in 1944, it merged with what was then Minzu University of China and was renamed Three-Border Public School; in the spring of 1948, it was renamed Three-Border Cadre School; in 1949, it was renamed Dingbian County Junior High School; in 1958, it became a high school consisting of both junior high and senior high classes; in 1963, it was designated as a county-level key high school; and in 1978, it was designated as one of the 114 provincial key high schools in Shaanxi Province by the Shaanxi Provincial Department of Education.

Dingbian County High School covers an area of 540,000 square meters, with a floor space of 234,000 square meters. There are 141 teaching and administrative staff (including 18 teachers with the senior professional title and 46 with the medium professional title; of the 141 teachers, one has received the National Outstanding Teacher Award, one has received the National Core Teacher Award, two have received the Provincial Core Teacher Award, and seven have received Teaching Master Awards at the city level or above). The school consists of 37 classes and 2,662 students.

The school library comprises approximately 50,000 volumes and subscribes to over 190 newspapers and magazines, and the reference room provides more than 120 audiovisual and computer-assisted instruction (CAI) software resources for teaching. The nearly completed multipurpose building is designed to house teachers’ and students’ reading rooms; 10 physics, chemistry, and biology labs with matching instrument, preparation, specimen, and model rooms; two Internet-equipped multimedia rooms; two language labs; a multifunction auditorium; music, arts, handicrafts, and sports rooms; a school archive; science and technology rooms; an observatory; a gym; a clinic; a document room; a broadcasting room; a teamwork room; and a printing room. Construction for a student apartment building funded by the school teachers and the community, which will be able to accommodate over 1,500 students, is also underway. A variety of modern teaching aids and equipment and instruments for sports, music, and art are provided to ensure that demonstrations and group experiments in science classes are possible. Interestingly, the individual who posted to the Education Online website as LIYM turned out to be the vice-principal of Dingbian County High School, Mr. Li Yanming.

The CPC County Committee Secretary has said, No matter how poor we are, we cannot deprive our children of the right to receive education. The government has made every effort to support education. Support to secondary education is the priority for educational funding among all counties in China for three reasons. First, funding directly influences the ability of students to receive a higher education. Second, it is relatively easy for high schools to raise funds by themselves. Lastly, limited government finances should be targeted to where they are most needed. Although it makes sense to target the areas most in need, how can the quality of the whole population be improved without comprehensively upgrading the quality of preschool and primary education? After all, a high-quality basic education should be the foundation of our society.

The trip to Dingbian brought tears to my eyes. I would like to encourage every child in Suzhou to donate a book to those in Yulin, and I also would like to organize good teachers in Suzhou and experts from Education Online to volunteer to teach in western China, but all this might still be just a drop in the bucket.

Financial assistance from sister cities in developed areas can only solve the superficial problems of underdeveloped regions. The fundamental solution is to increase the transfer payments from the central government and to tighten the supervision over those responsible in local governments. Again, I appeal to pay attention to rural compulsory education and pay attention to the balanced development of education.

I wrote the following at the completion ceremony for the hospital I visited in July 2002: The loess shares a scenic harmony with the waterside; the North parallels the South to take off! This is the common wish I share with Secretary Shang Hongze, which, I believe, is also the common wish of the people of Suzhou and Yulin, of eastern China and western China.

Waiting for the Bright Future—A Return Visit to Dingbian

Two years later, in 2004, I went to Dingbian once again. If it was by chance that I was brought to Dingbian last time, it is the fulfillment of my promise to revisit it that brought me here this time.

There are currently only mountain roads to get to Dingbian from Yan’an, although I have heard that a freeway is under construction. Accompanied by excellent teachers from Suzhou, experts from Education Online, and officials, I headed off at 1:30 p.m. Two staff members, of Yan’an College of Education, both surnamed Ma, came with us. Under a boiling sun, the un-air-conditioned car felt like a furnace. Although there was wind coming in from the outside, the wind was baking hot, too. Obviously, it was miserable for me, as I had become accustomed to air-conditioned cars. However, by seeing the others talking and laughing, I forgot the burning heat. I was not to be rid of the furnace until I transferred to CPC Dingbian County Committee Secretary Shang Hongze’s car, who welcomed me at the junction of Dingbian and Wuqi Counties.

I wonder why I became particularly attentive stepping out into Dingbian. I found that there seemed to be some green on the hills, which had been barren in the past. Secretary Shang informed me that the trees on the hills were saplings, while the trees lining both sides of the road, which comprised the duty woods of the government staff (part of a reforestation project in the district), were over three years old. Our conversation naturally turned to education. Shang said joyfully that in November 2003, the Shaanxi provincial government announced that Dingbian had completed the Nine-Year Universal Education Project. It was the first county to pass the standard in the three-border region, which consists of Dingbian, Anbian,⁶ and Jingbian. I couldn’t believe it, as what I had seen two years ago was still vivid in my mind. Is it possible for an impoverished county to make such a big difference over such a short period? The question was not only in my head. Shang saw it in my eyes and explained in greater detail.

Shang told me that the CPC Dingbian County Committee and the Dingbian county government had thrown their full support behind the Two Basic Education Projects,⁷ an effort which had unfolded into a massive, vigorous campaign for education. Throughout Dingbian, this required the CPC to value education and the entire population to make revitalizing and supporting education a priority. All walks of life had attached importance to education. It had become common practice to support education; good deeds in support of education had been springing forth and role models for voluntary teaching had been stepping into view. Government staff donated a month’s salary to improve conditions in primary and high schools.

When I suggested visiting a school along the way, Shang made an arrangement immediately. About 20 minutes later, we arrived at Hequan Town Junior High School, which is not far from the county seat. It is a three-year junior high school. In the middle of the old campus, there were now a modern teaching building and several blocks of new student apartments under construction. The principal told me that the teaching building had cost the school over RMB 3 million, RMB 2 million of this being supplied by loan, and the student apartments had been funded by the teachers themselves. Though the teaching building had been completed, it was empty inside and could only be equipped step by step due to the tight school budget.

The process of universally implementing nine-year compulsory education in Dingbian is both a moving and tragic story. The CPC County Committee and the county government considered the Two Basic Education Projects as an all-or-nothing project, making it clear that those in charge of departments in the townships and towns who were unable to fulfill their tasks should resign voluntarily.

On the gate of Haotan Township, there was a banner saying, Realizing the Two Basic Education Projects is the greatest political achievement; helping people become contributors is the greatest contribution. Although the annual revenue of Japan Township in 2003 was a mere RMB 0.28 million, its expenditure on education that year reached RMB 0.5 million. The CPC Xinanbian Town committee secretary and other town leaders mortgaged their own salary bank cards to obtain bank loans in order to provide the start-up capital for building the central primary school. In this town, the Luzhuang Village Party branch secretary had even put all the money for his daughter’s dowry into building the village’s primary school. Wang Zhongliang, a retired teacher from Hujianshan Primary School in Xuezhuang Township, donated his pension of RMB 30,000 to the school, which he had scraped and scrounged to save. With all of the money collected under circumstances similar to these, Dingbian has invested nearly RMB 120 million in education, which has tremendously improved the quality of education in the county. Shang was proud to tell me that in Dingbian, the best of the buildings were now the schools.

I was deeply moved by these stories, yet I am still not without some concerns. First, the nine-year compulsory education was universally implemented in Dingbian under circumstances in which the national investment was relatively inadequate, as was the case in many other impoverished areas. Citizens were eating May’s grain in April to get the basic educational investment put in place, which led to crippling debt, with over RMB 4 million of debt in total owed by government at all levels in Dingbian. Despite the fact they had decided to construct within one year and pay off in three, judging from their current financial situation, it will be almost impossible for them to complete this objective. How can they pay both the construction teams and the banks within this short time frame?

Second, there is an imbalance between the investment in the tangible and intangible resources in the process of universally implementing nine-year compulsory education, with the majority being spent on tangible resources. Some schools have only buildings with no labs, or else the labs are inadequately sized or are not constructed according to proper building codes. In addition, problems regarding the quality of student drinking water and classroom lighting and the need for library books, and lab instruments remain unresolved. There are also serious issues with regard to substitute teachers in rural areas, particularly in terms of low wages.

These are common problems in the process of universally implementing nine-year compulsory education in western China and underdeveloped regions, especially in terms of their debts, which needs to receive greater attention from the central government.

It was about 8 p.m. before we arrived at the guesthouse of the county government. To our surprise, we were treated with the highest standard of courtesy in the county—all the leaders of the four main governing bodies⁸ of the county welcomed us with a meal in the dining room. When I protested such a luxury, Secretary Shang said, It is not because you are a mayor but because you are a supporter of the educational system of western China that such an arrangement has been made. We had no choice but to comply. However, I suggested that volunteer teachers be allowed to live in the schools from thereafter, to which everyone agreed.

After dinner, I invited Li Yanming, an online friend from Education Online and the vice-principal of Dingbian High School, to discuss the support of Mr. Cai Dongjin of the United States for education in western China. Li is a man of few words, but his inner world is rich. Not until I met him did I realize he was the individual who went by the username Old Corn on Education Online.

When Li left, a reporter from the People’s Daily, Gu Chun, began to exploit our surplus value, asking us to discuss why essential-qualities-oriented schooling cannot be implemented even though it has been advocated for so many years, and what causes the ills of the National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) in Nanjing. We discussed these issues until 11 p.m. Since there were to be lectures the next day, I asked to go to bed, and we retired for the evening.

At 8 a.m. the next day, we started our tasks for the day at Dingbian County High School Entrusted by an enterprise in Suzhou, we donated RMB 50,000 worth of books to 100 schools. In my lectures that day, I discussed the NEE, Principal Lu discussed innovative management and how to be a good principal, Chu Changlou discussed school-based educational research, and Gao Ziyang and Xia Qingfeng gave training to liberal arts and science teachers, respectively.

I left Dingbian ahead of the others after my lecture, as I had to hurry to Beijing for the Standing Committee meeting of the Central Committee of the China Association for Promoting Democracy (CAPD). On the way to Yinchuan City, looking at the familiar salt lakes, the Great Wall, and the roads, I recalled the wish I made two years ago with Secretary Shang, The loess shares a scenic hue harmony the waterside; the North parallels the South to take off! I believe that my predestined relationship with Dingbian has just begun.

Shortly after I returned to Suzhou, I received a letter from a teacher in Dingbian:

Dear Professor Zhu,

After listening to the reports on the NEE by you and the other experts, we are all motivated, itching to give it a try. However, despite its simplicity and hospitality, there is a deep-rooted inertia in people’s minds in this region, a place ignored by the ancient preachers. Facing so many difficulties, our enthusiasm is often easy come, easy go. Without a good start, this work may pass as briefly as an autumn breeze, like many educational reforms and experiments that have been carried out in the past few decades. Then all will remain the same. You just rise with the lark and go to bed with the lamb, going round and round in a vicious cycle.

In the letter, this teacher quoted a poem called Writing Off at Seven Strokes, written by Wang Peifen, an academic from the Imperial Academy of the Qing Dynasty (AD 1636 to1912), during a trip to the three-border region:

I have traveled thousands of miles to this far-flung place. The mountains are barren, the rivers are raging, and wolves are growling. In spring, willow catkins are bothersome, wild flowers are unattractive, and gusty winds are roaring. Therefore, beautiful scenery is written off at one stroke.

The people are dwelling in caves, which are muggy in summer and leaky on rainy days. Lamp oil is dripping on the walls. The houses are filled with all kinds of odors. Therefore, fine buildings are written off at one stroke.

The people are wearing indecent furs all year round. Silk and gauze are unnecessary, since dark-color cloth is durable. Trousers are baggy, thick, and ragged. When sleeping, the people have no wadded quilts but felt blankets. Therefore, elegant clothes are written off at one stroke.

When a guest comes, the host only makes milk tea and fried rice with salt and leeks to treat him. If there is pork and mutton, they devour the meat, even the odd hairs. Therefore, tasty food is written off at one stroke.

The intellectuals only learn to obtain an official post. They enjoy fame and luxury and lead a dissolute life. They are satisfied with that and have no ambition to get a place in the royal court. Therefore, quality education is written off at one stroke.

The women are too lazy to make themselves up; they are dirty, ugly, and unfeminine. Therefore, desirable women are written off at one stroke.

The place is on the border. Living together with foreign nations, the people are uncivilized. It is a place ignored by the ancient preachers. Therefore, social morality is written off at one stroke.

From seven perspectives, the poem depicts the lifestyles and folk customs of the three-border region. While the poem is clearly a complaint from a demoted official designed to insult the people living there, the teacher warned me that the poem recorded the actual folk customs of the time, and, from this, one can infer the region’s backward economy and culture, as well as the origin of the inertia in people’s minds.

The teacher told me that he was thinking about how to establish and promote the NEE in Dingbian. He holds that the philosophy of the NEE is the golden key and Aladdin’s lamp to completely changing the status quo of the education and culture of the county, since the philosophy of the NEE, which has been tested by schools in underdeveloped regions, has strong vitality, is continuing to grow, and is the inevitable result of educational development. Growing through practice, rather than through theory alone, the NEE is the quintessence of the achievements of educational reform by frontline educators and schools. It is the single spark that can start an inferno.

I was lost in thought as I read this letter. How will we carry out voluntary educational activities over a long-term period? How will we maintain constant contact with the teachers in these underdeveloped areas? How will we mobilize more people to help teachers and students in western China? How will we conduct the NEE in western China? How will we keep those teachers who are ambitious and passionate that way for a long time?

There is a long way to go. The journey will not be easy, yet we will keep going, never giving up.

Seeking Dreams in the Shrine—An Educational Trip to Yan’an

Yan’an City was the first stop for our volunteer teaching group in western China. The stop was added to the schedule at the last minute, so our time there was particularly limited. The seven of us got on the train heading to Yan’an as soon as we arrived in Xi’an at 10 p.m. on August 3, 2004. It was a slow, un-air-conditioned train.

The train has been baking in the sun for the whole day. It’s ready to bake you now, joked the conductor.

You look like a big shot. Why not take an air-conditioned train? I joked back with her, We’re just poor teachers. We totally don’t care about that!

Though it was hot inside the car, we were in good spirits, discussing the lecture scheme in detail and planning the schedule for our trip to the west of China. To keep us entertained, Principal Lu told riddles and stories, which helped us to forget the heat. I was exhausted and perhaps the first to fall asleep, while the others were chatting and laughing in a state of excitement during the nine-hour journey to Yan’an.

At around 7 a.m., the train arrived in Yan’an. The leaders of the Yan’an municipal government, the Yan’an municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee (CPPCC), the Yan’an Municipal Education Bureau, and the Yan’an College of Education, as well as an online friend from Education Online, Yang Yancun, were waiting at the station to welcome us. We freshened up at the Yan’an Hotel and had a simple breakfast. After that, we hurried to Yan’an High School. It is said to be one of the first schools that the CPC Central Committee had built in Yan’an. The school is now very modern, with neat and tidy teaching buildings, a spacious comfortable playground, and a wide range of teaching facilities. There are no signs of the dilapidated earth kilns depicted in history textbooks. The school is studded with calligraphy works by revolutionary forebears, among which the most eye-catching is the four golden characters in the middle of the building, which translate to Better days lie ahead, handwritten by Mao Zedong, the founding father of the People’s Republic of China (ROC) from its establishment in 1949. Although the original school building is no longer present, we can imagine the glory and sanctity it used to have.

Although our presentation was limited to just half the day, only approximately 300 teachers in the downtown area were able to attend the lecture. After a quick book-donation ceremony, Principal Lu started with the topic Today, How Shall We Be Teachers? As he was lecturing, I arranged for the others to make use of this time to go on a pilgrimage, to enjoy the unique charm of the revolutionary shrine: the Pagoda Mountain, the Yangjiaping Residence, and the Zaoyuan Residence. Chu Changlou and I stayed with teachers from the Yan’an College of Education to discuss issues regarding the promotion of the NEE in the area’s schools. An hour and a half later, I started my lecture on The New Education Experiment and Teachers’ Growth. I could tell from the looks of concentration on their faces that the teachers of Yan’an were desperate for such lectures. Four hours stole away quickly, but the teachers seemed reluctant to leave, although the un-air-conditioned lecture hall was scorching and it was already time for lunch.

I communicated with the local education authorities at lunch-time. It was not until then that I found that the city and its educational system were different from what I had thought they would be. Fifty years ago, a group of revolutionary youths stepped onto this shrine with great reverence. During the war years, the CPC Central Committee created 3,000 schools in Yan’an to provide new blood for the revolution. The students of these schools dug cave dwellings and built schoolhouses on the loess land and studied politics, military, culture, science, and technology under harsh conditions. I believe that the experience of education at that time is worth learning about today. To what extent does this experience have an influence on today’s education in Yan’an? As a revolutionary base area, Yan’an is certainly given priority and attention by the government in terms of financial and policy support, yet how does this attention affect education in the region?

It is clear from the papers provided by the municipal education bureau that educational development in Yan’an is healthy. Educational development is matching economic development, which is ranked at a medium level in western China, that is, education is performing better than in some cities in western China and worse than in others. In recent years, the CPC Yan’an Municipal Committee and the Yan’an municipal government have formulated the strategy of revitalizing Yan’an by science and education and have strived for the implementation of nine-year universal education and for reforms in the employment, payment, and management of principals and teachers. These efforts have achieved great success.

According to statistics, Yan’an governs 13 counties, 163 townships and towns, and 3,434 villages, covering an area of 37,000 square kilometers. It has a population of 2.056 million, of which 1.46 million are an agricultural population. The gross domestic product (GDP) of Yan’an in 2003 was RMB 14.28 billion, the fiscal revenue was RMB 3.73 billion, and the per-capita income of the agricultural population was RMB 1,707. These figures show that Yan’an is economically ranked at just a medium level in western China. In 2013, the city’s gross value of production reached RMB 135.41 billion, general financial revenue was RMB 46.97 billion, and the per-capita net income of farmers was RMB 8,681.

By 2013, there were 940 middle schools, primary schools, and kindergartens in the city, with 445,222 students and 36,706 staff, 28,756 of whom were full-time teachers. There were 467 kindergartens consisting of 104,458 children and 4,998 full-time teachers; 325 primary schools consisting of 173,024 students and 12,655 full-time teachers; 96 junior high schools consisting of 82,973 students and 6,510 full-time teachers; 33 senior high schools consisting of 61,140 students and 3,769 full-time teachers; 14 vocational high schools consisting of 23,345 students and 733 full-time teachers; and five special education schools consisting of 273 students and 91 full-time teachers.

Although Yan’an appears to have abundant educational resources in terms of schools and teaching staff, education in the region is facing many problems, too. The first issue focuses on the quality of the teaching force. Officials in the municipal education bureau told us that almost all outstanding undergraduates of teachers’ universities from Yan’an choose to stay in the big cities due to the harsh natural conditions and poor economies of their hometowns. To address this issue, local governments have begun to commission colleges and universities to train students who have failed the NCEE under the condition that these students will then work as teachers in Yan’an. Therefore, the quality of the teaching force has been affected.

The second issue is the debt that has arisen from the implementation of nine-year universal education. So far, 10 counties in Yan’an have completed the Nine-Year Universal Education Project, with a total investment of RMB 430 million. About a quarter of these schools completed the project through loans. Many schools have run up debts of several million renminbi. In the meantime, operating costs have risen sharply. What is more, the implementation of the Single-Fee System in rural areas, whereby tuition fees are paid on a one-time only basis at the beginning of each semester and no other fees are charged throughout the year, does not allow schools to charge farmers or students. Principals thus face immense pressure, both financially and psychologically, and many are no longer able to concentrate on daily teaching affairs.

A third issue affecting education in Yan’an is that urban schools are facing a shortage of quality educational resources and rural schools are mostly small and scattered. It is common to see schools with only one teacher in the city and in villages, and it is also common to see more than 60 students in a classroom in urban schools. The number of good schools also differs considerably among the various districts of the city.

In fact, these issues are common across western China. Therefore, the key questions to address the balanced development of compulsory education in western China are how to make viable policies to encourage university graduates to work in western China and how to solve the problems caused by the debt arising from the implementation of nine-year universal education.

Poor Cangnan’s Huge Investment in Education—An Educational Trip to Cangnan I

Wenzhou was a mystery to me. I had always wanted to visit ever since the Southern Jiangsu Model and the Wenzhou Model had made a sensation in China. I was even more eager to visit when Wenzhou began striving to create an image of a credible city, that is, when the phrase Made in Wenzhou rose to fame, the entrepreneurs of Wenzhou started participating in urban construction and social causes, and ground was broken on the university town of Wenzhou.

In July 2002, I visited Wenzhou. My first stop was not the downtown area but Cangnan County, which is a two-hour drive from downtown and where the nationally known farmers’ city, Longgang New Town, is located.

I had thought that Wenzhou was affluent and that its educational system was well-funded and modern. However, I was taken aback when I leaned that Cangnan is actually a poverty-stricken county. Were there other poverty-stricken counties in Wenzhou? I could not wait to find out the answer, driven by my great interest in the balanced development of education.

Cangnan governs 36 townships and towns and 1,051 administrative villages. By 2001, it had a population of 1.223 million, of which 1.002 million were an agricultural population. The GDP of this county in 2001 was RMB 8.83 billion and the fiscal revenue RMB 590 million. There were 383 kindergartens with 35,514 children and an enrollment rate of 74.3 percent; 270 primary schools with 126,421 students and an enrollment rate of 99.88 percent (based on a population of 126,578 children aged between 6 and 11 years); 55 junior high schools with 58,884 students and an enrollment rate of 98.57 percent and a dropout rate of 1.24 percent; and 18 senior high schools with 17,041 students. In 2001, a total of 11,132 students were attending senior high schools, with 5,827 attending senior high schools and 5,305 attending vocational senior high schools. Of junior high school graduates, 63 percent went on to attend senior high school. The provision for education in Cangnan in 2001 was RMB 403.16 million, including RMB 46.11 million for rural education surcharges, accounting for 1.24 percent of the rural per-capita net income for the previous year, and RMB 3.05 million for urban education surcharges. In recent years, the CPC Cangnan County Committee and the Cangnan county government have paid great attention to the implementation of the Two Basic Education Projects. They have significantly improved education by implementing compulsory nine-year education, focusing on eliminating illiteracy among young and middle-aged adults, making the budgeted government funds available, increasing the investment in education, promoting the renovation of dilapidated buildings, improving the quality of the teaching force, tightening the supervision on education, and adopting the rule of law in the education sector.

During this trip, I was impressed by the educational pioneer of Cangnan, Director Chen Zhichao of the municipal education bureau. I learned that professional training had been provided to all principals and teachers over the past five summer vacations and that the training was not a mere formality but given by real scholars. This year, they invited Professor Yu Guoliang of the China National Institute for Educational Research, Professor Ye Lan of East China Normal University, Professor Yan Guocai of Shanghai Normal University, and a group of doctoral students from East China Normal University. A total of 2,800 school leaders, core teachers, and outstanding homeroom teachers attended the training session. It is remarkable and commendable that, despite the tight finances, the government provided professional training for teachers free of charge.

Chen Zhichao has an in-depth understanding of private education. He holds that, given that the government is unable to adequately invest in education, private schools should be encouraged. Private schools should not only play a supplementary role but deserve more attention in government policy making. Especially in underdeveloped regions, the government should formulate polices conducive to the development of private schools and should even appoint outstanding public school teachers to serve in private schools.

However, the educational system of Cangnan also faces a significant problem, that is, that the primary and high schools are burdened with debt. By April 2002, schools in 32 of Cangnan’s 36 townships and towns were burdened with debt to varying degrees, RMB 125 million of this debt having arisen from the implementation of compulsory education and RMB 68.16 million having arisen from investments in noncompulsory schools. This debt has had such a big impact on schools that some might close at any time.

By analyzing this debt, I have found the causes to be as follows:

1.  Bank loans. RMB 22.46 million of the debt has arisen from the construction of school buildings for Cangnan to become the pilot county for universal nine-year education between 1997 and 1998. That period was also a time of peak admissions due to a surge in the school-age population, but the government could not afford to construct more school buildings. Given these circumstances, principals took out bank loans and committed the schools to obligations which should have been assumed by the government.

2.  Private loans. The provincial financial authorities stipulate that banks, in principle, do not offer loans to compulsory schools. Therefore, to keep running, some schools have no choice but to borrow money from private entities. The compound interest charged by private loans, however, makes them sink into deeper debt. According to statistics, primary and high schools borrowed RMB 69.32 million from private entities (excluding RMB 37.76 million borrowed by senior high schools), which accounts for 55.38 percent of the total debt and must pay RMB 1.02 million in interest every month (excluding RMB 442,400 paid by senior high schools). For example, both Qianku No. 1 High School and No. 2 High School have a an average debt of more than RMB 7 million. The revenue of an academic year can hardly pay the interest on such an amount. The principals have to shun creditors often. Thus, it can be seen that compulsory schools are bearing crushing burdens.

3.  Tight government finances. In Cangnan, many projects are waiting for government allocations, so there is a huge gap between demand and supply. For instance, in 2000, the total expenditure in public education was RMB 320 million, while the government provision was only RMB 110 million, which just barely paid teachers’ basic salaries. Schools have had to take out loans to ensure normal operation, and per-student public spending has decreased. In 2001, yearly per-student public spending in primary schools and junior high schools was RMB 6.25, and RMB 5.09, respectively.

4.  The withholding of funding by town and township governments. By 2001, rural education surcharges were being collected, managed, and used by the town and township governments. Due to inadequate supervision and the fact that most town and township governments had been in deficit for years, the governments borrowed, diverted, and embezzled rural education surcharges. In 1999, 37 of the 42 town and township governments diverted and defaulted the funds allocated to education to various degrees. The amount reached RMB 12 million.

5.  Negative attitudes. A few school, town, and township leaders lack the sense of responsibility needed to operate schools economically to pay off debts little by little. Rather than making efforts to operate schools efficiently, they are just waiting for government relief; some even abuse their public power for private gain. In such situations, deficits increase and schools eventually close.

6.  Policy adjustments. On the one hand, stable and reliable educational funding is drying up; on the other hand, the scale of basic education is expanding. Schools are sinking into deeper debt. To maintain the income levels of teachers, some schools are paying more bonuses and subsidies. In such situations, every new principal has to continue the tradition.

According to a survey, there are many schools burdened with such debt in other areas of Wenzhou, which is itself a developed city. It has been said that the water and electricity supply in some schools has been cut off and that some schools cannot even afford basic office supplies. Quite a number of schools across the country sunk into debt during the Ninth Five-Year Plan period. Let us take for example Gongguan Town of Hepu County of Beihai City in Guangxi Province. Forty-four of its 47 schools are burdened with a total debt of RMB 46 million. The government’s available capital is a mere RMB 10.6 million, of which RMB 8.6 million goes to teachers’ salaries. The town is completely incapable of paying off this debt.

The leaders of the Wenzhou municipal government said they have had their difficulties. They told me that Zhejiang Province adopted a province-to-county financial system, in which revenue collection is centralized by the provincial government and funds are then allocated to the county governments. But I wonder how the fast-growing Zhejiang Province will solve the problem of growing inequality among its cities and towns The imbalanced development of education exists not only between northern and southern China and between eastern and western China, but also within particular areas. Therefore, we hope to solve the problem of the inter-regional imbalance in educational development first, to help schools pay off the debt accrued during the Ninth Five-Year Plan period as soon as possible, just as the government of Changzi City in Shanxi Province properly addressed the problems of teachers’ salaries and dilapidated buildings in primary and high schools, so that principals and teachers can concentrate on education—not repaying debt.

We also hope government leaders at all levels can undertake an in-depth investigation to discover new problems and conflicts in the educational system in time to address them efficiently, make the wise choice to be truthful to the needs of the current and future generations, and make contributions to educational equality and social justice, all of which will contribute to the development of the education of China and to the revitalization of the great Chinese nation.

If You Do Not Dedicate Yourself, Please Leave Quietly—An Educational Trip to Cangnan II

One day in July 2008, I got up early in order to prepare a report for a meeting in Cangnan. In those days, I was studying many books on curriculum development and classroom teaching, including Effective Teaching Methods by Gary D. Borich, Instruction: A Models Approach by Thomas H. Estes, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction by Ralph W. Tyler, Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching by Charlotte Danielson, Designing Effective Instruction by Gary R. Morrison, and The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think and How Schools Should Teach by Howard E. Gardner. Although I have lectured at university and listened to many classes in primary and high schools, I have never taught classes in a primary or high school and am therefore not very confident in lecturing on classroom teaching.

At 8 a.m., I headed to Chongshi Primary School in the Yongding District of Zhangjiajie City to study. I was impressed by its principal, Liu Xiaohua. I then visited Zhangjiajie Nationalities High School. I promised to write something about both schools to show my respect.

I had a working lunch with Peng Junliang, deputy director of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee, and Xie Yong, chairman of the CAPD Hunan Provincial Committee.

In the afternoon, I took a car from Zhangjiajie to Changsha. At 5:45 p.m., accompanied by Lu Zhiwen, Tong Beibei, and others, I flew to Wenzhou and was welcomed by Chen Changhe at the airport. I talked with Tong Beibei about the NEE magazine the entire way. I believe that there can be thousands of excuses for the quality of the magazine to suffer, but there should be none for a delay in publishing it. I also hold that the magazine should pay full attention to the actions of the NEE as well as the regular teaching staff.

At 8 p.m., we arrived in Cangnan. Director of the education bureau, Liang Feng; deputy director, Zeng Yingling; and CPC county committee secretary, Chen Xiankui, among others, had been waiting for us in an unassuming restaurant. I cannot remember what we ate dinner, but what Liang said has been engraved on my mind ever since: If you don’t dedicate yourself, please leave quietly.

It was my third visit to Cangnan and also my third time meeting Liang. I visited this small county, which is located at the junction of Zhejiang and Fujian Provinces, for the first time in 2002 and wrote the passage An Educational Trip to Cangnan, which reported the facts about the educational debt in Cangnan. Of course, the passage has helped solve some of the debt problems. The director of the education bureau at the time, Chen Zhichao, was transferred following its release. I never thought I would go to Cangnan again.

But I did so, together with a teacher named Wei Zhiyuan, in December 2006. We went to attend the presentation ceremony for over 30 schools that had undertaken