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| TEACHING REFORM |
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| 2004/05/13 |
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1 The solidified core status of teaching in
HEIs
In HEIs, the idea that with training
talents as its basic task, teaching as its melody, how to
increase the education equality is its eternal thems,
teaching reform is the core of any other reforms, and
undergraduate education is its basis is becoming the
dominant idea for higher education. The establishment of
this dominant idea comes by not easily.
From
the end of l980's to the early l990's, there used to be
inadequate input in the fields of leading vigour, teaching
expenditure, teachers and the students' energy. As a result,
the trend of declining or potential crisis once showed up in
the field teaching. In order to stop that, the former State
Education Commission £¨SEdC£© took
active measures and gave guiding opinions on some directing,
comprehensive and strategic issues. Under the unified
planning of State Education Commission, the educational
executive departments at various levels energetically
deliberated the policies and measures to stop the trend of
teaching declining in its own areas and
department£® All the efforts effectively
controlled the trend and potential crisis and lead the
teaching work to develop in good direction.
2
The completion of the reservation of the discipline
catalogue and disciplines adjustment and the beginning of
the over all reservation of teaching plan
The
former SEdC began the new round of reservation of
undergraduate discipline catalogue in 1997£®
Following the policy of being scientific, adapting and
standard, the reservation came to the end successfully in
July 1998 after a year's of thorough investigation and
repeated proof£® The total number of disciplines
was reduced from 504 to 249£® After that, MoE
promulgated "The basic ideas on the reservation of
teaching plan of undergraduate disciplines in the
HEIs." and "The Circular of making good
reservation of teaching plan of undergraduate disciplines
for HEIs " in succession. At present, according to the
planning of MoE, all the regular HEIs are undertaking the
new round of teaching plan reservation. The new teaching
plan will come into practice in the autumn of l999.
3 Entering a substantial key stage for the
reform of teaching contents and curriculum
The
former SEdC launched the "Reform Plan of Teaching
Contents and Curriculum of Higher Education Facing the 21st
Century" in 1994, formally ratifying the establishment
of 211 big projects and nearly a thousand sub-projects with
tens of thousands teachers participating. This plan covers
all areas of teaching such as teaching ideology, teaching
contents, curriculum structure and teaching methodology. A
advisory group for the reform of teaching contents and
curriculum consisting of domestic famous experts from all
disciplines has been set up£® By now, 20 million
RMB have been put into the whole plan and the aim that by
the end of this century and early next century nearly a
hundred new talents training patterns and almost a thousand
sets of new teaching materials will come into being is being
realized£® At the same time, a large number of
teaching reform achievements have showed up in HEIs. 1997,
the National Teaching Achievements Awards organized and
implemented by the former SEdC all together offered 422
State Awards. The national comparison of computer-aided
teaching software research were carried out in 1995 and 1997
respectively and a bunch of preliminary systematic teaching
software with high quality has sprung up.
4 The
initial success of talents training bases for basic
disciplines and the teaching bases of basic
courses
Since the later year of l980's, the
basic disciplines in HEIs has been facing serious
difficulties such as severe inadequate expenditure, very
unstable teacher team, obvious decline of students' quality.
As a result, the long term development of our science and
technology and the training quality of talents in higher
education were threatened£® Under that
circumstance, the former SEdC decided to establish the
training bases for talents in basic disciplines and the
teaching bases of basic courses£® By the end of
1998, 84 national training bases of talents from basic
disciplines of Science, 51 for basic disciplines of Arts, 45
for engineering disciplines and 13 for economics have been
set up in succession. The bases attracted lots of
outstanding high school graduates, thus the quality of
students was improved obviously and the initiative of the
teachers increased unprecedentedly. The establishment and
reform of bases gained common approval and appreciation form
higher education sector.
5 The enhancement of
cultural education of university students and the
exploration of new talents training models
In
1995, the former SEdC envisaged to enhance the cultural
education of university students. With the tangency of
enhancing the cultural quality of university students, moral
and ideological quality, cultural quality, professional
quality and physical and psychological quality were combined
organically together. Passing on knowledge, training
capacities and improve quality were be mixed and quality
education was realistic strengthened£® 52 HEIs
participated in the pilot work£® The concerning
HEIs took various measures, such as identifying the
compulsory reading list, strengthening classroom teaching,
offering lectures, and organizing all kinds of cultural
activities, to promote the programme development£®
Some pilot HEIs identified the goal, basic requirement and
assessment standard of the programme while some others began
to adjust talents training and teaching plans in the light
of new requirements. After 3-year of pilot, MoE promulgated
the "opinoins in the enhancement of cultural education
of university students", set up directory committee for
cultural education and ratified 32 "Bases for the
Enhancement of cultural education of university
students", which symbolized that the enhancement of
cultural education of univeristy students was carried out
fully and over the country.
6 The increase of
the vitality of short 2-3 years higher education in the
reform
The former SEdC have established 216
teaching reform pilots for short 2-3 years higher education
nationally, and the establishment of pilot colleges are
progressing successfully and a number of disciplines and
colleges with short higher education characteristics are
also taking shape. Recently, with the condition of education
provision of those colleges greatly improved and their pace
of basic construction speed up, the overall capacity of
education provision of them has remarkably strengthened and
important achievements have been made in the field of
teaching reform. The experience and achievements gained in
the reform of short 2-3 years higher education provied
important experience for the development of higher
vocational education. The state policy of energetically
developing higher vocational education in return provides
new opportunity for the development of short 2-3 years
higher education which has shown up its great vitality.
7 The establishment of macro management system
on quality of higher education made stable
progress
In 1993, the Department of Higher
Education of former SEdC began to research the assessment
plan and the practice of teaching assessment.
Aimed
at helping the HEIs consistently identify their schooling
directive ideology, improving the schooling conditions,
enhancing the basic construction of teaching, deepening
teaching reform, increasing management level and gradually
setting up and perfecting the system of self-development and
self-restrain so as to continuously improve education
quality and increase schooling efficiency, the assessment of
undergraduate teaching adheres to the principle of
"promoting reform and establishment through assessment,
combining assessment and establishment together with the
emphasis laying on establishment". There are three
forms of assessment£º the first is the pass level
teaching assessment to the universities with comparatively
weak basis and short history of undergraduate
education£»the second is the excellent level
assessment to the universities with good basis, high
teaching level and a comparatively long history of
undergraduate education£» and the last one is the
random level assessment to the universities between pass
level and excellent level£® Since 1994, 146 HEIs
with weak basis and short history of undergraduate education
have undertook the pass level assessment step by step and 10
key universities have undertook the excellent level
assessment£® The development of teaching
assessment evoked intense repercussions among educational
administrative departments and HEIs and played an important
role in promoting the improvement of higher education
quality.
8 The importance attached to the
research of higher education theory and directing teaching
reform with scientific theory
In early l993,
with other three departments, the Department of Higher
Education of former SEdC jointly sponsored and organized
research team for the task of "On the research of
theory for socialistic higher education with Chinese
characteristics". With the keys on what is the
socialistic higher education with Chinese characteristics
and how to establish such higher education, the team carried
out their theoretical research£® Supported by
educational administrative departments at various levels,
after four years' endeavour, a number of important research
achievements like "the Theory keys of Higher Education
with Chinese Characteristics" have been made and
aroused great influence in the higher education circle.
After this research, in the light of development of our
socialistic modernization construction and higher education
reform and the historic opportunity of entering anew
millenium for our human beings, MoE organized the research
team for the task of " Chinese Higher Education in 21st
Century " to continue the theoretical research on
socialistic higher education with Chinese
characteristics.
9 The track of managing higher
education through laws
On 29 August, 1998, the
4th conference of the 9th standing committee of National
Congress passed the "Higher Education Law of People's
Republic of China" which is implemented from 1 Jan, 1
999£® Higher Education Law is the first complete
higher education legal document in term of legislature. It
is a law which standardizes the internal and external
complicated social re1ationship of higher education and its
own activities. It is a basic law promulgated under the
direction of the constitute and Education Law which laying
the important foundation for the establishment of a
systematic and perfect higher education legal system led by
the Higher Education Law.
10 The assurance of
further deepened reform through further improvement of
schooling conditions
With the deepening of
teaching reform, inadequate input in it has been an
obstacle. In order to solve the problem, educational
administrative departments at various levels and HEIs have
actively explored the measures and ways to increase
educational expenditure and improve schooling conditions. At
present, the World Bank Loan Project, which is being carried
out, will all together input $70 million to improve the
experiment conditions for the basic courses in HEIs. Local
governments at various levels have also take a serious of
measures to expand the input to locaI HEIs to enhance the
construction of disciplines, bases, curriculum, laboratory
and library for HEIs, greatly improving the material
conditions of these HEIs.
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