Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) have been recognized as a promising infrastructure for teacher professional development and student achievement. There has been increasing research interest in PLCs outside mainstream Western contexts. Based on literature and documentary analysis, this paper outlines the historical development of PLCs in…

China's impressive growth over the last three decades warrants the need to re-evaluate the position and positioning of English in the country's educational system. For long, English has been taught and learned compulsorily alongside Chinese and maths in primary and secondary schools in the mainland of China. It was not until recent years that the…

Established in 1949, the People's Republic of China has gone through 70 years of history. From China's initial inception to the modern day it has grown quickly and become a major force on the world stage, the basic education in mainland China has contributed to cultivating student's talents and developing qualified workers. Specifically, in the…

The balanced development of compulsory education has been given due and lengthy coverage in the "Outline of China's National Plan for Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development (2010-2020)" which, to some extent, reflects the needs of our time and the demands of the general public. However, detailed analyses reveal that many…

This paper sets out the main findings of the International Instructional Systems Study (IISS), conducted by the UCL Institute of Education and funded by the Center on International Education Benchmarking (CIEB). The study examined the instructional systems and intended curricula of six "high performing" countries and two US states. The…

The history of curriculum reform from 1978 to 2008 in mainland China may be divided into three phases, each--respectively--committed to the recovery of the curriculum system ruined by the Cultural revolution, construction of a curriculum system in concert with the nine-year compulsory education, and pursuit of quality education under the changed…

Despite the state's unrelenting efforts to enforce compulsory basic education, schooling in rural ethnic China remains an elusive ideal that leads to massive dropout and prepares many only for factory sweatshops. Based on 16 months of ethnographic research, this article examines the disjuncture between the official education policy known as the…

Purpose: This article aims to analyze inter-provincial disparities of rural education and the convergence rate, and to discuss the effects of compulsory education reform after 2001. Design/methodology/approach: The article estimates the rural average education years and education Gini coefficients of China's 31 provinces (municipalities) beside…

After a brief review of the achievements and the problems in compulsory education enrollment in the thirty years since the reform and opening up, this study analyzes the current compulsory education enrollment and dropout rates in China's least-developed regions and the factors affecting school enrollment based on survey data from a small sample…

Basic education is universal education, which aims to improve the basic quality of a nation's people. In the three decades since reform and opening up, earth-shaking changes have taken place in the quality of China's basic education. This article describes the path of development and changes in China's basic education over the past thirty years…

This paper, drawing on the theoretical framework of critical discourse analysis, examines the general goals and objectives of the national curriculum reform launched by the Ministry of Education in 2001 for Chinese primary schools. Four policy documents relevant to the curriculum reform are analyzed, including Chinese curriculum and English…

This research-based volume presents a substantive, panoramic view of ways in which Australia and countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America engage in educational programs and practices to transform the learning processes and outcomes of their students. It reveals and analyzes national and global trajectories in key areas of…

The paper has compared the quality of compulsory education of rural schools in West China with the counties, cities, and provincial capitals, and find out that there is a big gap between the quality of West rural and urban compulsory education, the quality of some grades of the rural primary schools has not achieved the basic requirement of the…

China's "Compulsory Education Law," determining the development of compulsory education, was first promulgated in 1986 and then amended in 2006. It has been a symbolic milestone in the history of Chinese education. During two decades, there have been totally 8 influential reforms in compulsory education funding policy. From the viewpoint…

The paper analyzes the nature of the basic education, and points out that the scarcity, disparity and exclusiveness to a certain degree form the inner reasons of school choice in China. In review of the policy evolution of governing the school choice problems, and analyzing the policy framework of the current stage, the paper holds that expanding…