Prospects

The immediate targets of teacher education in China are£º to form step by step a modern and new education system with life-long learning concepts and Chinese characters for secondary and primary school teachers, to aim at fostering new type of teachers who are creative and with practical skills to fit the needs for the 21st century, to establish a continuing education system for training of all staff so as to upgrade their professional competence.

The measures for further reform and development are£º

1£©The geographical reallocation and structural adjustment shall be steadily carried out among the existing teacher education institutions for upgrading teacher education.

The target of structural adjustment is to develop teacher education from urban to countryside, to forward it from coastal areas to inner-land and to transform it from three levels to two levels. The secondary and primary school teachers shall have been awarded certificates of three-year college or bachelor's degree by the end of the century in the regions where condition permits.
The principles and policies guiding such adjustment are that teacher education shall have priorities and meet actively the requirements for the development of basic education. From now on until early next century, teacher education shall adhere to its internal improvement and implement strategic reorganizations of teaching resources. The size of teacher education at tertiary level shall be active1y expanded and that of the secondary teacher education be cut down steadily. It is encouraged to boost the merger of in-service teacher training institutes with local teacher training colleges to increase the teaching quality and cost-effectiveness.

2£© To carry out thoroughly educational reforms at all levels of teacher training institutions and colleges so as to enable them to face the 21st century with improved training quality for new teachers. The goal of this reform in teaching is to upgrade teachers' professional competence by redesigning training models, contents and measures. Teacher training institutions and colleges at all levels shall work hard within 3 to 5 years to achieve the following goals £º searching for some effective, typical and exemplary models for training new teachers£» publishing some creative textbooks, electronic teaching materials, multi-media teaching software and on-line textbooks with break-through in contents and format£» establishing different styles of teaching models which are helpful for creative thoughts and ability development£» enabling all the enrollments to have access to computers-the base of modern education technology £» improving in-service training system to upgrade the professional quality and to meet the needs for life-long learning and knowledge updating.

3£© To greatly promote the " Continuing Education Project for Secondary and Primary School Teachers" so as to improve their qualities. The overall targets are to formulate regulations and policies for continuing education of secondary and primary school teachers, to establish a network for continuing education of secondary and primary school teacher with full use of means of modern information technology and all kinds of educational resources to strengthen the training capacity of continuing education organizations, to develop a modern system of curriculum designing and textbook compilation, to establish and improve the monitoring and evaluation system to ensure the training qualities and cost-effectiveness, and to train all the secondary and primary school teachers £¨including the principles £© in different ways within five years in order to have a substantial improvement.

According to the Decisions of the Party Central Committee and the State Council on Strengthening Education Reforms and Promoting the Quality Education on a full scale, the Continuing Education Project for Secondary and Primary School Teachers shall organize training programs for new and key teachers, post oriented training, computer skill training and degree training.

With the implementation of these measures, the trends of teacher education in China will be as following£º other higher education institutions will work together with teacher education institutions and colleges to train secondary and primary school teachers so as to diversify the sources of new teachers£® Teacher education shall be focused on tertiary level£® Pre-service education and post-service training are connected, and continuing education are governed by laws. An open network of continuing education has taken shape with the help of modern education and information technology. A modern continuing education system with Chinese characteristics and based on the philosophy of life-long learning will take place for secondary and primary school teachers by the early next century. n