Minority language literacy is an important issue in national education policy for any multi-nationality country. China sticks to the policy of safeguarding the rights and interests of ethnic minority groups to use their own languages and writing systems. In education, considering communications among different nationalities and the development of…

Over the past decade the scale of higher education in China has expanded substantially. Regional development policies have attempted to make use of scale expansion as a tool to reduce inequality of higher education among regions with different development levels by providing poor regions with preferential treatment and support. This paper analyzes…

In China, the eighth round of national curriculum reform (NCR) is the most serious, systematic, and ambitious attempt to transform the basic education curriculum system since 1949. Through a review of the contexts, processes and outcomes of the implementation of the NCR from 2001-2011, this paper provides a further discussion on three pairs of…

This article identifies the problem that an instrumentalist mode of thinking dominates China's contemporary education practice and suggests that the dichotomy between the "small self and big self," a notion that has been present throughout modern Chinese history, exacerbates this instrumentalism. It parallels the loss of…

Since the early 20th century, numerous scholars have proposed theories and models describing, interpreting, and suggesting the development paths countries have taken or should take. None of these, however, can fully explain China's efforts, mainly through education and citizenship education, to modernize itself and foster a modern citizenry…

Since the 1980s, China has entered an era of transformation which has extended its reach to education and school reforms. The "New Basic Education" (NBE) was born in this era and implemented by the East China Normal University together with schools around the country. NBE aims at nurturing the active, healthy development of a new…

The moral and ethical charge of teaching and teacher education includes sustaining equanimity and paradox, and maintaining poise amongst contradicting policies and interests. This paper draws upon the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching to address some paradoxes in education and teacher preparation. Specifically, the article looks at four chapters of the…

This article aims at a comprehensive examination of the Chinese model of teacher education by critically revisiting the developmental trajectory of the teacher education system in China over the past century, with a particular focus on policy trends since the 1990s. It interrogates the Chinese model of teacher education with two macro lenses: the…

Since the late 1980s, there has been a resurgence of regionalism in world politics. Prospects for new alliances are opened up often on a regional basis. In East and Southeast Asia, regionalization is becoming evident in higher education, with both awareness and signs of a rising ASEAN+3 higher education community. The quest for regional influence…

This paper explores the internationalization of higher education initiatives of Hong Kong, being one of the Special Administrative Regions (SAR) of China, within the context of the Chinese Mainland-Hong Kong (CM-HK) relations. Historical, social, economic, and political ties between Hong Kong and the Mainland of China, their economic and political…

Due to imbalanced social and economic development, education in poverty-stricken rural areas in China is lagging behind that of urban areas. The current study explores the role of the nonprofit organizations (NPOs) involved in rural compulsory education promotion. Results show that the NPOs are providing a variety of programs to promote rural…

In this paper, the authors explore the implementation of the government mandate in Hong Kong to move from three-year to four-year undergraduate degree programs which include studies in general education (GE), through an analysis of policies and activities related to the curriculum reform. While the authors are interested in the substance of these…

Access to higher education in China has opened up significantly in the move towards a mass higher education system. However, aggregate growth does not necessarily imply fair or reasonable distribution of opportunity. In fact, the expansion of higher education has a rather more complex influence on opportunity when admissions statistics are viewed…

This paper analyzes the behavior of families in China regarding private tutoring, applying game theory to its discussion of their actions. It finds that families will definitely give their children private tutoring after school in order to obtain better educational opportunities in situations where the distribution of educational resources is…

Despite significant progress over the past fifteen years associated with School Mapping Restructure (SMR) in Chinese rural schools, many small schools have been closed or have merged with larger primary schools. This has resulted, among other things, in difficulties for many students in rural areas who now have to travel longer distances to a…