Guided tour [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]

Schooling reforms

? Enhancing the current nine-year compulsory school education model especially for rural and low-income students.

? Less emphasis on testing and more on high-level classroom engagement of students. This means less rote memory work and more focus on innovation, creativity, personal skills, and character.

? Strengthening the autonomy of school principals to develop innovative approaches to meet specific need and maximize learning outcomes.

Vocational education reforms

? There must be heavy investment to close the gap between the current vocational skill levels and future needs. Reforms propose building stronger connections between industry and schooling.

Higher education reforms

An improvement in the quality of higher education is central to the proposed reforms, including the need to develop world-class universities to enhance China's international competitiveness. The plan calls for improving the teaching skills of university teachers, more investment in infrastructure and improved quality of classroom instruction and learning outcomes.

China's plan also addresses a problem that other countries find – namely, the regulatory framework encourages all universities to be much alike. The government now proposes a new regulatory framework for higher education, encouraging universities to diversify their missions and activities to achieve best practice; strategic international alliances should also be built.

Further and continuing education

China aims to mobilize its population to pursue lifelong learning opportunities, with employers to play a key role in providing further opportunities that enhance industry development.

The reform plan also recognizes the importance of promoting internationalisation and seeks to cooperate with world-class schools, universities and research organizations, with more extensive mutual recognition arrangements as part of enhanced overseas study programs in both directions.

Making it happen

To achieve its educational reform goals, China will have to ensure the availability of sufficient resources and put processes in place to properly manage the change. All governments today are facing increased demands and resources are tight.

Institutions such as those in education are especially difficult to change. Indeed, innovation can only occur through people who are dedicated to making it happen and seeing it through. The change process also must be both bottom up and top down.

A system of education does not operate in isolation. While China is producing plenty of university graduates, many graduates do not have the skills they need to satisfy potential employers. Part of the change process also involves sharing best practice and having processes in place to introduce them and expand them quickly.

It is also important that China leverage technology to enhance student engagement, maximize learning efficiency and monitor progress.

Above all, bringing about educational change is itself a learning process. This means continuing to report on reform efforts and involve all key stakeholders while making adaptations as required along the way. In other words, reform itself must be a learning process.

Eugene Clark is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.h5a3.com/opinion/eugeneclark.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.