Obstacles In Informationization Development Of Rural Small Schools And The Solutions

From the beginning of this century, the urbanization in China accelerates the sharp decrease of the number of rural small schools and teaching quality deterioration. The declination of rural small schools leads to that the basic education rights of children at school age cannot be guaranteed, and brings high attention from the government and entire society on the insufficient teaching resources problem in rural small schools. In the Opinions on Standardizing the Adjustment of Rural Compulsory Education Schools issued by General Office of the State Council in 2012, various measures should be taken to optimize the conditions the reserved and restored rural small schools and teaching locations, especially the teaching quality. It has become a major issue that taking effective measures to improve the teaching quality in rural small schools in the project of pushing balanced compulsory education and education fairness between rural and urban districts.Along with the high speed development of information society, it has become a consensus that technology has become the major forces to accelerate education innovation. Informationization methods are used to implement radiation of high-quality education resources to rural small schools, improving the conditions and teaching quality of rural small schools, and narrowing the digital and educational gap between urban and rural areas. From Campus Access to ICTs Project in 2000, Distance Learning Project for Rural Areas in 2003, Class Access to ICTs Project in 2007, Weak School improvement Plan in 2011, Three Links Project in 2012, and Full-Coverage of Digital Education Resources at Teaching Locations in 2013, the government has invested a log of material and financial resources in informationization development of rural small schools.However, these consistent efforts and input do not bring according efficient improvement in the informationnization development and teaching quality in rural small schools.The technology-based education informationization solution provides many new methods to rural schools, such as "long-distance volunteer teaching" and "cloud classes". However, these new methods actually do not meet the rural education requirements. The urban-based informationization education resource construction provide classes to rural students same to those for urban students, but the education gap between urban and rural areas may become more wider. What are the actual conditions of informationization development in rural small schools? What obstacles does the development meet? What ideas, rules, patterns, and mechanisms should be carried out in the follow-up development? These questions are the core issues of this research. To answer these questions, we must return to the nature of the problem:observe the implementation path and pattern for the requirement- and education-based informationization technology in rural small schools from the perspective of fair education in rural and urban areas and based on the distinctive historical and cultural characteristics and diversified and differentiated rural education development.This research uses both the quantitative and qualitative research modes and is conducted based on analysis of large-scale questionnaire data and interview cases from 95 schools in 35 villages and towns in 18 counties of 8 cities in Hubei province. It shows the actual conditions of informationization development in rural small schools, discusses problems in informationization resource construction and informationization teaching implementation in rural small schools, analyzes the root causes for these problems, and accordingly provides policy suggestions on how to resolve these problems.This paper consists of three parts in eight chapters.The first part includes the first two chapters. Chapter 1 introduce the research background, purpose, and meaning of this research. In addition, it lists the related research literature and describes the core concepts, forming the overall theoretical framework of the paper. Chapter 2 discusses the research methods, the data source of the quantitative and qualitative analysis in this research, and then describes the basic characteristics of the research samples from the perspectives of schools, principles, and teachers.The second part includes chapters 3 to 6. This part statistically analyzes the large amount of research data and discusses the obstacles in current informationization development in rural small schools from 4 perspectives. Specifically, chapter 3 describes the informationization resource configuration conditions in rural small schools and the problems from the financial investment, hardware construction, and software supply. Chapter 4 analyzes the current situation and characteristics of the informationization faculties in rural small schools, and focuses on data analysis and theory explanation for key factors affecting the information technology competency of the faculties. Chapter 5 illustrates the actual conditions of the application for informationization teaching resource in rural small schools from the perspective of the application frequency, mode, and effect. In addition, this chapter performs data analysis and theory exploration on causes limiting the informatonization teaching resource application efficiency. Chapter 6 analyzes the external environment of the informationization development of rural small schools and focuses on impacts of each external factors on the informationization construction of rural small schools. It also provides the limitations in the mechanism that restricting the informationiation development in rural small schools.The third part includes the last chapter and focuses on the retrospection and policy suggestions. Chapter 6 reviews and analyzes the second part of this papery based on the fair education theory, pointing out the paradoxes in formulation and execution of the informationization development policies in rural small schools and identifying the mechanism factors causing the obstacles in informationization development of rural small schools. Chapter 8 provides policy suggestions on how to further promote informationization development of rural small schools:optimize the informationization financial assurance mechanism, follow the requirement-oriented informationization hardware construction idea, improve the infomrationization course adaption degree, implement the diversified informationization faculty supplement mechanism, establish the informationization development league between rural small schools, and identify the unique position of the informationization development of rural small schools.