A Regional Case Study On Strategy And Practice In Equilibrium Development Model Of Basic Education

With a historical effort of years, China has achieved great progress in its basic education characterized by the extension of a universal nine-year compulsory education to all people and the elimination of adult illiteracy from society. However, it needs to be frankly acknowledged that the progress achieved has been great uneven and imbalanced. Basic education in China is not evenly resourced and equitably organized among different regions of the nation, between rural and urban area, and even different schools within a district, and is still unequally available to those migratory populations in urban area and the disadvantaged groups in society. Yet, the nature of a socialist country commits an obligation upon China to ensure a balanced development of its education, which is by itself necessary for achieving a harmonious social, economic, and geographic development of the nation. Balanced development is a newly conceptualized notion in education and a new idea of education development, a global trend in the world education, and a core concept in educational modernization. Characterized by the context of implementing a general education to all the citizens in a developing country, the balanced development of education in China can only be achieved step by step. At the present stage, a practical and initial step toward this goal should begin with the regional balanced development of education. In this article, as a case study of regional education in Xiacheng district of Hangzhou city, a comparatively economically developed region in China, based on the establishment of theory and theoretical analysis, defined strategies are put forward for furthering the regional balanced development of basic education.As the reference of the overall study, its introduction chapter makes an investigation into both the goals and directions from the nation and the educational sectors and the important issues placed in the global education on the balanced development of education.This paper consists of six sections. The first section is an introduction, in which the background, main topics, methodology of the research are described in brief. Inthe second section, the author introduces the concept of "Equilibrium Development Model of Basic Education"(EDMBE). There are five points need to be taken into consideration for understanding the model. In the third section, the aim of research on EDMBE is elaborated by presenting the policy of EDMBE in USA, and comparing it with the system of special support to compulsory education in France and the policy of standardization of educational resources in Japan. The policy and practice of EDMBE in China is also discussed in this section. In the fourth section, the author proposes the concept of "regional education" and analyses the aim and the significance of implementation of EDMBE in a region. In the fifth section, the author firstly gives a picture on the existing conditions of education of Xiacheng District of Hangzhou , especially on the disequilibrium of development in basic education. And then the strategy of EDMBE in Xiacheng District is described by analyzing the roles played by government, school and society in development of education. What the local government should do is increase investment, make a rational layout, and deepen structural reform. The local school should encourage teachers to work in the way with more personalization features, to take more care about the education problem of the weak group in the communities, and to innovate the means of education. The society should establish the opening perspective on education and give correct guidance to the public. In the sixth section, the implementation methods of EDMBE in regional spread are put forward, including (1) to help the underdeveloped schools to move faster; (2) to establish the high level platform of junior secondary education; (3) to complete the distribution of the old urban school; (4) to upgrade the professional skills of school teachers; (5) to develop new jointly running schools; (6) to pursue a policy of encouraging small class size; (7) to guarantee the right to receive education to weak groups,(8)to drive compulsory education into territorial and balanced development.