British Technical Education In Shanghai

During the 1930s-1940s,the Henry Lester Institute of Technical Education and Lester School(hereinafter referred to as ’the Institute’)made a complete duplicate of the British technical education scheme to Shanghai in a systematical manner.Although it just existed for a very short period,the Institute was with distinguishing features in management framework,curriculum,teacher and equipment sourcing compared to other domestic institutes at that time,and made great achievements in specialized talent training.Most of its students learnt their trade as engineers and technicians,while some of them entered other professions for various reasons.Quite a few of them grew up as well-known figures in their professions.This thesis takes the history of how the Institute trained talents in applied engineering and technologies as the research object.The research work is based upon primary sources in surviving original English documents,archives,newspapers and periodicals,alumni memoirs,and a draft history of the Institute compiled in 2004,plus a comprehensive utilization of and reference to previous scholar’s findings,while taking the international factors and domestic grand context into account.The aim of the research is to reveal more historical facts beyond previous researches,manifest study experiences of the alumni in greater details,and,probe and solve a few doubts and disputes.First,based on previous studies,it makes more mining,revising,and supplementing,especially,adds some new findings of historical details of the preparation and Japanese occupation periods.Second,it presents the comprehensive conditions of the Institute’s talent training,which include teachers,school building,equipment,facilities,outer resources utilization,etc.Third,it sorts and reformulates the management framework,external examination,and student affairs of the Institute in detail.Fourth,it divides the training process into the Technical Institute,the Senior School,the Junior School,and the Night Departments,then make an in-depth narration and review of each phase of training,in order to present their training directions,academic levels,curriculums,and assessment criteria in detail,while offers some examples to further illustrate the features of training.Then,it select some representative students,and then classifies them according to major professions.With a brief biography for each,it strives to find connections between their experiences in the Institute and personal development trails and achievements.Finally,from various dimensions of the Chinese modern and contemporary history,it conducts appropriate discussions on the Institute and its training story in the historical context,while puts the Institute back to its social network.Although the Institute witnessed its British technical education scheme going dead in China because of great changes in times such as foreign&demostic wars,and the regime change,it does not indicate that the British scheme cannot be acclimated to China.In fact,its experience in education should give references to the contemporary society in which the "spirit of craftsmanship" is absent and private education is in urgent need for standardization and vigorous development.