A Comparative Study On The Professional Accreditation System Of Teacher Education In China And The United States

Since 2011 when the Ministry of Education issued the Opinions on Undergraduate Teaching Evaluation in Colleges and Universities,the exploration of professional programmatic accreditation in the field of engineering and medicine has been put on the agenda.However,the quality of normal education is not satisfactory,the specialized degree of teacher education and the quality assurance system of teacher education need to be improved.These realities call for the development of accreditation of teacher education.In 2017,the Measures for the Implementation of Normal Major Certification in Colleges and universities(Provisional)was officially issued,which took the lead in the professional programmatic accreditation of preschool education,primary education and secondary education at the undergraduate level.At present,it is still in the exploratory stage,and many supporting facilities still need to be improved.Tracing back to the source of professional certification,we find that the United States,as the birthplace of the system,has a long history in the field of teacher education,and has formed a relatively mature professional programmatic accreditation system of teacher education,which may provide some enlightenment for the improvement of our system.This study takes the American teacher education professional accreditation system as the comparative object,analyzing the similarities and differences between America and China in the aspects of organization system,accreditation standards,procedures and results,as well as their respective advantages and disadvantages,in order to seek for enlightenment for China's system optimization.To achieve these goals,this study first combs the history of teacher education professional accreditation system in the two countries,explores the background and evolution process of the system,and then compares the institutional organization system,accreditation standards,accreditation procedures and results of the two countries to find out the similarities and differences between them.Finally,it summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of the two countries' respective systems,and puts forward some suggestions for the development of teacher education professional programmatic accreditation in China.The study finds that: firstly in terms of organization system,the accreditation of teacher education in the two countries are organized by third-party organizations,and the qualification of these organizations should be officially recognized.However,the nature of the two organizations is different,the participation of American social professional associations differs from that in China,and functions of each department in two countries are also different.Secondly in terms of standards,both highlight the importance of clinical practice,adopt the combination of internal quality assurance and external evaluation to measure the quality of teacher education,and reflect similar accreditation idea.But there are also differences in the accreditation standards,program categories and basic contents of indicators.Thirdly in terms of procedures and results,both countries include four processes,programs need to pass the programmatic evaluation before accreditation.Besides,both countries use big data platform to help information management and the function of accreditation result has time limit.On the other hand,there are subtle differences in accreditation results and use of those results,as well as how to link it with the teacher qualification certificate system.Finally,based on these findings,this essay summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of each system,and put forward five suggestions for our own system.