Dilemmas in Reforming China’s Teaching: assuring ‘quality’ in professional development

Reforming teachers is fundamental to China’s educational and larger national reform agenda. Yet reforming teaching and teachers also requires a sort of fundamental reform, as the policymaker cited above suggests. This is the central thesis of the chapter. It also leads us to explore the dilemmas at the heart of these changes.

China’s teachers have a long and complex history. With its Confucian past, Chinese society early on officially recognized the importance of teachers. Teaching in China, however, has often been a less distinguished profession than its proponents would hope or claim. A popular adage, paraphrased, recommends that ‘as long as there is rice in the house, don’t be a teacher.’ Yet in modern China, national development goals hinge on education. Teachers, their training and professional development stand at the centre of China’s hope to improve the quality of education, transform the kind of learning opportunities children experience, and address the inequalities which limit the education of many.