Policy Research On Teacher Professional Development In Primary And Secondary Schools In PRC

Constructing high-quality teachers is the key to cultivating national talents for socialist construction. Therefore, making scientific teacher policies has significant theoretical values and realistic meanings in improving the qualities of teachers.Through systematic exploration on historical development and logical analysis, the study of policies on teacher professional development in primary and secondary schools in PRC aims to explore its problems and reasons, and then put forward some proposals for improving teacher professional development in primary and secondary schools. Besides the part of Introduction, the paper mainly includes three parts, divided into five chapters.The first part is the first chapter. Reviewing the history of Chinese teacher professional development in primary and secondary schools since modern and contemporary China, we can see that the policies on Chinese teacher professional development in primary and secondary schools have achieved three major changes: the first, it has transformed from the traditional normal education to teacher education, achieving the integration of pre-service training of teacher education, entry-job education and post-job training education; the second, it has transformed from a closed teacher education system to an open one; the third, it has transformed from a traditional tertiary normal education system consisting of secondary normal schools, colleges and undergraduates to a new three-level system including colleges, undergraduates and graduates.Since the year of 2000, the introduction and improvement of a series of policies on teacher education has promoted the transformation in the concept of teacher education, the system reform of teacher education and the improvement in the system of teacher education. And its developmental trends include the establishment of a standard system of teacher education, the innovation of teacher education system, the reform and implementation of the management system of teacher education, the internationalization of teacher education and the fairness of teacher education etc., whose ultimate goal is to establish a modern system of teacher education fit well with the socio-economic and educational development, and meet people's demands for the high-quality teachers and education. The second part consists of the second, third, fourth chapters, in which teacher professional development policy since the founding of PRC is divided into three parts including teacher access policy, teacher appointment policy and teacher treatment policy, and the more detailed analysis and reflection have been conducted. In the second chapter, the "entry" of teachers in primary and secondary schools is the focus. It is an urgent demand for strengthening teachers'qualities to standardize the teachers' qualifications, to strict teacher access system and further deepen and improve the teacher appointment system. The third chapter lays emphasis on the teacher appointment policy. Based on the four aspects including teacher training policy, teacher evaluation policy, the policy on appraisal and appointment of teachers, teacher incentives policy, it describes the formulation and implementation of policies and the problems and counter measures since the founding of PRC. Among teacher incentives, policy-making is far from perfect. In particular, it is necessary to make reference to the policy in encouraging teachers in Singapore and other developed countries, and take measures to motive the enthusiasm of teachers in Chinese primary and secondary schools. The fourth chapter focuses on the teacher treatment policy. From the four aspects consisting the status of teachers, professional rights of teachers, teacher salaries, teacher welfare, the chapter expounds the historical development of teacher treatment policy and emphasizes the important position of the teacher treatment policy in the whole system of teacher policies.The third part is the fifth chapter. Taking W District as an example, it discusses the implementation of the policies on teacher professional development in primary and secondary schools. Especially in recent years, the central and local governments have promulgated a number of policies to promote the balanced development of urban and rural areas, mainly including the "special post" plan for rural teachers, free Normal School Students policy, the reform policy of establishment for rural teachers, program for training teachers with Master of Education in rural schools, uniform new teacher recruitment policy, strictly prohibiting hire substitute teachers policy, large-scale teacher training policy in rural areas, the exchange of urban and rural teachers policy and other policies. Though these policies in the W District are well carried out, there are still some problems.In the last part, according to the current carry-out situation of the policies on teacher professional development and my extensive investigations in practice, a number of suggestions have been proposed, such as to be clear the goal and direction of policies on teacher professional development in primary and secondary schools, to promote the policy makers and relevant staff to understand polices, to improve their ability to implement the policies, to take the compatibility among policies into consideration in making policy. Meanwhile, the roles that government has played on the course of teacher professional development should be re-positioned, achieving the changes in the policies of teacher education development from the edge to the centre of educational policy.