The Implementation Of Three-Level Curriculum System For Compulsory Education In Rural Area In Southwest China

The8th basic education curriculum reform, which started from the autumn in2001, injected new vitality to the development of the compulsory education. New idea, new model and new method make school education revitalized. Ten years later, how about the implementation of the new idea, new model and new method? An empirical study on this topic is needed. The government also calls for the research report in this area. In the present research, we focused on the three-level curriculum system (national curriculum, local curriculum and school curriculum) which is the crucial and difficult point in new curriculum reform. Rural areas in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Chongqing, and Guangxi were selected as samples.As the core concept, three-level system curriculum is known as national curriculum, local curriculum and school curriculum. In fact, we can understand this concept diversely from different perspective. Three-level curriculum can be regarded as curriculum system, curriculum management system and curriculum policy. This study pays more attention on the curriculum system and curriculum policy instead of curriculum management system which had been researched by other researchers. In the present study, we focus on three questions:the current situation and problems of implementing three-level curriculum system, the main influencing factors, and the effective strategies to implement the three-level curriculum system.Literature method, survey method and mathematical statistics were adopted. We designed analysis framework and survey instrument based on present studies. For the survey of the implementation of three-level curriculum system, we detected it from teachers’perspective and from three aspects:the understanding and recognition of three-level curriculum system, main body quality of implementing three-level curriculum system, resources and environment of implementing three-level curriculum system. For the analysis of influencing factors, we described it form two aspects-institutional factor and the non-institutional factor-with seven items based on the theory of new institutional economics. We sent out1109questionnaires.1109of them were effective. The effective rate is92.8%. The data and graphs were mainly processed by Spss18.0and Excel2003.As the research findings, generally, the implementation of three-level system for compulsory education in rural area in southwest China is steady. The conception of the new curriculum reform has been highly accepted. Three-level curriculum system has been implemented:all the national curriculums have been set up; local curriculums have been paid attention to and the types of curriculums are various and diverse; the content of the school curriculum are very rich. However, some problems were also released in the implementary process. Firstly, close attention were paid to the traditional subjects in national curriculum while ignore the curriculum of music, sports, art and comprehension practical activities and despise local curriculum and school curriculum. Secondly, curriculum management organization and institution implement curriculum inadequately, so the diversity of textbooks haven’t been practicable. Thirdly, it lacks of curriculum resource and teacher resource. Fourthly, there isn’t essential change in teaching or learning ways. And lastly, the evaluation has been the hinder for the reform.From the perspective of institutional and non-institutional factors, the key element for the implementation of three-level curriculum system is safeguard mechanism, including the quality of teachers, funds, resource, and so on. Non-institutional factor also has a great influence on three-level curriculum system, which includes teachers’ interpersonal relationships, education faith and non-power influence. In addition, the organization and operation mechanism of the curriculum implementation cannot be ignored.Some effective strategies were put forward to improve the implementation of the three-level curriculum system based on the research findings, including developing the curriculum implementary organization and institution; simplifying the national curriculum and supplying the core knowledge for children’s development; developing and creating typical rural curriculum resource; improving the rural teachers’quality; and improving the expansibility evaluation system.The researcher tried to innovate from several aspects. In terms of the research content, it is the first time to pay attention to the implementation of the three-level curriculum system for compulsory education in rural area in Southwest China. In terms of the research perspective, we analyzed the institution factor and non-institution factor of implementing the three-level curriculum from the perspective of policy implementation. In terms of the research method, we adopted empirical method and got findings or conclusion based on real data instead of theoretical speculation. Besides, this research combines the theory and the practice.Honestly, as the limitation of researcher’s knowledge, the limitation of the information collection, and the limitation of research method, the present research may be still insufficient and many relevant problems are still needed to be solved.