Study On China’s Lifelong Education Policy

The theory of lifelong education originated in the sixties of the20th century and after it gradually reached a consensus in many countries around the world lifelong education has gradually transformed from one kind of ideology to a kind of specific policy and strategy which can be implemented by many countries. The development of lifelong education policy in Britain, the United States, Japan and other countries is comparatively mature, which has gradually built a relatively perfect system and mechanism in the process of formation and promotion. More and more countries put great emphasis on lifelong education due to its stimulation on national quality and economic development.The development of lifelong education in China is later than the western countries for nearly twenty years, but since reform and opening up, the popularization of lifelong education, policy formulation and construction of lifelong education system are all accelerated. Both the "Education Law of the People’s Republic of China" in1995and the party’s16th National Congress put "perfecting modern national education system and constructing lifelong education system" on the important agenda. Under the push of the party and the government, we see the practice of lifelong education in China has overcome many difficulties and made remarkable achievements, but at the same time we should still be awake to realize that the establishment of the lifelong education system in China is also facing all sorts of obstacles. Since legislation and other policy goals have not been achieved, the transformation of lifelong education from ideas to policy and its localization in China is still a long way to go.So far, China has still not established a perfect mechanism of lifelong education and lifelong education system is also in the process of advancing. To achieve these goals we definitely need to work harder, especially on the reform of the top management and design, and take more efforts to introduce targeted policy. But since policy making is a complex process of the system and mechanism reform and reconstruction involved the interests of all parties, the innovation of new policy and breakthroughs need rigorous arguments of experts and scholars and careful consideration by the administrative department of education. Therefore, we should summarize and review the development of China’s lifelong education policy process of30years, and make the objective analysis and evaluation, which is fundamental to new policies in the future. In other words, in order to reflect the essence of lifelong education idea, and guide the practice of our local policy, we need to have a reflection on the development process of China’s lifelong education policy of30years and summarize the experiences of success and failure, which is a subject with urgent and realistic significance of theory and practice.Based on the problems above, this research mainly uses literature research, content analysis and comparative research methods to analyse the texts of lifelong education policies and its guiding ideology of30years in China. At the same time from two perspectives of theory and practice of this process to carry on the overall analysis and evaluation, we could form scientific lifelong education in future policy making system and mechanism and promote the concept of life-long education in China, which eventually promotes lifelong education in the practical level and provides a solid theoretical basis and experience reference.Besides the introduction and conclusion, this study mainly includes five parts and its content and logical structure are as follows.Chapter One examines the era background and its development of lifelong education when it was introduced to China and reflects local practice of lifelong education in China before reform and opening up policy, in order to explore the specific policy of30years after China’s reform and opening up policy.Chapter Two does a research on evolution and changes of China’s lifelong education policy of30years with detailed policy texts. Through the concrete analysis of policy background and policy text of each stage to profile deeply the policy social background, value basis and policy guidance of lifelong education.Chapter Three combines local level trend of lifelong education policies and analyses three representative local policy texts, namely Shanghai, Beijing and Fujian. Through concrete analysis of policy environment, policy factors and specific content of each place, we try to reveal how national level of lifelong education policies are implemented in local places, including a series of institutional friction and local policy features, which is vital to the further investigation of lifelong education and policy localization in China.Chapter Four analyses the former lifelong education policy of China in detail, including policy goal, policy operating mechanism and policy supporting system to explore how a foreign international idea grows and is restricted in China and how to evaluate "gain" and" loss" under multi-dimensional policy objectives.Chapter Five puts forward some constructive and innovative opinions and suggestions on China’s lifelong education policy ought-to-be system from the conceptual and technological level, which mainly has a discussion on buliding reasonable value basis and operational lifelong education system, integrating education resources and reducing policy barriers in the view of systematic, scientific and localization of the implementation of lifelong education in China.