People’s Republic Of China The Secondary-occupational Education Curriculum Policies Research

As a famous saying in Book of Riles says,"A public spirit will rule all under the sky when the Great Way prevails". For a long time, due to widespread bias against occupational education, academic attention focuses on the elementary education field in the study of curriculum policies. Therefore, researches on the occupation education from the policy perspective are fruitless. This dissertation chooses curriculum policies on the secondary-occupational education as the research object. From the perspective of education policies, it explores the inherent law of the development and reform of the secondary-occupational education in China. Based on various research methods, this thesis has a comprehensive study of the history, value orientation, process and the development power of the secondary-occupational education in China. In addition, it attempts to explore its inherent law of the development and reformation. This paper carries out the following researches mainly from the following aspects:Firstly, a comprehensive analysis on the curriculum policies and documents related with the secondary-occupational education issued by the central government departments will be made in this paper. Statistical analysis will be made from the number, main body and theme of the policies and documents. It is discovered that, before the reform and opening-up, curriculum policies on the secondary-occupational education in our country, tend to be individual elite decision mode. After the reform and opening up, it is more likely to be a group coordination mode. In its theme distribution, the ideological and political course has a prominent position. Through the reform of curriculum policies on the secondary-occupational education, it can be seen that the curriculum policy environment transformed from the closed to open. The curriculum policy-making subject and objective transformed from oneness to diversity, and the curriculum mode shifted from simplicity to complexity, curriculum implementation transmited from the radical change to the gradual one. The leadership of curriculum policies presents a special pendulum movement between the centralized and the decentralized, which suggests that the curriculum reform of the secondary-occupational education is troublesome and complex rather than smooth.Secondly, the impacts of the economy, policies and culture on the curriculum policies will be explored. Under the planned economy system, curriculum policies on the secondary-occupational education in China showed the characteristics of "unification", which focused on developing students’collective consciousness and overall consciousness while weakening and ignoring the individual needs of students physical and psychological development. Under the market-oriented economy system, the curricular objectives, structure and content of the secondary-occupational education show different characteristics. With the coming of the knowledge-based economy and the further intensification of economic globalization, the curriculum reform has a in-depth development and personnel quality are required to keep up with the pace of economic restructuring and industrial upgrading. Before the reform and opening up, we imitated Soviet Union’s socialist culture, including literature, art, education, etc. Soviet mode had a profound influence on the secondary-occupational education in China. Culture shows the characteristics of oneness, which directly affected the oneness of the secondary-occupational education curriculum policies, such as the copy of the "three-step" curriculum mode of the Soviet Union. After the reform and opening up, our culture, on the whole, has a diversified development, which impacts profoundly the diversification of teaching organization, textbook compilation and the models of curriculum reform. According to the demand of the development of science and technology, China’s curriculum policies on the secondary-occupational education has made a corresponding adjustment from the aspects of curricular objectives, mode, content and so on.Thirdly, the value orientation of curriculum policies on the secondary-occupational education in China will be introspected. Any research related with policy can not avoid the problem of value orientation, which concerns the target and plan of the policy makers. Fairness and efficiency are the unavoidable issues in the curriculum reform of the secondary-occupational education in our country. In the process of the development of secondary-occupational education, it is biased that value orientation is only summarized with "efficiency" or "fairness" in a certain era, especially in the30years after the establishment of People’s Republic of China. In this period, because of the complexity of domestic and foreign political and economic development, fairness and efficiency appeared in a mixed way in the curriculum-related policies. Therefore, a single value judgment should not be put on it. The "discipline-based" and "society-standard" value orientations of the curriculum-related policies show an antagonistic relationship on the surface. However, in the development of secondary-occupational education in our country, these two value orientations reached an abnormal fusion. On the one hand, the "three-step" curriculum mode is implemented and the "discipline-based" teaching activities are carried out. On the other hand, the importance of production-practice course is emphasized and the "society-standard" value orientation is stressed in the teaching activities. Before the reform and opening up, the curriculum policies on secondary-occupational education showed the orientation of "only nationalization". In other words, to strengthen the control of society and individual is the most important target. And the policy making, implementation and evaluation are in the sphere of national decision. After the reform and opening up, this phenomenon is weakened, but the fundamental power of curriculum reform is still controlled by the government. In the development of the curriculum policies on the secondary-occupational education, the value orientation is path-relied. Different path dependence has different effects:some are positive while others are negative. The reasons for path dependence have two aspects:one is the restraint of the gradual decision-making mode and the elite decision mode; the other is the influence of the interest game among the participants of curriculum reform.Fourthly, the dynamic operation rules of the curriculum policies on the secondary-occupational education will be explored. Any policy has a process of making, implementation and evaluation, and the curriculum policies on the secondary-occupational education are no exception. the participants of curriculum policies include the ones in system and the ones outside system—participants in system include legislative body, administrative organization and the ruling party; participants outside system contain the interest groups, individual citizens, news media. From1949to1977, the curriculum policies of the secondary-occupational education presented individual elite and totally rational decision-making modes. Since1978, the curriculum policies show the progressive, finite, organized and systematic decision-making modes. In the concrete implementation of curriculum policies, there still exist many problems, such as the symbolic implementation of policy, the interpret-out-of-context implementation, the wait-and-see implementation and copy-type implementation. Still, there are a lot of problems in the curriculum evaluation, such as the singularity of the method, the ambiguity and variability of the goal, the singularity of the subjective and the ignorance of the results by the government. In essence, it is the interest game among the participants of the curriculum policies.Fifthly, an empirical study on the case will be carried out in this thesis. A national demonstration secondary-vocational school is selected. After a comprehensive understanding of policy background, region background and school background, investigations are made in the course teaching and the implementation of curriculum policies in this school is learned comprehensively. A special leading group is formed in this school, headed by the president and the professional curriculum reform carried out in concrete. Department of mechanical and electrical engineering adjusts and improves curriculum structure, actively develop school-based curriculum and implements the alternation between engineering and study. Based on the core and excellent course construction, department of vehicle maintenance and repair project integrates school and factory and has the curriculum teaching quality monitoring and security system construction. Numerical control major has a curriculum system reform, develops school-based teaching materials, combines working and learning and implements course teaching quality supervision. Computer specialty conducts the school-enterprise cooperation, establishes CPPI course system, develops projectized specialized course teaching materials, carries out the theory-practice-integrated teaching mode and establishes evaluation system to adapt to the alternation of working and learning. Accounting profession builds the practical curriculum system, makes an innovation of curriculum implementation mode and completes the construction of professional core courses by the university-enterprise cooperation. Many teachers state that decision makers should make wide investigation and survey in the grass-roots line, reduce the disconnect between curriculum policy and the actual demand, teachers’ salary and other related interests shall receive protection and improvement in the curriculum reform. Only in this way can teachers’resistance on the part of the curriculum reform be reduced and the policy of the relevant courses be carried out practically and effectively.Sixthly, as for the problems existing in the policy making, implementation and evaluation of the secondary-occupational education, this paper puts forward measures and methods from the ecological point of view to solve the problem and make an innovation on mechanism. The production and development of ecologism has been closely linked to the development of democratic political ideology, which is the inner foundation this thesis from the perspective of ecologism. Ecologist concepts such as entirety, contact, development, harmony and coordination have intrinsic uniformity and consistency with the curriculum policies on the secondary-occupational education. From the perspective of ecologism, in the process of the curriculum policy making—implementation—evaluation, the influence of politics, economy and culture on the curriculum policies should be considered comprehensively. The secondary-occupational education should be multidimensional rather than single and present a more comprehensive orientation. The curriculum policy making should absorb the advantages and make a comprehensive use of the rational, progressive, elite, political system and group decision modes. The implementation of curriculum policies should fully consider the applicability of the policy implementation, the finiteness of the scope, the dynamic nature of implementation and the wideness of the influence. The evaluation of curriculum policies should adhere to the concepts of comprehension, progression and connection so that a scientific and objective evaluation should be made on the curriculum policies of the secondary-occupational education.