The Principals' Professionalization And The Professional Development In The Background Of K-12 Curriculum Reform

To catch up with the modern trends of the international educational development and to enable the future citizens of China to prepare them for the globalization of the 21st century, the Chinese government launched a project called "The Basic Education Reform", after that, the ministry of education carried out the reform of the K-12 curriculum. In the background of the basic education curricular reform, there arises an urgent issue -the professional development of the teachers, for it is impossible to guarantee that the reform will be successful without the anticipation of the qualified teachers, however there is a more important issue that has to be dealt with seriously, that is, the professionalization of the principals and their professional development.Compared with principals in Europe, North America, Japan and Hong Kong, China and so on,the principals in Chinese primary and high schools are less professionalized.The dissertation reveals the causes of this phenomenon and explains the necessity of the principals' professionalization as well as the professional development when they are required to be leaders rather than only managers when the schools are confronted with the educational reform.The author of this paper designed the strategies to accelerate the normalization of this programme.