Research On Zhang Zhidong's Modern Educational Model

Zhang zhidong is a famous educational reformer in modern Chinese history, a pioneer in China's modernization of education, and "an important founder of the nation's educational system during its semi-colonial, semi-feudal period". In accordance with the serious situation that the nation was then suffering deeply from domestic trouble and foreign invasion in late Qing Dynasty, the last empire in Chinese history, he strongly advocated saving the nation by education. In fact, during his practice in education by nearly a half century, Zhang strongly advocated abolishing the imperial examination system in view of the maladies inherent in the conventional educational models, and made deep explorations of reform in educational ideology, educational system and teaching content, etc. What he did paved the way for the advancement of late Qing's education towards modernization, brought to China a completely new and integrated educational system, and gave rise to a modern educational model with Chinese characteristics, which has exerted far-reaching influence on the nation's development in the cause of education. Even today, we still benefit from his achievements in educational reform.In today's century with the notion of reform and open-door policy having been in the hearts of the people and the market economy being prevalent, especially after the country's entry into World Trade Organization (WTO), there will be a tremendous impact on the country's educational sector and the domestic reform in education will meet serious challenges. Therefore, how to cope with these challenges and grasp the opportunities so as to advance the reform in education is an important issue facing the academic workers. This thesis takes as the starting-point the study on the background against which Zhang's modern educational model was formed and on its components, and makes a deep analysis of Zhang's advanced thoughts about education formed in his theoretical research and practice. Furthermore, by drawing lessons from the history and in accordance with the present problems arisen in the educational reform, the thesis weeds through the old to bring forth the new and probes further into the path to reform in education.The thesis claims the bottleneck to the modern reform in education is the incompleteness ofthe educational evaluation system. Moreover, the progress in such aspects as educational ideology, enrolment system and curriculum arrangement lags clearly behind the social development. Therefore, we must set up a completely new system to evaluate and assess education, and, taking the reform in input mechanism as the point of penetration, reform the enrolment system according to which the student's future is determined merely by an examination, innovate the traditional educational thinking, promote the reforms in diversification of educational methods and educational content so as to form a scientific and institutional educational system.