A Study On Problems And Strageties About Development Of Rural Characteristic Shcools

Rural education which follows the example of urban education ignores its special educational resources. What’s worse, it does no good to the current situation of rural social development so that it cannot contribute to educating rural students and promoting rural development. Rural regions are the key to integrating the development of urban and rural regions and improving the balanced development of education. People are different due to the different natural and cultural environments, and the essence of harmony is difference. Features could reveal difference. Through identifying features, compulsory education can develop in a balanced, good and effective way. Realizing the fact that Chongqing consists of a big city, a huge countryside, mountainous areas, and a huge dam area, Chongqing has worked out its strategies which aims at integrating rural and urban education, that is, promoting the quality of rural education, improving comprehensively the quality of rural teachers, and developing a number of schools with characteristics.It is five years since Chongqing began to develop rural characteristic schools, that is, from2006to2011. This study aims at guiding future practices through exploring the existing problems of developing characteristic schools based on researching one rural characteristic school. Proving the possibility and necessity of developing rural characteristic schools is completed by comprehensive and careful on-the-spot investigation. Meanwhile, this study will present the existing problems in the process of developing characteristic schools, and provide referencing recommendations for the future development. The existing problems are analyzed on the base of reviewing abundant documents, long-term on-the-spot investigation, and observing as participant and deep interview. The existing problems include contradictions between positioning characteristics and students’demand, a lack of teachers, poor R&D capacity of schools’ courses, loose connection between schools and communities. These problems should be attributed to the dominant role of social conditions in positioning characteristics of schools, the restrictions of modern educational system on rural education, a lack of school training, poor understanding of the community’s advantages, and the fact that rural schools can not follow the way in which the urban characteristic schools develop themselves.In view of the theoretical demand of on-the-spot investigation, firstly, the objective of building rural characteristic schools should be promoting human development and realizing the weiyu of human. The target positioning of rural characteristic schools must be in accordance with the nature of education and keep pace with the practical demand of rural students, and the comprehensiveness, traits, and process should be taken into account. Secondly, the combination of internal and external environment is the way to develop rural characteristic schools. Rural schools should achieve its autonomy to manage its education. and the evaluation standard for rural education should be gradually reformed. The educational resources of rural and urban regions ought to be shared. Thirdly, developing rural characteristic schools depends on the internal demand of rural education. Furthermore, it is necessary for the rural schools and communities together, and the rural schools can critically absorb the community culture so as to formulate their characteristics. The internal advantages of rural schools can be strengthened, and the communication between rural schools and communities should be enhanced by making good use of the community’s resources. And the community’s economy and culture depend on cultivating people who develop in a harmonious way. Finally, the education with Chinese characteristics also needs to learn from the experience of other countries, which can be used critically to facilitate the development of characteristic schools.