"Western Action To Support Education," The Practice And Thinking

Since the mid1980s, the government and the society have taken the responsibility to counter the educational imbalance in urban and rural areas. A number of "Teaching Assistance Programme", aiming to support the education in western and rural areas, continue to emerge. These programmes have achieved both great social influence and widespread concerns. People would like to know how these Teaching Assistance Programmes are implemented, how the actual performances are, what they mean to the volunteers and recipients, also in what aspects the programme can be improved.Three years ago, I was an ordinary member of the "Postgraduate Teaching Assistance Programme, China Youth Volunteers Relay Project on Poverty Aiding"(hereinafter called the "Postgraduate Teaching Assistants"), and by chance, I attended this social programme for a year."Postgraduate Teaching Assistants" is the earliest and the most fruitful educational programme among the educational assistances led by the government. For a decade or so,"Postgraduate Teaching Assistants", a team formed by students from China’s key universities, has been playing a pivotal role in accelerating the education in rural schools in Western China. My experiences and feelings triggered a lot of thinking, and I would like to discuss the importance of this programme from the academic perspective.This research takes the Postgraduate Teaching Assistance Programme in Jungar Banner, Inner Mongolia, as the case. Based on the research results of other teaching assistance programme, this research refers to sociological theories and methods, to deliver an in-depth discussion of this programme. It also provides a comprehensive analysis of involved policy design, resource allocation, implementation strategies and interest coordination. Whether the programme is suitable and adaptable to the educational development in the western areas will also be discussed.The essay consists of six parts and their key points are as follows:Chapter One is the introduction. This part explains the origin and importance of the research. It reviews relevant research results and introduces the research perspective, methodology and the interviewees.Chapter Two fully presents the design and operation of the Postgraduate Teaching Assistance programme. This chapter introduces the background of the Postgraduate Teaching Assistants, then the goals and operating mechanics of the programme. It also gives an overview on why choose Jungar Banner as the recipient area and the10years of work there.In Chapter Three, interviews of university volunteers who joined the teaching assistance programme in Jungar Banner are discussed. Their individual experiences are put forward in this chapter, as well as their motivation, pre-programme training, job position in the recipient area, the actual work, daily life and social interactions.Chapter Four discusses six related parties and their functions, including the College Programme Office, the Programme Office in the recipient area, the recipient school, the volunteers, the local students and the local teachers. Based on their review and evaluation on the program, the implementation of the programme is analyzed.The fifth chapter analyses the bottleneck in the teaching assistance programme, especially the limits of the policy guided programme after ten years of development. Reasons, problems and solutions are discussed.Chapter Six is the conclusion and reflection. An evaluation of the case is summarized, followed by expanded thinkings and reviews about the problems happened in the case.