Problems With The Building Of Specialty Elementary Schools In The Huis District Of Hohhot City And Countermeasures

Since the education department of China required in recent years that elementary education develop with its own characteristics,the building of specialty schools has gradually become a hot topic in academic circles and educational practice field.A comprehensive review of the academic research results about the building of specialty schools shows that most of the researches are conducted theoretically,with a discourse perspective from holistic characteristic study to case analysis,and that the part of practice research is mainly focused on regions rich in educational resources,with few research results targeted on western outlying areas.The elementary schools in the Huis District,Hohhot City have been pushing on the development of specialty schools,but many problems still exist that call for urgent solutions.Aimed at the building of specialty elementary schools in western backcountry areas,this research is of theoretical and practical significance.Specialty schools refer to those who have creative concepts and innovative practice in school running and seek to run schools with characteristics that suit their development,promote the professional growth of teachers,and cultivate all-round students with outstanding personalities.Characterized by uniqueness with diversity,stability with variability,and high quality with novelty,specialty schools have three subjective factors—specialty principals,professional teachers and individualistic students—as well as four structural factors—school-based curriculum,classroom teaching,teaching research and campus culture.In light of the requirements of “starting on a full scale,carrying forward step by step,positioning options,setting up the brand”,targeting at“schools with characteristics,teachers with special knowledge and studentswith strong points”,adopting the methods of “typical guide,culture promotion,comprehensive development”,Education Bureau of the Huis District launched the building of specialty elementary schools early in 2002 and has made some achievements by exploring how to run schools with individuality and characteristics.At the same time we also found in the process of our research that there are problems of simplification,formalization and unilateralism with the building of specialty schools in those low-performing schools and developing ones.The reasons can be summarized as follows: The school leaders have no fixed orientation towards the building of specialty schools;a specialty teaching team has not yet been organized;a systematic school-based curriculum with characteristics has not yet been developed;the campus environment does not manifest the specialty school culture;there is a shortage of qualified specialty teachers;the scientific research of characteristics is indistinct;the management system of characteristics is not perfect.Based on the above problems and their causes,this research proposes the following solutions: First,make clear the goal of specialty school building;second,make sure that school leaders,teachers and students all get involved in the building process;third,reinforce the systematic development of school-based curriculum and form specialty courses;fourth,constantly improve the specialty building of hardware and software of the campus environment;fifth,emphasize teacher training and promote the growth of specialty teachers;sixth,establish and perfect the guarantee and incentive system of specialty schools.