jiangsu's township primary and secondary schools are closed and merged, but the goal is to cultivate "pearl schools"
2024-09-10
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rural education is an important part of building a strong country in education and a strong guarantee for rural revitalization. the third plenary session of the 20th cpc central committee proposed to optimize the allocation of regional education resources and establish a basic public education service supply mechanism that is coordinated with population changes. since the implementation of the "withdrawal of schools and merging of schools" in 2001, how to implement it scientifically, steadily and prudently, make up for the "shortcomings" of rural education, and hone a group of "small but beautiful, small but excellent, small but special" rural "pearl schools" has tested the wisdom of government departments at all levels and relevant school managers. today, after rounds of layout adjustments, more and more rural schools in jiangsu resonate with the urbanization process and become a bright spot in the picture of rural revitalization.
close sites and merge schools, optimize and reorganize
data from the ministry of education show that from 2001 to 2020, after 20 years of implementation of the "closing of schools and merging of schools", the number of small rural schools nationwide has been reduced from 491,273 to 162,601, a reduction of two-thirds.
in 2001, jiangsu also started the primary and secondary school layout adjustment project, adjusting the layout of compulsory education schools in townships and adjusting the layout of high schools in counties (cities, districts). after the layout adjustment, the number of primary and secondary schools in townships in the province still exceeded "half of the country".
this year, the central government's "no. 1 document" proposed to run "necessary small-scale rural schools (village primary schools and teaching points with less than 100 students)". what is "necessary"? in the layout adjustment, who to remove and who to keep often requires several arguments.
"the purpose of merging schools is to change the situation of weak teachers, chaotic management and poor quality in some small schools, revitalize rural education resources and promote balanced rural compulsory education." liu yulai, former deputy director of the pei county teacher development center, said that from 2021 to 2023, pei county originally planned to merge 69 township rural primary schools. after investigation and demonstration, it was finally decided to merge 56 schools, and the other 13 schools will be retained and continue to run schools to serve the surrounding villagers. most of the schools included in the merger plan are single-track schools with fewer staff and weak foundation (that is, schools with only one class in each grade).
"after the layout adjustments in recent years, there are currently 82 primary schools in pei county, including 62 village primary schools; 37 junior high schools and nine-year schools, 22 of which are in rural areas. it should be said that we are a veritable major township education county in northern jiangsu." zhu xinyi, head of the pei county teacher development center, said that the essence of successive rounds of layout adjustments is to merge weak village schools into better schools and achieve the optimization and reorganization of township education resources.
pei county is a microcosm of our province's efforts to optimize the layout of educational resources in towns and villages. during the visit and investigation, the reporter found that some small-scale rural schools that were originally included in the merger and closure plan were retained after careful consideration and are developing towards becoming rural "pearl schools".
chenqiao primary school in zhangzhuang town, pei county is one of the 13 rural primary schools that have been retained after repeated discussions. the school currently has 108 students, two-thirds of whom are left-behind children.
around 2020, the county originally planned to merge chenqiao primary school and divert students to the central primary school and tianlou primary school, which are 5 kilometers away. however, when the education department visited and investigated, parents generally said that the distance to school was too far and it was inconvenient to pick up and drop off their children.
the parents' demands put the original merger plan on hold. after two months of discussion, chenqiao primary school was approved to continue operating.
as for the schools that have been merged, when resources are merged into new schools, they also need to solve the pain point of limited and scattered high-quality education resources in townships in the past, gather high-quality resources and improve radiation capacity. in order to make high-quality resources play a greater role, some regions, after obtaining the approval of parents and implementing the merger and concentration of village primary schools, have also specially opened special bus lines to solve the problem of students having to travel a long distance to go to the new school, eliminating the worries of students and parents.
"withdrawal cannot be seen only in terms of 'withdrawal', the focus is also on 'merger'. the process of merger after withdrawal is not to mechanically 'do addition', but to organically 'do multiplication' to solve the problem of lack of 'bite' in school mergers." zhen feng, principal of qingdun temple primary school in zhangzhai town, pei county, told reporters about the process of more than 200 students and 11 teachers "moving in" from sunwa primary school in 2020. "in order to reduce the sense of discomfort caused by the merger to teachers and students, we deliberately set up a buffer period. in the first year, except for subject teachers, the class teachers of the merged classes were not changed. after one year, the class teachers were adjusted again to allow teachers, students and schools to fully adapt, thereby achieving true aggregation." zhen feng said.
in 2021 after the merger, qingdunsi primary school was rated as a "typical case school for building a warm rural campus" by the ministry of education; in august this year, the school was selected as one of the "national education system advanced collectives selection and commendation recommendations".
based in the countryside, cultivating characteristics
at present, "one decline and one rise" are showing up in many places in jiangsu - the number of small-scale rural schools is decreasing, and the overall quality of rural education is improving. our province has proposed that by 2025, about 60% of the counties (cities, districts) in the province will meet the national compulsory education quality and balanced assessment standards; by 2030, we will strive to ensure that all counties (cities, districts) meet the standards.
compared with the goals, although the optimized layout of township education has brought about an overall improvement in the education level in recent years, the reporter found that there are still some shortcomings.
"the current problem with rural education development is that it is gradually 'floating' above the countryside." dr. xu liang from the planning office of the provincial education science research institute believes that in order to cultivate "small but beautiful, small but excellent, small but special" rural schools, it is necessary to retain the characteristics of "being in the countryside". "in fact, rural students are naturally closely connected to the land, with four seasons of farming, local art, local customs... the concept of 'education is life' can be fully reflected here."
dingzhuang school in fu'an town, dongtai city is the only school in the city that is "established" in a village. principal he zhigang told reporters about his confusion, "although the school has been temporarily preserved after several discussions, this is just a 'new beginning'. how to run education in the countryside next? the first difficulty is that it is difficult for township schools to find characteristics that can attract people's hearts and it is difficult to attract parents to send their children to study. how can we cultivate young people with a sense of local love if this continues?" in he zhigang's view, rural education is an extremely important part of rural revitalization, and cultural inheritance is inseparable from schools.
some industry insiders have bluntly stated that rural education needs to be modernized, but modernization does not mean "getting rid of nostalgia"; rural schools need to narrow the gap with urban schools, but narrowing the gap depends on cultivating characteristics rather than simply copying the route of urban education and chasing after urban schools.
simin primary school, located in dongbaihu town, zhuji city, zhejiang province, uses the rich resources of sizai village to tap the unique advantages of rural education and try to build a new school education and curriculum model. the ancient village becomes a "living teaching material". after class, teachers take the children to "walk the village", visit ancient buildings and museums, and observe insects at night. the sophistication and pertinence of the curriculum have been greatly improved.
some rural schools in jiangsu also insist on finding their characteristics in the "local flavor".
in august this year, good news came back from the asian rope skipping championships, asia's highest-level and most influential international rope skipping event: 10 young rope skipping players trained and sent by tangjian central primary school in shuyang county won 4 golds, 2 silvers and 4 bronze medals for the chinese national rope skipping team.
why is this village primary school so "awesome"? the school's principal geng jinbao believes that rural teaching cannot be disconnected from students' life experience and cognition, and rural schools must carefully select the direction of characteristic cultivation. unlike some sports that require high venues and equipment, skipping rope only requires a rope, and everyone can exercise anytime and anywhere, which fits the reality of the countryside. only by adhering to the local characteristics can rural education not be "lost" from the local environment.
"three-front advancement" and "breakthrough" development
where is the future of rural education? during the visit, many principals and heads of grassroots education departments in districts and counties expressed their longing for an "idyllic" rural education.
most industry insiders believe that rural education should develop in the direction of "three parallel advances" - promoting "small but beautiful" schools by cultivating sentiment, promoting "small but excellent" schools by cultivating teachers, and promoting "small but special" schools by cultivating characteristics. to this end, there are still some issues that need to be paid attention to.
in september, a rural primary school in northern jiangsu failed to recruit new first-year students. the school has not recruited new students for two consecutive years. after the optimization of the layout, the future of such a school that was finally preserved is worrying.
"compared to any previous period, we must prepare for a rainy day now." huang weihua, deputy director of the rudong county education and sports bureau, said that in response to changes in student sources, rudong has strengthened the reform of the rural school management system - when the number of students is less than 100, the school will be included in the key monitoring list; when the number of students is less than 80, it will be downgraded to a town central school; if it decreases further, the town (district, street) government will issue an opinion and report it to the county government for approval, and the school will be merged and closed at the appropriate time.
jiang ningbing, director of the rudong county education and sports bureau, believes that preserving schools is actually only a prerequisite for the continued development of rural education. at present, we must further break the inherent "filters" of parents towards towns and villages, further change the way village schools run schools and cultivate their characteristics, and more importantly, change people - principals and teachers. this is the key to the "breakthrough" development of rural education.
in this regard, some village school principals also admitted that the actual role played by rural teachers is relatively limited: the age structure of the teaching staff is polarized, the teaching and research activities are single, and it is difficult to stimulate the innovative vitality of teachers...
in order to reverse the situation, the provincial department of education compiled and issued basic operating requirements for small-scale rural schools and township boarding schools. according to the principle of "filling in what is lacking", it comprehensively identified the basic situation, and based on the actual situation of small-scale rural schools, it allocated staffing in a manner that combined the student-teacher ratio and the class-teacher ratio. for small schools with less than 100 people, public funds were allocated based on 100 people.
as the university with the largest number of rural teacher-oriented normal students in the province, jiangsu second normal university has trained a total of 2,211 rural teacher-oriented normal students since 2016. in the view of tang bin, director of the student affairs office of the marxism college of jiangsu second normal university, teachers are the key to education, and in order to revitalize township education, it is necessary to "stimulate the creativity of rural teachers and principals." "many of the rural teacher-oriented normal students trained by the second normal university come from rural areas. they have rich social cognition and technical skills, and are familiar with the rural environment. this way, they can better serve the construction of rural schools."
"since educating people requires long-termism, educational reform should also uphold the concept of long-termism." in xu liang's view, in order to revitalize township education, it is necessary to formulate a classified development policy for rural schools to prevent township education from falling into the misunderstanding of "efficiency first". in particular, for different types of small-scale rural schools, differentiated assessments should be implemented and the role of assessment as a "baton" should be played well.
"for rural schools that have been preserved after demonstration, support should be given in terms of characteristic cultivation, investment in teacher teaching and research funds, curriculum construction, and radiation of high-quality resources to promote the characteristic development of these schools. at the same time, we should truly take 'urban-rural orientation' rather than 'urban orientation' as the main tone of rural education development, so that rural education and urban education can complement each other's advantages." xu liang said.
xinhua daily·jiaohuidian reporters li ruizhe cheng xiaolin yang pinping zhang yaowen zhang lin
