China's elementary education reform needs a large group of high quality, professional, innovative teachers. The professional growth of teachers calls for a good institutional ecological environment to enhance teachers’ sense of belonging and honor. Therefore, in order to continuously promote the reduction school teachers’ workload and constantly improve teachers’ professional development, General Office of CCCPC and Office of the State Council released The suggestions on reducing the burden on primary and secondary school teachers and further creating a good environment for education and teaching in 2019, which is the key to building a strong teaching force in 2035 and a vital measure to forge a robust educational country.
Against this background, Prof. Zhang Qian of the College of Education hassled the research team to continuously track the issue of teachers' workload, expanding the research horizon to the global scope from a basic standpoint of burden reduction and efficiency increase. They focus on countries with high educational performance, pay particular attention to the relevant measures to regulate teachers' workload by proper resource allocation, and find the regularity based on the analysis of global big data. The series of research provides a new solution for the scientific design of teachers' workload reduction and efficiency increase programs suitable for China's education system.
Through a long-term and systematic research, Prof. Zhang Qian led the team to produce a range of landmark achievements this year. In February 2022, she published an important paper Reducing Teacher's Workload from an International Comparative Perspective: From Resource Allocation to Policy Arrangement in the authoritative journal Educational Research, which drew the attention and received comments of the leaders of the Ministry of Education. On March 18, Prof. Zhang Qian was invited to deliver a special report to the leaders of the Department of Teacher’s Work of the Ministry of Education.
Entrusted by the Department of Teacher’s Work, Prof. Zhang Qian, Dr. Chao Yaqun and other faculty and students set up a research group to carry out a thorough research on the topic of "the British primary and secondary school teachers' burden reduction policy and its effectiveness" and submitted the research report "how to reduce the burden of British primary and secondary school teachers”. The research results were fully affirmed by the Ministry of Education and submitted to the superior leading departments. The report has been adopted by the Secretariat Bureau of the Secretary Group of the Central Leading Group for Education; meanwhile a special briefing has been prepared for the central leadership. For this reason, the Secretariat Bureau of the Secretary Group of the Central Leading Group for Education has given the Capital Normal University the adoption certificate of achievements in the form of an internal official letter, fully affirming the achievements of the consultative services of Professor Zhang Qian and Dr. Chao Yaqun of the College of Education of CNU.
In the past two years, based on the Big Data analysis method with a global vision, Professor Zhang Qian's research team has made remarkable achievements in teachers’ education, school bullying and some other fields, which have been recognized and adopted by the Department of Primary Education and the Department of Teacher’s Work of the Ministry of Education. That the commissioned research results can be submitted to national leaders for reference once again indicates the necessity of educational research in respond to significant national needs. For a long time, the College of Education of Capital Normal University has insisted in building a high-end think tank, timely following up the pace of China's educational reform. By supporting the national and local educational reform needs with original and high-quality theoretical achievements and providing support to relevant national ministries and commissions in the formulation of educational laws and policies, the construction of teachers' ethics and style, the compilation and evaluation of textbooks, the implementation of the teacher rotation system, and the effective implementation of the "double reduction" policy in Beijing and its cooperative provinces and cities, CNU has provided satisfactory policy consultation reports and relevant academic services. All this also fully reflects the sense of responsibility and mission of all the faculty and students of the College of Education to take root in China to do research, as well as the academic consciousness of applying research results to the great cause of China's educational modernization, and further demonstrates the intellectual strength and social responsibility of the educators of CNU.
Author: Liu Chang
Reviewer: Zhu Xiaohong
