# Daming Feng

# Understanding China's School Leadership

Interpreting the Terminology

Understanding China's School Leadership

Daming Feng

# Understanding China's School Leadership

Interpreting the Terminology

Daming Feng Faculty of Education East China Normal University Shanghai, China

#### ISBN 978-981-15-0555-3 ISBN 978-981-15-0749-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0749-6

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# Preface

"China, with its geographical, historical, cultural, and political distance from the West, long has been a black box upon which we readily paste labels communist, non-Western, developing country but whose internal logic remains a mystery to us". (Cohen, 2010) In this global era and also with China's rapid developing economy over these decades, the international education community has a growing interest in understanding how school leadership works in China's context. Understanding China's School Leadership: Interpreting the Terminology<sup>1</sup> is a book on school leadership in China's context, but is not the school leadership book in the conventional sense and with common formats. This book primarily focuses on the key terms<sup>2</sup> widely accepted and high-frequency used in school leadership practice in China, which may be a bit difficult to understand for outsiders. It is not a book based on an empirical study, in which a specific issue of China's school leadership is concerned. Rather, it seeks to provide a broader, but nuanced and accurate picture with ample information about current status of China's school leadership by attempting to explore a set of key terms and explicate the real meaning of them so as to assist readers to have access to China's school leadership terminology system, which would be likely to help international audience to understand the fundamental characteristics of China's school leadership practice, and even to gain insight into the internal dynamic and hidden logic of school leadership practice in China's context.

<sup>1</sup> The term of "China's school leadership", instead of "Chinese school leadership", is deliberately used so that the scope of this book is confined to the school leadership in mainland China. Namely, the school leadership in Chinese communities out of the mainland will be excluded.

<sup>2</sup> Chinese does not have an alphabet but uses a logographic system (Hanzi) for its written language. Symbols usually represent the words themselves in Chinese—words are not made up of various letters as in English. Because of this difference, a Chinese term made up of a few words may present as a sentence some times after the term is translated into English. On this account, each term in this book is expressed by Pinyin (spelled-out sounds) with meaning of the term in English. For instance: DA-QI-WAN-CHENG [Great talent takes time to mature].



# Framework of the Book

Given the aims and format of the book, all selected terms need to be couched within a framework which was composed of several categories of key practices of school leadership. To build the framework for this book, it was, perhaps, not very difficult for us to borrow an existing one from Western literature. Christopher Day and his colleagues, for example, had identified and outlined four categories of key leadership practices in a recent published book (Day, et al. 2011:17–30).

Also, we can borrow the "six key areas for the role of the headteacher" set out in 2004 by Department for Education and Skills, the United Kingdom (DfES, 2004), or the "five professional practices to the role of the principal" from Australian Professional Standard for Principals (AITSL, 2011) as the framework of this book. However, some Western scholars had recently challenged the appropriateness of such borrowing in non-Western contexts (Dimmock and Walker, 2005; Walker, et al., 2012; Bush, 2014.) and argued that "it is highly suspicious of Western ideas, theories and frameworks applied to non-Western settings as means of understanding leadership". (Dimmock and Walker, 2005, p. 2) For the author of this book took a similar view to these Western scholars, he decided to build a framework as far as possible to fit for the policy context and practical logic of China's leadership practice. To this end, it seemed to the authors that one of possible alternatives was based on two policy documents, The Professional Standards for Principals of Compulsory Education Schools<sup>3</sup> (MOE, 2013) and The Professional Standards for Principals of Senior High Schools (MOE, 2015) issued by the Ministry of Education (MOE) of China, which set out the professional standards for compulsory education school and senior high school principals in six key non-hierarchical leadership practices (see Tab. I). Obviously, the professional standards implied the fundamental expectations of Chinese government for school principals since the MOE pointed out in above-mentioned documents that the standards would serve as one of major bases in the future to develop the qualification standards, training standards, and appraisal standards for compulsory education school and senior high school principals (MOE, 2013, 2015). Hence, it seems reasonable that these six

<sup>3</sup> The nine-year compulsory education of China encompasses primary and junior secondary education. Therefore, the compulsory education schools usually refer to primary schools and junior high schools.

categories of leadership practices are employed as the framework of this book. Besides, it could be also essential for the audience who has little background knowledge of education in China to obtain synthetic information about China's school leadership and the specific policy for management of school headship. With this in mind, "China's school leadership: an overview" and "The policy regarding principal management" were included in the framework of this book.

# Methodology for the Terms Selection and Interpretation

To select the critical key terms which are paramount to understand school leadership in China, the terms explored in this book were not picked up in a random manner. Rather, the terms selection was based on literature review, questionnaire surveys, and interviews. At the stage of literature review, sources consisting of the laws on education, policy documents of Chinese central government and local education authorities, strategic plans as well as rulebooks and other practical texts from schools, journal articles, conference papers and research reports about the best practices of school leadership, and books of introducing or analyzing successful school leadership cases, particularly those authored by school principals were extensively examined. From the literature review, the high-frequency used terms with high influence on school development and leadership practice were identified. Most of the terms that preliminarily identified would be examined again in the practical context of school leadership by large-sized questionnaire surveys on school leaders and teachers as well as by the interviews with school principals and directors of county/district-level education bureau<sup>4</sup> to verify significance of the terms in China's school leadership context. After the stage of questionnaire survey and interview, the key terms that would be couched within the framework of this book were selected. For the terms interpretation, these key terms were examined in relation to their own origin and development based on relevant literature review. Meanwhile, the real meanings of the terms in work place were further explicated in the light of results of questionnaire surveys, interviews and field observation. On the basis of such an exploration, the selected terms would be fully interpreted. Finally, it would be necessary to add that the author of the book has been maintaining close relationships with China's school leadership practice as the expert for National Key Teacher/Principal Training Programs of the MOE; Research Fellow at ECNU-based National Institute of Basic Education Reform & Development, the MOE; Accreditation expert for Teacher Education, the MOE; the final reviewer for the qualification of the Top-grade Teacher and the Superfine Teacher/Principal of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (SMEC); expert for OECD-TALIS program of Shanghai, the SMEC; and as the author of consultation papers for local principal /teacher development as well as the consultant on strategic planning and

<sup>4</sup> The "director of district/county education bureau" in China is almost synonymous with "district superintendent" in the United States.

school effectiveness and improvement for counties/districts and schools across China in the last 30 years. These ample experiences of the author which accumulated from hundreds of school visits, classroom observations, and the chance of working with school leaders and heads of local education authorities on school leadership improvement were helpful to triangulate the information and data drawn from the literature review, the questionnaire surveys, and the interviews.

# Organization of Text

This book is organized into eight chapters, which together provide a broad landscape of China's school leadership practice. It is possible to profit from the insights presented by examining the eight chapters either as a whole or as separate entities. The first chapter of the book presents an overview of school leadership in China by focusing on the sources of school leadership knowledge, administration system, and school leadership system of the country. Through this chapter, the general profile as well as the salient features of China's school leadership are recognized. In the section of conclusion of the chapter, the tensions in China's school leadership practice caused by multi-sourced knowledge are also discussed. In Chap. 2, nine key terms regarding the theme "the policy regarding principal management" are explored and interpreted based on research literature review and examining the government policy documents concerning principal qualification, preparation, selection, development and appraisal. The chapter provides the background knowledge to understand how the Chinese government manages and supervises principals and what career ladders the government has set for principals.

Subsequent chapters of this book turn to six key leadership practices set by the MOE for school principals, and explore and interpret the key terms revolving around these leadership practices. The Chap. 3 focuses on the terms associated with the theme of "creating a culture fostering student development". The main concern of this chapter is not with all aspects of school culture but concentrated in those leadership behaviors, strategies and school ceremonies on which the Chinese-featured leadership values, beliefs, principles, and styles being reflected. Most of the terms in this chapter are coined by China's leadership practitioners, in which ample practical wisdom with strong Chinese characteristics is embedded. Among the nine terms of this chapter, the term moral modeling seems particularly worth further exploring since it has been identified by empirical studies in Chinese leadership context as one of significant leadership dimensions although it has been hardly noted in Western leadership literature thus far. However, it doesn't mean the moral modeling exclusively works in China's leadership context. The terms explored in Chap. 4 are associated with the leadership key practice of "guiding and facilitating teacher development". the first three terms of the chapter provide the policy background of teacher development in China while the last four terms present what responsibilities that China's principals must assume in school teacher development. In Chap. 5, eight selected terms are explored. In practice, these terms more or less reflect Chinese government's requirement for principals' leadership capacity in "planning school development". By exploring these terms and examining policies associated with them, the author not only reviews the reasons why "planning school development" was so valued in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but also revealed Chinese government's real consideration behind the significant decision of promoting the quality-oriented education, and also analyses the reasons why the hardest nuts in implementation has been not yet cracked thus far. Chapter 6 turns to the theme "leading the curriculum and instruction" which involves both domains of instructional leadership and curriculum leadership. The first six terms in this chapter are all widely used in school leadership practice in China, through which some convention and format of China's instructional leadership are disclosed. Moreover, these terms reflect the beliefs underpinning the instructional leadership practice in China. For international researchers, understanding the beliefs may be more important than knowing the terms themselves. The last four terms explored in Chap. 6 are the terms associated with the curriculum leadership. By examining these terms, the progress, achievements, and current challenges in China's curriculum reform would be understood. Chapter 7 gives readers glimpse of the State-set the framework of school management standards, the construction baseline of school architecture and other infrastructure, and school routine management system in China. Moreover, the school decision-making mechanism as well as the unique China's leadership values embedded in the decision-making process are revealed. Interestingly, the criticism and self-criticism, one of the terms in this chapter was concerned twenty-five years ago by American scholar Robert Joseph Thomas, the professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he linked it to his analysis of the forms of total quality management in the United States. The author believes that, even today, it is still a potential topic for further exploring in the field of school leadership. In Chapt. 8, seven high frequency-used terms in China's school leadership practice of "accommodating the external environment" were selected to explore and interpret. By exploring these terms, the evolution of the relationship between schools and communities in China is presented, and the government initiatives and school leadership strategies to establish relationships with parents and local community are examined. Through this chapter, one can find how the process of urbanization and the progress of education reform, especially curriculum reform, have influenced the relationship between school, parents and community. quality-oriented education

# The Audience

This book is intended mainly for international researchers who have interests in the research themes on school leadership in China's context, and for the graduate students who would like to be better informed about China's school leadership. It would also be a useful reference book for the school leadership practitioners in other cultural contexts if they would like to share some of leadership experiences from their Chinese counterparts in addressing current challenges in the field of school leadership.

Shanghai, China Daming Feng

# References


# Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the reviewers who examined the initial proposal and the manuscript for this book and offered valuable criticisms and suggestions. I am also grateful to all of the respondents in CSSLM2017-principals and CSTWCE2017-teachers and the interviewees in Intrview2018-EBO and Intrview2018-Principal for their patience and cooperation. I am particularly grateful to the persons who gave me sincere support at the stage of questionnaire survey. These include Prof. Yushun Shen, Mr. Xinxin Qin, Dr. Xudong Lu, Dr. Sen Wang, Mr. Jun Zhang, Ms. Weiyi Yan, Ms. Qi Jin, Ms. Jing Wang, and Ms. X. Messerschmidt.

Many thanks go to Ms. Melody Zhang from Education, SpringerNature for her professional advice on the book preparation and publication. Special thanks go to Dr. Shengnan Liu for her crucial technical support and encouragement in my working on this book.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge two leading academics, Prof. Yukun Chen at East China Normal University and Prof. Minshen Zhang, member of the State Education Advisory Committee who have had a profound influence on me in my academic journey.

# **List of Figures**

Figure 1.1 The increasing number of students in Protestants-founded schools in China (1876-1920)


EDODQFHGGHYHORSPHQWRIFRPSXOVRU\HGXFDWLRQ´ in east, middle and west China


## **List of Tables**


# **List of Abbreviations**



**2.3 Summary and Discussion** xix

# **Chapter 3. Creating a Culture Fostering Student Development**


#### **Chapter 4. Guiding and Facilitating Teacher Development**


*7.2.1 Management Standards for Compulsory Education Schools* 

**[**YI-WU-JIAO-YU-XUE-XIAO-GUAN-LI-BIAO-ZHUN]


#### **Chapter 8 Accommodating the External Environment**


#### **8.3 Summary and Discussion**

#### **Epilogue**

#### **Glossary of Chinese Terms**

#### **Appendices**

**Appendix A. Questionnaire Surveys**

*Current Status of School Leadership and Management: A Survey of Principals (CSSLM2017-principals)* 

*Current Status of Teachers¶ Work Condition and Environment: A Survey of Teachers (CSTWCE2017-teachers)* 

**Appendix B. Interview Protocols** 

*Education Bureau Official Interview Protocol*

*Principal Interview Protocol*

# **Chapter 1**

# **China's School Leadership: An Overview**

The differences between school leadership in China and in other countries, especially in Western countries, can be largely attributed to their different sources of school leadership knowledge and different external and internal institutional environment for school leadership. To understand how China's school leadership unfolds in day-to-day practice and what knowledge underpins its leadership practice, it is essential to figure out the sources of China's school leadership knowledge and to examine the educational administration system and the school leadership system of China. Through an overview of China's school leadership, this chapter intends to provide readers with necessary background knowledge before they have access to and make sense of key terms of China's school leadership which will be explored and interpreted in following chapters.

#### **1.1 The sources of school leadership knowledge**

School leadership in China, in terms of practice, can be traced back to thousands years ago though the leadership practices of modern schools just started from the late 19th century. Examining the thousands years course of evolution, the contemporary knowledge base underpinned school leadership practice of China is largely shaped by four sources of knowledge which can be identified as the cultural heritage from ancient times, leadership knowledge from Western countries, practical knowledge of school management from Soviet Union, and the leadership tenets and principles of the Communist Party of China (CPC) (Zhang, 1990, p.16; CIES, 1991, p.1; Sun, 1993, p.22; Zhao, 1993, pp.611-612; Xiao, 1994, p.5; Mei, 1995, pp. 231-240; Wu & Feng, 1998, p. 164; Zhang, 2004; Xi, 2014, pp.373-379).

#### *1.1.1 Cultural heritage from ancient times*

The history of education in China began with the birth of the Bronze Civilization formed thousands years ago. For the next centuries, ancient Chinese ideologists and educationists contributed to the abundant literature about school education, within which some classic volumes known as Chinese cultural heritage were included. One of the volumes was *Xue Ji*, (formerly known as *Hsio Ki* [Record on the subject of education]) written by an unknown Chinese author in the 3rd century B.C. (Fu, 1983, p.1) and translated into English version by Scottish sinologist James Legge and published by Oxford University Press in 1885 (Legge,1885). The *Xue Ji* has been acknowledged by Chinese academic community of education as the first Chinese book discoursing upon issues of educational administration and school management because the school system, admission policy, rules and schedule of a school day, the standards for student assessment, and the inspection system were introduced and discussed in this classic volume (Li et al., 1984; Zhang, 1990;Sun, 1993; Xiao, 1994; Mei, 1995; Wu et al., 2000). Moreover, a set of principles for teaching and learning proposed in *Xue Ji* has been inherited by generation after generation of Chinese educators and adopted usually by school leaders as reference for their practice of instructional leadership and teacher supervision in last thousands years. For example, the author of *Xue Ji* argued (Legge, 1885, p1):

However fine the viands be, if one do not eat, he does not know their taste; however perfect the course may be, if one do not learn it, be does not know its goodness. Therefore when he learns, one knows his own deficiencies; when he teaches, he knows the difficulties of learning. After he knows his deficiencies, one is able to turn round and examine himself; after he knows the difficulties, he is able to stimulate himself to effort. Hence it is said, '**Teaching and learning help each other**; as it is said in the *Charge to Yueh*, 'Teaching is the half of learning.

This argument was summed up by later generations of educationists as a principle in education so-called JIAO-XUE-XIANG-ZHANG, which implies a couple of close but slightly different meanings in different contexts, such as "teaching and learning help each other"(when valuing the questioning from students to teachers during classroom instruction), "there is a reciprocal relationship between teaching and learning"(when emphasize on building a linkage between teachers' lesson preparation and professional learning), and "teaching others benefits yourself"(when encouraging peer mentoring). Another well-known principle for teaching and learning is YIN-CAI-SHI-JIAO [teaching individual students in accordance with their different aptitudes and dispositions so as to help every student achieving their potential].The idea of YIN-CAI-SHI-JIAO was originally drawn from *The Analects.* In Book ˰˧ of *The Analects*, the conversation between Confucius and his students, Tzu-lu, Jan Ch'iu and Kung-hsi Hua was recorded (Waley, 1998, p. 137):

Tzu-lu asked, "When one hears a maxim, should one at once seek occasion to put it into practice?" The Master said, "Your father and elder brother are alive. How can you whenever you hear a maxim at once put it into practice?" Jan Ch'iu asked, "When one hears a maxim, should one at once seek occasion to put it into practice?" The Master said, "When one hears it, one should at once put it into practice."

Kung-hsi Hua said, When Yu asked "When one hears a maxim, should one at once seek occasion to put it into practice?" you said, "You have a father and elder brother alive." But when Ch'iu asked, "When one hears a maxim, should one at once seek occasion to put it into practice?" you said, "When you hear it, put it into practice." I am perplexed, and would venture to ask how this was. The Master said, "Ch'iu is backward; so I urged him on, Yu is fanatical about Goodness; so I held him back."

In this conversation, Confucius implied that a teacher should modify his/her way of teaching to suit the chracteristics of individual students. About one thousand and five hundred years later, Zhu Xi who was renowned as one of Neo-Confucian rationalists in Song Dynasty summed it up as one of principles for teaching, called YIN-CAI-SHI-JIAO when he annotated *The Analects* and commented on the teaching style of Confucius (Dong et al., 1985). In addition to discussion about skills of management and principles for teaching, the discussion or saying concerning the importance and influence of leaders' personal characters can be also found in Chinese classic volumes. A well-known saying from *The Analects*, for example, is that "[If] the ruler [leader] himself is upright, all with go well even though he does not give orders. But if he himself is not upright, even though he gives orders, they will not be obeyed." (Waley, 1998, p. 163) This saying implies that personal virtue of leaders could be more important than their leadership skills. It is noteworthy that these ancient Chinese claims or arguments about school management, teaching and learning, and leaders' virtue drawn from ancient Chinese classic volumes are still widely accepted by Chinese educators today. For example, the author of this book conducted two questionnaire surveys respectively in 2017 to principals and teachers in Chinese primary and secondary schools. The result of the first survey titled *Current Status of School Leadership and Management: A Survey of Principals* (hereinafter called *CSSLM2017-principals*) showed that 78.6 percent of the respondents STRONGLY AGREED with the questionnaire item of "The ancient teaching principles that have been handed down to the present ˄ e.g. JIAO-XUE-XIANG-ZHANG[valuing the questioning from students to teachers during classroom teaching], YIN-CAI- SHI-JIAO[teaching individual students in accordance with their different aptitudes and dispositions so as to help every individual achieving their potential],etc.˅ are still the teaching principles that schools require for teachers to carry out in their classroom instruction today." while 19.4 percent of respondents AGREED with the same item. In the second survey titled *Current Status of Teachers' Work Condition and Environment: A survey of Teachers* (hereinafter called *CSTWCE2017-teachers*), 78.7 percent of the respondents STRONGLY AGREED with the item of "YIN-CAI-SHI-JIAO is a teaching principle I have always believed in, and I also try to implement it in the teaching practice." while 18.0 percent of respondents AGREED with the same item (see Appendix A).

#### *1.1.2 Leadership knowledge from Western countries*

By historical literature reviewing, three major vehicles which conveyed modern leadership knowledge from Western countries to China can be identified. The first is Chinese government policy initiatives enacted in late 19th and early 20th century to promote educational change in China. The second is the Protestant and Catholics schools burgeoned in China at the turn of the 20th century. The third is the waves of Chinese to seek study in Western countries in early 20th century and from 1978 onwards (Chen, 1979, pp.175-194; Lü, 1987; Wang, 2000; Li, 2003; Li, 2004; Jiang, 2007; Liu, 2009; Wu & Liu, 2013).

#### **1.1.2 .1 Chinese government policy initiatives of educational transformation**

For a very long time, Chinese education system had been steady and exclusive from Western world. However, such a situation was broken by the first Opium War in 1840. Over the ensuing decades, the Western influence on Chinese education was gradually growing and the attitude of Chinese government towards Western education also changed significantly (Chen, 1979, pp.8-11; Lü, 1987). Almost all of government initiatives to transform feudal imperial education system into modern education system of China in the late 19th century and in the early 20th century were more or less with Western influence. In 1898, the Imperial University of Peaking (the predecessor of Peaking University) known as the first state-funded modern university and the cradle of modern higher education of China was founded with the guiding principle called ZHONG-XUE-WEI-TI, XI-XUE-WEI-YONG [upholding traditional Chinese values aided with modern Western management and technology] (Chen,1979, p.104). Unprecedentedly, the Imperial University of Peaking offered the programs of Law, Business, Sciences, Economics, Agriculture, and Engineering & Technology which borrowed from Western universities though the university still maintained traditional Chinese classic literature learning as compulsory courses (Dong et al., 1985, p.191). In 1902, the Ren-yin School System, the first modern school system of China was issued by Qing government. From 1903 to 1922, another three school systems, Gui-mao School System, Ren-zi & Gui-chou School System, and Ren-xu School System were successively issued and substantively carried out in 1903, 1912, and 1922 by Chinese government. These four school systems largely copied from the school systems of western countries (ECCLEP, 1980, p. 25). With these educational initiatives, the Western knowledge of education governance and school management were consequentially introduced to China.

#### **1.1.2 .2 Christian-founded education institutions burgeoned in China**

Although the history of Christianity in China can be traced back to Tang dynasty in 7th century, the Christian missionary activity had been restricted in next dynasties until 16th century when the establishment of the direct European maritime contact with China in the early 1500s. The first considerable wave of missionaries came to China was in 1840s after the Treaty of Nanking, Treaty of Wanghia, and Treaty of Whampoa were signed between Qing empire and Western powers. Under these treaties, the barriers of missionary activity in China were drastically removed since the extraterritoriality exempted Westerners from Chinese law and Chinese government had responsibility to protect Christian churches in China free from infringement. Besides the establishment of the clinics and hospitalsChristianity rapidly expanded to the field of education in China in early 20th century when Chinese government made an endeavor to transform feudal imperial education system into modern education system (Lü, 1987; Sun & Qu, 2015). The Christian-founded schools were burgeoning in China at the turn of the 20th century. A statistics of student number in Protestants-founded schools, for example, showed that the number of students in Protestants-founded schools increased from 5,975 to 245,049 between 1876 and 1920 (see secondary schools in China was 6,890 and the number of Roman Catholics-owned primary and secondary schools in China was 6,133 (Dong et al., 1985, p.377). With the burgeoning of Christian-founded schools, the practical knowledge of Western school leadership and management inevitably introduced to the leadership work place in China though the school leadership knowledge in Western countries remained itself in "the prescription era" at that time. As a part of Figure 1.1).According to the statistics in 1920s, the number of Protestants-owned primary and government measures to promote indigenization of school leadership in China, *The Authenticating Procedure for Foreigner-owned Schools* enacted in 1925 by the government of Republic of China stipulated

**Figure 1.1 The increasing number of students in Protestants-founded schools in China (1876-1920)** 

#### Source: Chen (1979, p. 283)

that "the school principal should be a Chinese citizens, or a school must add a Chinese vice principal if the school has already had a foreign principal…The quota of membership of school board for Chinese members should be more than half if a school has its school board." (Yang, 2010). This policy resulted in the emergence of hundreds of Western trained Chinese principals or vice principals who worked in Christian-owned schools and applied Western leadership knowledge in their day-to-day practice. In another development, a batch of Christian-owned, Protestants-owned in particular, institutions of higher education successively established during the first quarter of 20th century. These colleges and universities had significant and profound influence on the development of modern Chinese higher education during the first four decades of 20th century even though they were decomposed and integrated into various schools/colleges or departments of other Chinese universities in 1950s (see Table 1.1). Not exaggeratively, quite a

#### 1.1 The sources of school leadership knowledge 7

few today's prominent universities in China actually stemmed from the Christian-founded institutions of higher education at the time. As one of the by-products of decomposing and integrating process, the Western knowledge regarding school leadership research was to some extent transferred into Chinese universities (Wu & Liu, 2013; Sun & Qu, 2015; Wu, 2017).


#### **Table 1.1 List of Christian-founded Universities/Colleges in China**


1924 Society, Yale Foreign Missionary Society, and

Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society


#### **1.1.2 .3. The waves of Chinese to seek study in Western countries**

The government-funded programs for Chinese to study in Western countries began with the Self-Strengthening Movement in Qing dynasty. Qing Empire of China successively sent 120 Chinese children to study in American schools from 1872 to 1875 and dozens of young men to the United Kingdom, France, Germany and other European countries to learned military technology from the Western countries. However, these Chinese students at the time did not study in Western institutions of higher education. In 1901, the Boxer Protocol was signed between the Qing Empire and eight Western powers after China was defeated by eight-power alliance in 1900. According to the Protocol, 450 million taels of fine silver (about US\$ 333 million at the exchange rate of the time) were to be paid as indemnity (known as Boxer Indemnity) over a course of 39 years to the eight powers involved. In 1908, the US Congress approved the President Theodore Roosevelt's proposal to remit a part of its share of the Boxer Indemnity (nearly US\$12 million) to create the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program for Chinese students to study in American universities and to establish Tsinghua University in China. Later, the UK and France also remitted a part of Boxer Indemnity and set up similar programs to support talented Chinese students to study in their universities while rest of powers were respectively remitting parts of the Indemnity to support banking, industry as well as railway construction in China. One of the outcomes of the "remit movement" yielded the first wave of Chinese students to study in Western, particularly American universities. By 1949, it was estimated that 15,000-20,000 Chinese had studied in American universities and about 1,000 Chinese had studied in British universities (Wang, 2000; Li, 2004). Most of Chinese students who returned from Western universities played key roles in founding departments of Mathematics, Science, and Social Sciences (including Education) in Chinese universities. Eighty percent presidents of Chinese universities at the time were graduated from American universities (Li, 2003; Jiang & Xu, 2007). Meanwhile, not a few returned students founded schools at primary and secondary level and served as principals at the schools. Hence, both the practical and theoretical knowledge of school leadership with Western philosophy and methodology was spontaneously introduced to China by these returned students. On the other hand, more than ten books on school management and educational administration authored by Western scholars, such as *The Public School Administration* by E.P. Cubberley, was translated into Chinese and used as textbooks for university students studying in the field of education and for the trainees at teacher training institutions during the first half of the 20th century. Most of the translators were also the returned students (Hou, 2001; Zhang, 2015). The second wave of Chinese students to pursue overseas education emerged in the early 1980s after Chinese government decided in 1978 to take the reform and opening-up policy. Statistics from 1978 to 2007 showed that the number of Chinese who had experience of overseas study was 1210,000 and 26 percent of them (320,000) had returned China (Yuan et al., 2008). A part of returned students and young scholars who had studied in the field of educational administration at the North American, Australian and European universities later became key faculty members of educational administration in Chinese universities. They acted, more or less, as disseminators of Western knowledge on school leadership.

#### *1.1.3 The practical knowledge of school management from Soviet Union*

The knowledge of school management spread from Soviet Union to China by direct and indirect ways during the early 1950 to the year of 1960 (In 1960, Soviet government withdrew all experts from China). Soon after the People's Republic of China (P.R.C) was founded in 1949, the wave of Chinese seeking to study in Western countries went down sharply for ideological reason. Instead, the primary destination of overseas study for Chinese students was changed to the Soviet Union because the Soviet Union at the time was seen as a prime example of the most successful and advanced socialist country in the world. From early 1950s to the year of 1960, 8,310 government-funded Chinese students were sent to Soviet universities as degree-seeking or non-degree-seeking students They not only studied in various fields at Soviet universities but learned a lot of practical knowledge of management by the organized visits of Soviet primary and secondary schools, factories, and local communities during weekends and university vacations (Liu, 2009; Bai & Liu, 2016). In the same period, some 7,000 Chinese engineers and technicians were sent to the Soviet Union to acquire experience of modern industry and management in Soviet factories (Meisner, 1977; Zheng, 2009). The late Chinese paramount leader Mao Zedong

(formerly spelt as Mao Tse-Tung) made a speech to Chinese students and engineering technical personnel in Moscow during his state visit to Soviet Union in 1957. In Mao Zedong's speech, there was a very famous saying which is repeatedly quoted later in Chinese political literature (Mao,1966, p. 288):

The world is yours, as well as ours, but in the last analysis, it is yours. You young people, full of vigor and vitality, are in the bloom of life, like the sun at eight or nine in the morning. Our hope is placed to you. …The world belongs to you. China's future belongs to you.

It is clear that Chinese government had high expectations for the students and engineering technical personnel trained by Soviet Union. In fact, not a few students and young engineers later took leadership positions in all professions and trades of China. The most prominent example is former Chinese President Jiang Zeming and former Chinese Premier Li Peng who were trained in Soviet Union in 1950s. The knowledge brought back by Soviet-trained personnel, as it should be, influenced on Chinese leadership pattern in various fields. If this was only seen as indirect influence on China's school leadership, then the movement of learning from the education of Soviet Union (hereafter called "learning-Soviet-movement") was definitely the direct impact on the school management of China. The "learning-Soviet-movement" began from December 1949 when the 1st National Congress of Education was held in Beijing and called on Chinese education to borrow the advanced educational experience from Soviet Union. Following the National Congress of Education, the "learning-Soviet-movement" was pushed by relevant policies and government measures in three aspects of education restructuring, educational theory introduction, and approach to school management. In the early 1950s, the government set out the process of education restructuring by taking the education of the Soviet Union as an example. According to the *Decision by the State Council of the Central People's Government regarding School System Reform* issued by the State Council in 1951, the existing school system of 6-3-3(6 years primary,3 years lower secondary, and 3 years upper secondary) was changed to Soviet like 5-3-3 (5 years primary,3 years lower secondary, and 3 years upper secondary). The State Council also decided to establish a centralized system of educational administration and carry out the unified programs, unified syllabus, and unified textbooks in China's school education, which was obviously copied from the Soviet Union (State Council, 1951). Secondly, seven Soviet senior experts of education were invited as educational consultants to the Ministry of Education, P.R.C. The consultants provided a wide range of consulting service by introducing Soviet experience and providing professional advice and suggestions to educational issues discussed at ministerial meetings, giving lectures and handling training programs for local education system leaders, school principals and teachers, and assisting faculty members of education at universities to develop textbooks through their inspection tours or regular visits of various provinces of China. Another 67 Soviet experts were invited in the same period to China to give lectures or hold training programs in Chinese universities (Zhou & Xu, 2002; Gu, 2004). On the other hand, 107 monographs and textbooks of education authored by Soviet educationists were translated into Chinese and published in China from 1950 to 1956. Among these 107 books, there were 12 monographs or textbooks titled School Management (Hou & Shi, 2013). With the advisory and training activities, the Soviet 3C and 2P pedagogy (teacher-centered, textbook-centered, and classroom teaching-centered with laying stress on lesson plan and planned lesson) was widely disseminated and applied in Chinese school context (Zhou & Xu, 2002; Huang, 2010). Thirdly, the widely disseminating Soviet theory of education and the frequent field observation and advisory comments of Soviet experts brought intense impact on Chinese school management at the time. As one of the consequences of the "learning-Soviet-movement", both the pattern of school management and the conceptual framework and knowledge system underpinned management practice were shaped by Soviet educational experts. The influence of Soviet knowledge still works today though the close relationship between China and the Soviet Union was finished and the "learning-Soviet-movement" was terminated in 1960 when the Soviet Union decided to withdraw all experts from China. For example, the emphasis of principal's regular participation in classroom observation or collective teaching study is too often recognized today as a part of indigenous tradition of Chinese instructional leadership at schools, but it is actually the legacy of the "learning-Soviet-movement" though it was a bit revised later in Chinese leadership practice. Finally, it is noteworthy that one of the remarkable features of Soviet knowledge of school management was primarily concerned with specific knowledge and skills encompassing process and aspects of school operation aside from arguing and elaborating the communist philosophy on education. For example, the way of school enrollment, class grouping and class size setting, teacher team building, process supervision on classroom teaching, library and archives management, utilization and maintaining of school

equipment and facilities, and the format of school report with statistics were described and discussed in details in the chapter "School Management and Leadership" of I.A. Kairov ɂȺɄɚɢɪɨɛɚ V *Pedagogy* (Kairov, 1957), the best known and most widely circulated Soviet textbook of education in China in 1950s5 . However, some elements of contemporary school leadership, such as setting direction, defining school vision, developing strategic plan, building learning community, enriching school-based curriculum, building good relationships with local community and wider society etc., were neglected in Kairov's *School Management and Leadership*. By and large, the knowledge introduced into China from the Soviet Union at the time was limited to practical knowledge of school routine management.

#### *1.1.4 Leadership Tenets and Principles of CPC*

The Communist Party of China (CPC) has been the only ruling party since the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. In the past seventy years, the leadership tenets and principles of CPC has been embedded in government policies about school education, the programs for school leadership appraisal, as well as training programs for school principals. Therefore, it is no surprising that the leadership tenets and principles of CPC can be viewed as one of knowledge sources of China's school leadership.

#### **1.1.4.1 The Leadership Tenets**

The leadership tenets of CPC were created and built chiefly by Mao Zedong who was one of the thirteen founders of CPC, the chief founder of PRC and had been the Party's supreme leader from 1935 to 1976. Chinese President Xi Jinping, also General Secretary of Central Committee of CPC (CCCPC), referred in 2014 the concepts of SHI-SHI-QIU-SHI [seeking truth from facts], QUN-ZHONG-LU-XIAN [the mass line]6 and DU-LI-ZI-ZHU [independence] as three basic tenets featuring the enduring spirit of Mao Zedong Thought (Xi, 2014). In explanation of the concept of *seeking truth from facts*, Mao Zedong said, "'Facts' are all the things that exist objectively, 'truth' means their internal relations, that is, the laws governing them, and 'to seek'

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means to study. We should proceed from actual conditions inside and outside the country, the province, county or district, and derive from them, as our guide to action, laws which are inherent in them and not imaginary, that is we should find internal relations of the events occurring around us." (Mao,1966, p. 231-232). As one of the tenets of the "Party's thinking, working and leading approach" (Xi, 2014, p. 27), the concept of *seeking truth from facts* encourages Chinese leaders at different levels to attach importance to the method of investigation and study in leadership practice. Mao Zedong once argued that everybody at any levels of leadership should investigated conditions at the lower levels when he/she engages in practical work. "You can't solve the problem? Well, get down and investigate the present facts and its past history! When you have investigated the problem thoroughly, you will know how to solve it. Conclusions invariably come after investigation, and not before." (Mao, 1966, p. 233).This argument is popularly summed up as a saying of "no investigation, no right to speak" in Chinese leadership practice, including school leadership practice. When Mao Zedong described *the mass line*, the second leadership tenet of CPC, he asserted that "in all practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily 'from the masses, to the masses'. This means: take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in such action…so as to form correct ideas of leadership---such is the basic method of leadership." (Mao, 1966, p.128) In his comment on the tenet of *the mass line* in 2014, Xi Jinping referred it as CPC's lifeline and a cherished tradition that enables CPC vitality and combat capability and called on to implement it in all leadership practices (Xi, 2014).As for the concept of *independence*, it won't be discussed in this book because it is the tenet of CPC regarding the diplomatic relations with other countries.

#### **1.1.4.2 Leadership principles**

The "principles" here refer to the key principles underpinning leadership approach of CPC. Among the principles, one of most frequently mentioned principles is *democratic centralism*. Mao Zedong expounded his view on *democratic centralism* that "within the ranks of the people, democracy is correlative with centralism and freedom with discipline. They are the two opposites of a single entity, contradictory as well as united, and we should not one-sidedly emphasize one to the denial of the other. Within the ranks of the people, we cannot do without freedom, nor can we do without discipline; we cannot do without democracy, nor can we do without centralism. This unity of democratic and centralism, of freedom and discipline, constitutes our democratic centralism. Under this system, the people enjoy extensive democracy and freedom, but at the same time they have to keep within the bounds of socialist discipline." (Mao, 1966, p. 254-256) In leadership practice, the *democratic centralism* is typically embodied in a leadership method so-called collective leadership. Mao Zedong pointed out, "the Party committee system is an important Party institution for ensuring collective leadership and preventing any individual from monopolizing the conduct of affairs….All important problems (of course, not the unimportant, trivial problems, or problems whose solutions have already been decided after discussion at meetings and need only be carried out) must be submitted to committee to discussion and the committee members present should express their views fully and reach definite decisions which should then be carried out by the members concerned." (Mao, 1966, p. 104-105) In the process of decision making at the committee meetings, the *democracy* or *freedom* refers to the views expressed fully by all members while the *centralism* refers to the right and responsibility of the secretary, the chairperson of the committee, to synthesize and sum up the views of members after their discussion. However, the relation between the secretary and the committee members is one in which the minority must obey the majority at the final decision made by voting. Then the minority must support the final decision passed by the majority. If necessary, the minority can bring up the matter for reconsideration at the next meeting, but apart from that it must not act against the decision in any way. In this respect, *discipline* means that both the members and the secretary must obey such a rule (Mao, 1966). As a matter of course, this principle has profound influential on school leadership practice and carried through the process of school decision making in China.

#### **1.2 Educational administration system**

In China, the educational administration system has the most direct and powerful influence on the school leadership practice. By examining the four-tier system of administration and the autonomy and accountability maintained for school leadership, it is believed that one can have a general understanding one of the most influential aspects of school leadership's external environment in China.

#### *1.2.1 A four-tier system of administration*

The existing system of educational administration in China is established according to the *Education Law of People's Republic of China* enacted in 1995. The Article 14 and 15 of the Law stipulates that: (National People's Congress, 1995):

**Article 14** The State Council and all local People's government at different levels shall supervise and manage the educational work according to the principle of management by different levels and division of labor with individual responsibility. Secondary and lower education shall be managed by the local People's government under the leadership of the State Council. Higher education shall be managed by the State Council and the People's government of province, autonomous region or municipality directly under the central government.<sup>7</sup>

**Article 15** The department of the State Council in charge of educational administration<sup>8</sup> shall be responsible for the educational works of the whole country, make overall plans and coordinate the management of educational undertakings of the whole country. The departments in charge of educational administration under the local People's government at and above the county level<sup>9</sup> shall be responsible for the educational works within the jurisdiction of the respective administrative region.

The content of these two articles have not changed since 1995 though the Law was amended in 2009 and 2015. Under the stipulation of these two articles, the system of educational administration for primary and secondary schools is a four-tier system in which the Ministry of Education (MOE) is at the top of the system and followed by provincial education departments (PEDs), prefecture-level-city education bureaus (PLCEDs) and county education bureaus (CEBs)10(see Figure 1.2). Actually, the hardcore of Article 14 and 15 is the phrase "management

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by different levels and division of labor with individual responsibility". In the domain of primary and secondary education, the MOE plays a national leadership role in establishing strategic plans, policies, and general guidance for educational reform and development nationwide, formulating the rules and regulations for setting-up of schools, determining the professional standards and requirements for teachers and principals, setting the benchmark for state curricular and teaching and learning in primary and secondary schools, implementing inspection and evaluation the quality of local school education, particularly, the quality of the nine-year compulsory education, and publishing statistics with educational information of the nation (MOE, 2015a). The PEDs have the legal authority to establish provincial policies about school education both accordance with the MOE policies and depending on provincial conditions since there is uneven economic and social development between eastern coastal provinces and western inland provinces and autonomous regions. The PLCEDs, as administrative agencies of a PED, take charge of promoting and supervising the implementation of provincial education policy in its prefecture in which several counties included. The PEDs simultaneously grant the authority to CEBs to substantially handle the day-to-day operation of local primary and lower secondary education, the educational stages within the scope of nine-year compulsory education, by setting out local administrative measures and developing specific regulations in implementing the policies of MOE and PEDs. The authority granted to CEBs' is largely in light of the county-centered financing system for nine-year compulsory education established after the State Council promulgated the *Decision on Reform and Development of Basic Education11* in 2001. Under the county-centered financing system, CEBs should be the major agent to provide and handle the countywide compulsory education and to take responsibilities to allocate funds for school operation and to supervise and evaluate school performance while both central and provincial governments should enhance transfer payments towards county-level governments. (State Council, 2001; Du & Sun, 2016). Some school leaders tend to view the policies of MOE and PEDs as too distant and too abstract to make much difference in their schools and just to be concerned with what national and provincial decisions handed down by their CEBs. In this regard, the policy and management measures of the CEBs, in comparison with that of MOE and PEDs, have the biggest and most direct impacts on

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school leadership practice in 253,736 primary and secondary schools (MOE, 2017) since CEBs are the local education authorities closest to school site.

**Figure 1.2 The four-tier system of educational administration in China** 

Source: National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). (2016).

#### *1.2.2 Autonomy and accountability for school leadership*

Although schools in China have been operating under a centralized system of educational administration thus far, decentralization has been one of the focal themes in the country's educational reform agenda in last three decades. As a result, primary and secondary schools have much more autonomy than 30 years ago. To make it easier to understand the status quo of school autonomy in China, the author chose three European economies, Germany, England and France as a comparison. The information provided in Table 1.2 comes from the publication of Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) in European Commission, *Key data on education in Europe 2009* (EACEA, 2009) whereas the information provided in Table 1.3 and 1.4 comes from the results of the questionnaire survey of the principals at compulsory schools in 14 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) of China. From the results of the questionnaire, there are three kinds of answers to each item: full autonomy, limited autonomy and no autonomy, but the proportion of the three kinds of answers is different. Taking the item "selection for

teaching vacancies" as an example, 77.1% of the respondents said that they had no autonomy, which was consistent with the current policy that the recruitment of teachers was handled by the county education bureau /district education bureau (CEB/DEB). But why did 18.7% of the subsequent interview with some principals, it is learned that the different answers were largely due to the different management styles of some CEBs/DEBs. For example, the principals would regard that they had "limited autonomy" if a CEB/DEB respected individual schools' proposal for teacher recruitment which submitted in advance to the CEB/DEB. And a small number of prestigious schools, in some counties or districts school system, were often given priority to select the candidates they preferred. For the principals of these schools, they of course recognized that they had "full autonomy" in "selection for teaching vacancies" (Feng, 2018). This fact suggests that the "full autonomy", "limited autonomy"ˈand "no autonomy" should not be seen as "categorical variable" respectively, but rather they should be seen as "continuous variable". With this in mind, the author believes that it is appropriate to use Mean (M) and Standard Deviation (SD) instead of Percentage (%) to present the status quo of school autonomy in China. By doing so, we got the results of the survey of Chinese principals shown in Table 1.4. It suggests that the public compulsory education schools (at the stage of ISCED 1 and 2) of China have greater discretion in making decisions regarding choice of teaching methods, setting internal assessment criteria of pupils, and operating expenditure while the schools have less discretion in making decisions on loans, leasing of school premises for out-of-hours activities, selection for teaching vacancies, dismissal of teachers, and choice of text books (see Table 1.4). In contrast with three European economies, China's schools have greater autonomy in using of private funds to employ teaching staff and non-teaching staff than the schools in Germany and France, while the autonomy of China's schools in these affairs is close to that of schools in England. On the other hand, China's schools have less autonomy in choice of text books, choice of teaching methods, criteria for grouping pupils for compulsory learning activities, and decisions about whether pupils should repeat a year than the schools in Germany, England and France (see Table 1.2 and 1.4). Perhaps, contrast between school autonomy in China and in the European economies can help us to get a rough profile of the autonomy for China's school leadership. respondents say "limited autonomy" and even 4.2% say "full autonomy"? (see Table 1.3) By

As the other side of the coin, school autonomy is always accompanied by the introduction of

accountability for school leadership. In China, school evaluation is conducted each school year. Despite numerous exceptions across the 31 PEDs and thousands of CEBs/DEBs within them, a three-step pattern of school evaluation prevails. As the first step of school evaluation, school leaders and their staff engage in annual self-reflection based on certain pre-established criteria formulated by local CEB/DEB and submit school self-evaluation report to the CEB/DEB. Secondly, it is the on-site evaluation of an expert team organized by the CEB/DEB, including listening to the school work briefing, classroom and other work place observation, examining school policy and managerial documents, interviewing with representatives of stakeholders, etc. Finally, the experts share, at a feedback meeting, overall evaluation and detailed comments on school performance with the school leadership team and discuss the possible ways of school improvement in the future. The evaluation report worked out by the expert team will submit to the CEB/DEB. On the other hand, the leadership appraisal is also conducted by local CEB/DEB at the end of each school year. The leadership appraisal is a way by which a school leader's annual job performance and productivity are reviewed encompassing leadership capacity, personal morality and self-discipline, and work achievements. The outcome of leadership appraisal, together with school evaluation report, will be documented as one of key references to determine a leader's promotion, job rotation, demotion, and even termination in the future.



#### 1.2 Educational administration system 21


#### Source: EACEA (2009).

Note: FA refers to full autonomy; LA refers to limited autonomy; NA refers to no autonomy.


#### **Table 1.3 China's school autonomy in teacher recruitment**

Source: Feng, (2018).

Note: FA refers to full autonomy; LA refers to limited autonomy; NA refers to no autonomy.

#### **Table 1.4 School autonomy in public sector (ISCED 1 and 2) of China**



Source: Feng, (2018).The autonomy of compulsory education schools in China: An empirical analysis. J*ournal of* 

*Chinese Society of Education*. *10,* 55-60.

Note: FA=1; LA=2; NA=3.

#### **1.3 School leadership system**

The current school leadership system in China is different from that in Western countries because of the influence of a fundamentally different cultural and political context, although the modern school leadership system in China was established by borrowing some relevant experience from Western countries. We are afraid that some peculiarities of China's school leadership system may be strange or even mysterious to outsiders. Because, in a large sense, it is hard to make out the kernel (the most central part) of China's school leadership without understanding what the *Principal Responsibility System* <sup>12</sup> [XIAO-ZHANG-FU-ZE-ZHI] is and how the CPC organizations work at schools. However, it is necessary to have a glimpse of the organizational structure of China's schools before examining the Principals Responsibility System.

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#### *1.3.1 School organizational structure*

School organization in China generally has a hierarchical, pyramid structure in which a top down and clear chain of command is set: School leadership team at the top, the middle managers in the middle, then the lower managers, and the ordinary teacher, office staff and ancillary workers at the bottom. The school leadership team consists of the principal and vice-principals, the Party secretary (there is an associate Party secretary in some large-sized schools), and the chairperson of School Trade Union. The principal is the chief leader in a school leadership team and is, in the light of the school size, assisted by one or more vice-principals. The vice-principal's position is secondary to the principal with regard to school routine leadership and management. The vice-principals generally perform specific leadership duties whereas the principal has the ultimate responsibility for the school as a whole. The middle managers include the directors of Office for Moral Education (OME), Office for Curriculum & Instruction (OCI), Office for Scientific Research & Teacher Development (OSR&TD) and Ancillary Services (AS). The heads of Grade Units (GUs) and heads of Teaching-Study Groups (TSGs) together with the heads of Lesson Preparation Groups (LPGs) act as the lower managers. Conventionally, the principal with vice-principals take responsibilities to supervise the directors of OME, OCI, OSR&TD and AS, and the directors are respectively responsible to manage the daily operation of moral education, curriculum and instruction, general service and support affairs and coordinate the intra school research projects and teacher development. The Party organization at school chaired by the Party secretary is responsible for steering the work of School Trade Union (STU), Women's Federation (WF), the Communist Youth League (CY)/ Young Pioneers (YP). But since 2016, the Party organization has taken over the responsibility to lead the moral education of school according to a renewed definition of the role of the Party organization at school (Organization Department of CCCPC and PCMOE, 2016). The head of Grade Unit (GU) is responsible for the administration affairs about a certain grade (e.g. the grade of year one) whereas the head of subject-based Teaching-Study Group is responsible for professional affairs of a subject. For example, the Teaching-Study Group of Mathematics is responsible for ensuring the quality of teaching and learning of Mathematics by supervising the performance of the Lesson Preparation Group of Mathematics at every Grade Unit (e.g. from year 1 to year 6 in a primary school, or year 7 to year 9 in a junior high school) and organizing school wide teaching study activities for all Mathematics teachers. The subject and grade-based Lesson Preparation Group is the branch of the

Teaching-Study Group at a certain grade (e.g. the Lesson Preparation Group of Mathematics at year 1). The Lesson Preparation Group is responsible for ensuring the quality of teaching and learning of a subject by supervising performance of individual teachers at the same grade and organizing teaching study activities for teachers of the same subject at the same grade. So, it is an intermediary management between Teaching-Study Group and subject teachers. In practice, the organizational structure of schools is not entirely uniform in China, because every school has the right to arrange its own middle and lower management. However, the organizational structure most commonly adopted is shown in Figure 1.3.

**Figure 1.3 Common organizational structure of a school**

Note: STU= School Trade Union.

WF= Women's Federation at school level (WF is responsible for defending women's rights and interests,

promoting equality between men and women, and also concerning about the welfare of children).

CY= The Communist Youth League (the student organization for secondary school students).

YP= Young Pioneers (the student organization for primary school students).

#### 1.3 School leadership system 25

OME= Office for Moral Education ("Moral Education" is often used synonymously with "Civic Education" in Western Countries)

OCI= Office for Curriculum & Instruction.

OSR&TD= Office for Scientific Research & Teacher Development.

AS= Ancillary Services.

GU=Grade Unit.

TSG=Teaching-Study Group.

LPG = Lesson Preparation Group.

Form T=Form Teacher.

Subject T=Subject Teacher.

#### *1.3.2 Principal Responsibility System*

The role of China's school principal over a substantial period of time had been an agent to convey the will of the superior authority and to fully implement government instructions on school education and seldom taken the responsibility for school development planning until the nation-wide educational reform was launched after the publication of the *Decision of the CCCPC on the Reform of the Educational System* in 1985. With the progress of the reform, the government both delegated part of power to schools in managing human resources, financial resources, teaching content and processes, and in developing school charter as well as intramural rules and regulations (Liu, 2005; Cao & Hui, 2009). The CCCPC called on for the first time in 1985 that the Principal Responsibility System (PRS) would be gradually adopted as school leadership system for all primary and secondary schools across the country (CCCPC, 1985). In1993ˈCCCPC and State Council reaffirmed that the PRS shall be adopted in primary and secondary schools (CCCPC and State Council, 1993). The PRS became the statutory leadership system for the compulsory education schools in 1986 when the *Compulsory Education Law of the People's Republic of China* clearly stated," A school shall adopt the principal responsibility system" (National People's Congress, 1986). Although the rationality as well as the appropriateness of the PRS has been questioned and challenged over the past 30 years (e.g. Feng, 2003; Chen, 2006; Sun et al., 2013; Wang & Lin, 2017), this system is likely to continue to be implemented since there would not be better system to replace it in the foreseeable future.

The framework of the PRS is made up of four pillars: the local education authority (i.e. CEB

or DEB) is responsible for supervising the leadership of local schools; the principal is the ultimate leader for the school as a whole; Party organization chaired by the Party secretary is responsible for monitoring and assurance; teachers and supporting staff involve in the process of major policy decision through the School Staff Congress (Yan, 1998; Xiao, 2000). Namely, we will get the profile of the PRS if we can understand the roles of local education authority, principal, Party organization at school and School Staff Congress within the framework of the PRS.

1.3.2.1 The role of local education authority

Since the *Decision of the CCCPC on the Reform of the Educational System* set out the PRS in 1985, China's schools have been granted much greater degree of autonomy than 30 years ago. Moreover, the recent government policy concerning the relationship between local authority and schools has tended to further grant greater autonomy to schools (CCCPC, 2013; General Office of CCCPC and General Office of the State Council, 2017). It seems that the general trend of educational governance reform over the ensuing years would be decentralization. On the other hand, it seems that the tendency for decentralization results in the management style change of local education authority. For example, in the survey of *CSSLM2017-principals*, 42.1 percent of the respondents STRONGLY AGREED with the questionnaire item of "I have the chance to have one-on-one communication with the Education Bureau director at least once a semester" while 24.5 percent of respondents AGREED with the same item (see Appendix A). In *Intrview2018- Principal*, 15 out of 17 interviewees said that it is normal in today's school leadership practice for the principal to seek timely support from the director of CEB/DEB without hesitation by the communication on telephone, through WeChat, or making an appointment to meet with the CEB/DEB director when he/she encounters the challenges beyond his/her ability to address (see Interview 2018- Principal in Appendix B). But ten to twenty years ago, it was not easy for a principal to communicate directly with the CEB/DEB director since such a communication would have to be arranged by the director's office. In a sense, it can be seen as a sign of a reduction in the bureaucracy of the local education authority. Moreover, the emotional needs of principals are also respected by the local education authority. The CEB/DEB director sometimes takes the initiative to meet with a principal to give timely leadership advice and emotional support when the principal is confronting with a hard time and suffering from a frustration in his/her leadership practice. Nevertheless, the local authority still maintains great substantive power in supervising and managing school leaders by school leadership accountability although the role of local education authority is not as strong as it used to be.

#### 1.3.2.2 The role of principal

Although a school leadership team usually consists of the principal, the party secretary, vice-principals, and the chairperson of School Trade Union, the principal is the most, not one of the most, important and powerful figure in a school leadership team. Perhaps, we can confirm the significance of the principal's role by examining following four aspects of the role function. Firstly, a principal, in the framework of PRS, is the legal representative of his/her school. According to the *General Provisions of the Civil Law of the People's Republic of China***,** the legal representative of a legal person (e.g. school) is the principal person in charge of exercising civil rights and fulfilling civil obligations on behalf of the legal person according to law (National People's Congress, 2017). It apparently demonstrates the unique importance of the principal's role in a school. Secondly, the "principals of schools", under Article 30 of *Education Law of the People's Republic of China*, "shall be held responsible for teaching and learning activities and administration."(National People's Congress, 1995). In China, leadership for teaching and learning has long been viewed as the core work of school leadership. In such a context, it means, since the law gives the principal leadership responsibility of teaching and learning, a principal is the supreme leader handling the core business of his/her school. Thirdly, according to the policy regarding the mechanism of decision making in PRS, the school major issues (e.g. developing or revising school charter, formulating school development plans, annual and semester work plans and curriculum plans; setting out major reform initiatives or new rules and regulations; change of intra school institutions and posts; appointment or removal of middle managers or other important personnel arrangements; approval of the action plan for teacher development; discussing and deciding annual budget, final accounts and the plan of large expenditure; examining the appraisal scheme of teachers and supporting staff associated with the performance related pay; formulating school policy concerning enrollment and graduation; supervising school major infrastructure projects etc.) should be decided by the XIAO-WU-HUI-YI [School Affairs Meeting]. The participants of the School Affairs Meeting usually include the principal and vice-principals, the Party secretary and associate secretary, and the chairperson of School Trade Union. The principal, anyway, is the chairperson and the final decision maker at the School Affairs Meeting (ODSMPC, SMCEHA and SMEC, 2010). Finally, the most recent policy about the Party organization at school advocated to "place the both role of the principal and the Party secretary on one shoulder" (Organization Department of CCCPC and PCMOE, 2016). Namely, the policy encourages a principal to hold the concurrent post of Party secretary when the principal himself/herself is the member of CPC. In this case, the principal is definitely the paramount leader in his/her school.

1.3.2.3 The role of Party organization at school

The "Party" (usually using initial with capital letter) in China's political context refers exclusively to the Communist Party of China (CPC). The Party organization at school is named "Party branch" in small-sized and medium-sized schools, or named "general Party branch" in the large-sized schools. In the framework of PRS, the primary role of the Party organization at school is basically defined as monitoring and assurance (CCCPC, 1985). That is to monitor whether the school major decisions conform to the educational policies and to assure that the school decisions will be carried fully out by mobilizing the Party members of the school to play active roles in implementing school decisions. In 2016, the role of the Party organization at schools was comprehensively elaborated as, "the Party organizations at primary and secondary schools are the basis for the Party's overall work and combat effectiveness in schools. They play a central role in politics, take full responsibility for the Party's ideological, organizational, work style, anti-corruption and honesty-building, and system construction, steer the direction of school development, participate in deciding major issues and monitor their implementation, support and ensure that principals exercise their powers according to law, lead moral education and ideological and political work in schools, cultivating and practicing socialist core values, safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of all stakeholders, and promoting the sound development of schools" (Organization Department of CCCPC and PCMOE, 2016). As we stated earlier, some peculiarities of China's school leadership system may be mystified to outsiders. One of the peculiarities is no other than the establishment of the Party organization in every school. In fact, the way of establishing the Party organization at school is learned from CPC's successful experience in building of CPC's army in the Chinese Second Civil War (also called the Agrarian Revolutionary War) during 1927 to 1937. When Mao Zedong, the founder of CPC and CPC's army talked with British journalist James Bertram in 1937 and in 1957, he recalled that "the system of Party representatives and of political departments, adopted for the first time in China,

entirely changed the complexion of these armed forces." (Mao, 1966, p. 134). Mao said to James Bertram that the political work of the CPC's army "is guided by three basic principles. First, the principle of unity between officers and soldiers, which means eradicating feudal practices in the army, prohibiting beating and abuse, building up a conscious discipline, and sharing weal and woe—as a result of which the entire army is closely united. Second, the principle of unity between the army and the people, which means maintaining a discipline that forbidding the slightest violation of the people's interests, conducting propaganda among the messes, organizing and arming them, lightening their economic burdens and suppressing the traitors who do harm to the army and the people-- as a result of which the army is closely united with the people and welcomed everywhere. Third, the principle of disintegrating the enemy troops and giving lenient treatment to prisoners of war. Our victory depends not only upon our military operations but also upon the disintegration of the enemy troops. "(Mao, 1966, p. 136-137). Mao also pointed out on another occasion, "'the Party branch is organized on a company basis'.13 This is an important reason why the Red Army has been able to carry on such arduous fighting without falling apart" (Mao, 1966, p. 136). Obviously, the idea of building a Party branch in a school is the same as that of the Party branch is organized on a company basis. This is one of typical examples that partial China's school leadership knowledge is sourced from the leadership principles of CPC.

#### 1.3.2.4 The role of School Staff Congress

According to the official definition, the School Staff Congress (SSC) is the basic form for school staff (teachers, office staff and ancillary workers) to participate in the democratic management and supervision of the school according to law (MOE, 2011). Establishment of the SSC is a government mandatory requirement for every school where the PRS is adopted as school leadership system. In the framework of PRS, The SSC primarily fulfils seven functions which includes (MOE, 2011):


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The School Trade Union is the working body of the SSC during adjournment period of the SSC. That is why the chairperson of School Trade Union is one of school leadership team members and has the right to attends the School Affairs Meeting.

#### **1.4 Conclusion**

This chapter has presented an overview of school leadership in China by focusing on the sources of school leadership knowledge, administration system, and school leadership system of the country. The knowledge base of China's school leadership is a mixture of four knowledge sources. The cultural heritage from ancient China, as one of the sources, is widely acknowledged in Chinese educational academia (Sun & Zhu, 1993; Mei, 1995; Wu et al., 2008). The second knowledge source of China's school leadership, which is also widely accepted, is conveyed from Western countries with Chinese government initiatives of educational transformation at the turn of the 20th century, the Christian-founded education institutions burgeoned in China in the first quarter of the 20th century, and two waves of Chinese to seek study in Western universities in the first half of the 20th century and 1980s onwards (Feng, 2002; Dong, 1985 ; Mei, 1995).In contrast with the first and second source, The influence of Soviet knowledge on China's school leadership has not been given due attention though there has been a large body of literature concerning the "learning-Soviet-movement" occurred in 1950s. The overlooking of Soviet influence on China's school leadership is partially because the courses of school management and educational administration had been completely excluded, since 1950s, from China's teacher education and leadership development programs of universities as well as leadership training institutions until 1978 (Feng, 2002). However, the practical knowledge of Soviet school management was actually embedded in the Soviet pedagogy and disseminated widely in China's schools in 1950s. In this regard, it is reasonable that the practical knowledge of school management from Soviet Union should be viewed as the third knowledge source of China's school leadership. Last but not least knowledge source is the leadership tenets and principles of CPC which has profoundly affected on the policies and requirements for leadership preparation, selection, development, and appraisal of conventional rules in leadership practice. Although the multi-source mixed knowledge can enrich the knowledge base of China's school leadership, it, sometimes, can cause the tensions in school leadership practice as well because of the conflicting perspectives and assumptions from different sources. For example, Hallinger provided a perspective with respect to school leadership role that "By leadership role, I refer to the principal's active role in fostering development and improvement of the school as an educational institution" (Hallinger, 2003, p. 4). Regarding what is about "the school as an educational institution", there are conflicting assumptions between different sources of leadership knowledge. Some Western scholars tend to hold the assumption that a school ought to be a learning community or a community of practice (Sergiovanni, 2001; Leithwood et al., 2006; Hargreaves & Fink, 2009). They contended that "community building is must become the heart of any school improvement effort (Sergiovanni, 1994, p.xi)." And a community does not "require heroic or hierarchical leaders, but leaders who can help design a culture in which leadership is distributed in an emergent and benevolent way- so the community engages in robust dialogue, in an evidence-informed and experience-grounded manner, about the best means to promote the goals of deep and broad student learning for all" (Hargreaves & Fink, 2009). This Westernized assumption about what schools ought to be like, however, seems to be considerably discrepant from the Chinese assumption sourced from leadership knowledge of CPC. As we all know, CPC is a party emerged and grew up from the revolutionary years as a highly disciplined and tight knit organization. Not unnaturally, "highly disciplined" and "tight knit" is viewed as key factors to ensure organizations, including school organization, to be successful. Furthermore, a highly disciplined and tight knit school organization, based on the leadership perspective of CPC, would be most likely to need a heroic leader with strong leadership capacity to set school vision and to lead school members to fulfill the dreams and wishes of school since the founding of PRC in 1949 and incarnated, in a sense, a mind set as well as a set

stakeholders. This could be used to explain why it is so carefully for Chinese government to set

rigorous principles and procedures for school principal preparation and selection in China (cf. Chapter 2). For school leadership, the underlying assumption about the nature of school organization is so important that "purposes, data collection and analysis procedures, roles of participants, and the uses made of information all will vary depending on this assumption" (Leithwood et al., 2006, p. 17). If the leadership behavior shaped by the assumption based on CPC leadership knowledge worked well in any leadership contexts, it would be a lot simpler. Yet, the thing is not as simple as it seems to be. A school principal may find that it would lead him/her to a difficult situation if he/she holds the "highly disciplined" and "tight knit" perspective when he/she addresses the challenge emerging from the process of team building among professionals or teaching quality improvement. Thus, he/she may be going to adopt the leadership behavior based on the assumption of school as a community. However, most principals, superficially speaking, recognize a school as a professional community (see *CSSLM2017-principals* in Appendix A), but his/her actual leadership behavior may be still with the characteristics which is more fit for a "highly disciplined" and "tight knit" organization. In school leadership practice, one of possible outcomes of the tension caused by such conflicting assumptions and perspectives would decrease the coherence of leadership behavior and style.

The second focus of this chapter is the system of educational administration as well as autonomy and accountability for school leadership. China's school leadership is working within a four-tier administrative framework by which various political, economic and cultural demands and constraints are integrated into educational policies. Superficially speaking, the major task of school leadership under a centralized administrative system may be just to implement existing policies and regulations with little discretion. However, the degree of autonomy of China's schools seems not to be much lower than that of German, Englishˈ and French schools (see Table 1.2 and 1.4). Rather, China's school even has more discretion than German, French schools in using of private funds to employ teaching staff and non-teaching staff, while the autonomy of China's schools in these affairs is close to that of schools in England. This fact reminds us that it would be questionable to examine the literature or analyze the data regarding China's school leadership by a linear way or with a stereotype about China's education. And, of course, the autonomy is accompanied by accountability for school leadership in China. The outcome of school evaluation together with the outcome of leadership appraisal will be significant influence on schools' social reputation and school leaders' personal career.

Finally, we explore the school leadership system of China by presenting the school organizational structure and examining the four-dimension-framework of the Principals Responsibility System. Although some peculiarities of China's school leadership system may be strange or even mysterious to outsiders, we believe that it is not very difficult to understand China's school leadership system after examining the dimensions of the Principals Responsibility System.

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# **Chapter 2**

# **The Policy Regarding Principal Management**

#### **2.1 Introduction**

As we examined in Chapter 1, the principal plays so important role in school leadership under the Principal Responsibility System that they are inevitably viewed by China¶s educational policymakers as key to success in school development and improvement. In this context, the Chinese government have promulgated a range of policies regarding the management of principles in which the rules and mandatory requirements encompassing the qualification, preparation, selection, development and appraisal of principals are included. Yet, these policies may not be well understood by outsiders if the underlying assumptions concerning principal held by Chinese stakeholders of school education are ignored. In other words, these widely accepted assumptions have enduring influence on the development of the policy regarding management of principals. The first underlying assumption is that ³a good principal makes a good school´In 1991, Liu Bin, the Vice Director of State Education Commission (renamed Ministry of Education in 1998) who was the chief executive in charge of whole nation¶s primary and secondary education at the time made an inscription for the National Training Center for Secondary School Principals. The Liu¶s inscription said, ³We should recognize, understand and keep in mind the saying that a good principal makes a good school´(Zhang, 2014). It is particularly noteworthy that this assumption is not only the conviction of the Chinese government but also the conviction of all other Chinese stakeholders of school education. In a sense, the expectation of the Chinese stakeholders to school principals could be higher than the expectation of the Western stakeholders to their principals because the Chinese stakeholders always bear the assumption of *a good principal makes a good school* in their minds. The second underlying assumption concerning principal is that ³D JRRG SULQFLSDOILUVWRIDOOVKRXOGEHDJRRGWHDFKHU´. Originally, this assumption derived from Soviet knowledge of school management and built up during the ³learning-Soviet-movement´ in 1950s. In his book *Pedagogy* which was most widely circulated and highly influential in 1950s in China, I.A. Kairov argued that the post of principal should be held by a qualified, experienced, and well-informed teacher since the core mission of school education is mainly realized by means of classroom teaching (Kairov,1957. p. 461). Not surprisingly, Kairov¶s view was easily accepted by the Chinese educational community because it just coincided with the traditional Chinese view that maintaining and improving classroom teaching should be the foremost priority of school leadership and management. Over time, Kairov¶s view has gradually evolved into an assumption shared by almost all Chinese stakeholders of school education. This assumption implies two points of view. One is that a principal should be selected from the cohort of talented and excellent teachers. And the other is that a successful principal should have sufficient expertise in teaching and learning in order that he/she is able to guide and supervise classroom teaching to assure teaching quality and learning quality in his/her school. In the survey of *CSSLM2017-principals*, 96.4 percent of respondents agree with the item of ³a good principal, first of all, should be a good teacher´ (76.5 percent of STRONGLY AGREED and 19.9 percent of AGREED). In the survey of *CSTWCE2017-teachers*, 95.5 percent of respondents agree with the same item (80.8 percent of STRONGLY AGREED and 15.1 percent of AGREED) (see Appendix A). The results suggest that most teachers and principals in China really hold the assumption at the moment (the results of the surveys also inform us that the Soviet school management knowledge still influence China¶s educational community though over 50 years have passed since the ³learning-Soviet-movement´ ended in 1960). Moreover, the above-mentioned assumptions seem also WR FRQYLQFH &KLQD¶V education policy makers. As a result, &KLQD¶V SROLF\ RQ SULQFLSDOPDQDJHPHQWtends to be with high professional expectations for the role of school principals (Organization Department of CCCPC and MOE, 2017; MOE, 2013; MOE, 2015).

In this chapter, nine key terms associated with the policies regarding school principal qualification, preparation, selection, development and appraisal will be selected to discuss and explore respectively based on literature review, policy documents, field observation, questionnaire, and interviews. These nine terms include *Red-Head-Document* **[**HONG-TOU-WEN-JIAN**],**  *Reserve Principal* [HOU-BEI-XIAO-ZHANG], *Serving a Temporary Position* **[**GUA-ZHI-DUAN-LIAN**],** *Principal Career-ladder System* **[**XIAO-ZHANG-ZHI-JI-ZHI **],** *Term-Accountability by Objectives* [REN-QI-MU-BIAO-ZE-REN-ZHI], *Leadership Team Appraisal* **[**LING-DAO-BAN-ZI-KAO-HE], *Reporting Performance and Integrity* [SHU-ZHI-SHU-LIAN], *Democratic Reviewing* [MIN-ZHU-PING-YI], and *Comprehensive Evaluation*[ ZONG-HE-PING-JIA].

#### **2.2 Key Terms**

#### *2.2.1 Red-Head-Document* **[**HONG-TOU-WEN-JIAN**]**

HONG-TOU-WEN-JIAN as a term in Chinese context means an official document with a red-head and usually abbreviated as *Red-Head-Document*. It was originally from one of traditional rules of text format in writing official documents, which established in the Chinese Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589A.D.). According to the rule, the documents from imperial court to local authorities should be written in red ink while any proposals and reports presented from local authorities to imperial court should be written in black ink (Zhao, 2011). Nowadays, the term *Red-Head-Document* (hereafter called RHD) usually refers in general to official policy documents and sometimes implies the mandatory requirements with substantive policy basis from government. In this chapter, the term of RHD specially refers to official documents concerning management of principals issued by CCCPC䠈the State Council, the MOE or jointly issued by the MOE and other departments of central government (The typical format of a RHD of the MOE is shown in Figure2.1).

#### **Figure 2.1 The typical format of a RHD issued by the MOE**

As listed in Table 2.1, nine key RHDs regarding principal management have been issued since *The Decision of the CCCPC on the Reform of the Educational System* 14was published in 1985 (see Table 2.1). The first three RHDs issued around the beginning of 1990s set out a

<sup>7</sup>KLV*Decision*LVYLHZHGDVDODQGPDUNRI&KLQDÿVHGXFDWLRQHQWHULQJLQWRDQHZHUDRIUHIRUP DQGRSHQLQJXS

professional framework of principal qualification and the requirements of principal training. It was the first time that the government had clearly claimed real professional entry requirements and the requirements of development for school principals since the founding of P.R. China in 1949. The fourth RHD was jointly issued by Organization Department of CCCPC and the State Education CommissionSEC) in 1992 to establish a relatively complete policy framework for management of principals which covered the issues of principals' preparation and selecting, appointment and dismissal, training, appraisal, reward and punishment, and career path and treatment. The fifth RHD issued in 1999, *Provisions of the MOE on principal training* was actually an education decree of the MOE which reiterated that the training was a mandatory requirement for every principal and establish three-level training programs for the principals who were in different career stages. The sixth RHD issued in 2013, titled *Opinions of MOE on further strengthening the training work for principals of primary and secondary schools* was also a policy document regarding principal training. Compared to the policies regarding principal training in previous RHDs, this RHD was more concerned with the reality of unbalanced professional development of principals in different parts of China than the unified training requirements for all principals across the country. While continuing to demand the training of all principals of the country, the training project for principals in rural areas, ethnic minority areas, and poverty-stricken areas are emphasized. Secondly, this RHD set out to develop and implement the "fostering renowned principal program" for selected principals to meet the needs of the best performing principals in the most developed parts of China. Finally, the RHD emphasized on enriching and improving training approaches to meet the diversified needs of school leadership practice. The seventh RHD in 2013 and the eighth RHD in 2015 published the professional standards for primary and secondary school principals. These two RHDs symbolized that the standardized professional requirements for principals were established from then on. The ninth RHD jointly issued by Organization Department of CCCPC and the MOE in 2017 can be seen as an updated version of the fourth RHD in 1992 which established the first policy framework for principal management. However, the target population of the policy framework in this new RHD was extended from principals to all leaders at school level. By reviewing the RHDs listed in Table 2.1, one can get a preliminary understanding of the course of policy development regarding principals management in China over past 30 years, which began with the general entry requirements and unified training programs for all principals across the country and changed to a complete policy framework and enriching and diversified training programs later on.


#### **Table 2.1 list of nine RHDs regarding principal management**


and ³3URIHVVLRQDO VWDQGDUG IRU NLQGHUJDUWHQKHDGV´

9 Circular of Organization Department of CCCPC and MOE on publishing of Provisional measures for the management of leaders of primary and secondary schools (2017) 6HWWLQJ RXW WKH HQWU\ UHTXLUHPHQWV DQG professional qualification for school leaders. 6HWWLQJWKH UXOHVDQG SURFHGXUHV RI IRUOHDGHUV¶ selecting, appointment, service term setting, accountability, and appraisal. (VWDEOLVKLQJ WKH FDUHHU SDWK DQG PRWLYDWLRQ system, supervision and restraint mechanism, and termination or dismissal mechanism for school leaders. Organization Department of CCCPC and MOE

#### *2.2.2 Reserve Principal* [HOU-BEI-XIAO-ZHANG]

*Reserve Principal* [HOU-BEI-XIAO-ZHANG] refers to a status of prospective candidate for principal or vice principal authorized by local education bureau. The establishment of the pool of *Reserve Principal* is one of China¶s major strategies for principal selection and preparation after Cultural Revolution. *Reserve principal*, is originally derived from ³reserve cadre´. It is customary in China to call leaders and managers from all walks of life and at all levels as cadres and school principals are spontaneously seen as the cadres in education sector.

In 1983, the Organization Department of CCCPC issued a RHD titled *Opinions of Organization Department of CCCPC on Establishing the system of Provincial and Ministerial Reserve Cadres*. ,WZDVWKHILUVWWLPHWKDW³UHVHUYHFDGUH´ZDVXVHGDVDn official term in a national policy document. In this RHD, the Organization Department of CCCPC set out a policy framework for reserve cadres including the provisions for prerequisites to the candidates, the procedure of selection, the approach of training, and the content and method of appraisal and management. Although this policy framework was to establish a candidate pool for the posts of provincial governors and ministers of central government, the provisions in it has been the basis for selection and training of reserve cadres at all levels since then. For example, the rule of ³from now on, the leading cadres should be selected from the list of reserve cadres except for very special circumstances´(Organization Department of CCCPC,1983) has been one of the constant principles in cadres, including school principals, selection and promotion over last 36 years. In accordance with this principle, the fourth RHD regarding principal management issued in 1992 specified that ³we should select the reserve cadres of primary and secondary school principals. We should be good at finding outstanding teachers and administrative cadres with a firm political position, both political integrity and professional ability, outstanding work achievements, and list them as focal candidates. Principals should be normally selected from the reserve cadres´ (Organization Department of CCCPC & SEC, 1992). In this RHD, the ³reserve cadres´ is used synonymously with ³reserve principal´.

To have an in-depth understanding the meaning of the term *Reserve Principal* in Chinese context, it is essential to examine existing policy details on following focal points (Organization Department of CCCPC, 1983;2000;2014; Organization Department of CCCPC & SEC, 1992; Organization Department of CCCPC & MOE,2017):

#### 2.2.2.1. Prerequisite

In a practical context, a *Reserve Principal* may refer either to the prospective candidate for the post of principal or the prospective candidate for the post of vice-principal. To be a prospective candidate for the post of principal, the *Reserve Principal* should be an on-the-job vice-principal whereas a prospective candidate for the post of vice-principal, the *Reserve Principal* should be an on-the-job middle manager at the moment.

#### 2.2.2.2. Quota and Proportion

There is a quota for *Reserve Principal* selection based on existing number of school leadership posts in a certain school. The number of existing principal posts to the number of *Reserve Principal* ratio is 1 to 2 whereas the number of existing vice-principal posts to the number of *Reserve Principal* ratio is 1 to 1. For example, one principal post and two vice-principal posts are usually set for a medium-sized school in China. In the light of the quota, the school can recommend four *Reserve Principal* candidates, two of whom are recommended as the candidates for prospective principal while the other two as the candidates for prospective vice-principals. On the other hand, the proportion of male to female, the Han nationality (the China¶s main nationality) to minorities, and CPC members to non-CPC members should be considered in selecting reserve principals. However, this proportion is considered within the scope of the whole district rather than within the scope of individual schools.

#### 2.2.2.3 Procedure of Selection

The procedure of selecting *reserve principals* consists of five stages. The first stage is nomination in the light of the quota for the candidates of *Reserve Principal* by schools based on extensively staff opinions. At the second stage, the organization/personnel office of local education bureau examines the current performance and professional potential of individual candidates who are recommended by local schools. The examining is not merely to consult the candidates' professional files and records, but also to visit the candidates' work place and to interview with their colleagues. At the third stage, the organization/personnel office reports examining outcomes and presents a proposed list of qualified *Reserve Principals* to the leadership meeting of local education bureau to discuss and make decision. The proposed list of *Reserve Principals* has to be shown publicly at least for five working days at the web side of the education bureau and to collect possible feedback on individual candidates. The organization/personnel office must make a further investigation if there is negative feedback with substantial evidence towards a candidate though it rarely happens. As the last stage, the leadership meeting of the education bureau makes a final decision on the list of *Reserve Principals* and submits the list to superior authority for the record.

#### 2.2.2.4 Pre-Service Training

After selection of *reserve principals*, the organization/personnel office of local education bureau is responsible to develop pre-service training programs for *Reserve Principals*. The training programs may be different from district to district depending on local specific expectations for principals. However, university-based training + work place learning (e.g. school leadership shadowing, one on one mentoring, etc.) is the popular approach at the moment.

#### 2.2.2.5 Supervision

*Reserve principal*, as noted above, is a status of prospective candidate for principal or vice principal, rather than a substantive leadership post. A *Reserve Principal* is still working at his/her existing post (e.g. middle manager) while participating in the part-time training program for *Reserve Principals*. Both of his/her on job performance and performance in training are supervised by education bureau. The name list of reserve principals could be reshuffled after annual appraisal of *Reserve Principals*.

2.2.2.6 Appointment

The length of duration from a "reserve" to "formal" principal is not fixed. It depends not only on individual *reserve principals'* performance but depends on various opportunities, such as the vacancies in principal/vice-principals posts in the district. No matter how long it takes before a *Reserve Principal* has an opportunity to get the post of principal or vice-principal, the official appointment won't be made until the *Reserve Principal* passes, again, the procedure of qualification reviewing, nominating, examining, discussion and preliminary decision making, publicity, and final decision.

#### *2.2.3 Serving a Temporary Position* **[**GUA-ZHI-DUAN-LIAN**]**

The complete meaning of the term *Serving a Temporary Position* **[**GUA-ZHI-DUAN-LIAN**]** is to forge (train) leaders by having them serve a temporary position. It refers, in Chinese educational context, to have promising in-service middle managers or school-level leaders play leadership roles at a temporary (usually from one semester to one school year) leadership position to broaden their vision, enrich their leadership experience, and strengthen their leadership capacity. The level of the temporary positions for the trainees is usually higher than their current position in their home school. The *Serving a Temporary Position* in most cases means the trainees from the schools in under development areas of inland China are sent to the schools in developed coastal cities of the country, or the trainees from ordinary-performing schools or under-performing schools are sent to high-performing schools in the same district, where they will be trained by serving a temporary leadership position at the receiving schools and mentored by leadership team of the receiving schools. The performance of the trainees in the process of *Serving a Temporary Position* is supervised both by the education bureau of the sending district and the receiving schools. A final appraisal will be conducted upon the completion of *Serving a Temporary Position*. Based on the performance of individual trainees at their temporary positions, some excellent trainees will be promoted to higher-level positions overall arranged by the sending education bureau while others will return to their original positions at their home schools after completion of *Serving a Temporary Position* to wait for promotion chance in the future.

As a kind of field-based training, the emphasis of training content in *Serving a Temporary Position*, according to related policy, is not fixed but depends on whatever trainees' lack of (Organization Department of CCCPC, 1994, 2000). However, the heavy emphasis is always placed on practical leadership knowledge and management skills. The specific requirements for trainees in *Serving a Temporary Position* set out either by the education bureau of sending district or by the result of discussion between sending district and receiving schools. In an established case of *Serving a Temporary Position* in Hubei Province, for example, the sending district firstly stipulated a list of individual trainees' daily work at receiving schools in which the classroom observation, school policy documents study, interaction with teachers and students, seeking advice from their mentors, and self-reflection were included. Secondly, the trainees were required to plan and organize a school-wide event at their receiving schools to demonstrate their leadership capacity and management skills during the *Serving a Temporary Position*. Finally, they were required to submit a comprehensive work report to review and summarize the leadership knowledge and management skills acquired during the *Serving a Temporary Position,* and to plan some possible and feasible change in their future work after their *Serving a Temporary Position* (Qin, 2007). In addition to the requirements mentioned in the case of *Serving a Temporary Position* in Hubei Province, school data collection (e.g. school strategic plan, school yearbooks, school rules and regulations, working plans of subject teams, syllabuses of school developed curricular, school developed instructional materials, etc.), themed interview with staff, and personal journal during the *Serving a Temporary Position* are also the requirements for trainees in other cases of *Serving a Temporary Position* (Zhang, 2001; Tu, 2010; Zhao,2013).

#### *2.2.4 Principal Career-ladder System* **[**XIAO-ZHANG-ZHI-JI-ZHI**]**

*Principal Career-ladder System* **[**XIAO-ZHANG-ZHI-JI-ZHI**]**is a reformed rank system for principals emerged in mid 1990s in China. It is intended to establish a profession-oriented and performance-related career-ladder to promote the professionalization of principals.

In China, the role of principal is conventionally seen as a type of officials rather than professnk of principals is bound up with level and chy, the principals of key senior high schools were awarded the Division-Head rank while the principals of ordinary senior high schools, junior high schools as well as district central primary schools, and ordinary primary schools were respectively awarded the Deputy-Division-Head rank, Section-Head rank, and Deputy- Section-Head rank. When Chinese government decided to promote the professionalization of school leadership in 1990s, the conventional hierarchy for school principals obviously had become an obstacle. The major ionals. In the conventional hierarchy for principals, the ra size of their schools. Under this hierar

maladies of the conventional hierarchy were identified as follows (Yuan, 1996; Yang,2006; Wang,2012; The Task Group of Shandong Institute of Administration, 2016; Wang, 2016): 䈄㻾einforcing the consciousness that principals are officials rather than professionals. As a result, principals usually lack intrinsic motivation for professional development.

䈄Principals mobility or rotation is difficult or even hindered because talented principals are only willing to move to higher ranks (being bound up with key senior high and district central primary schools) rather than to lower ranks (being bound up with ordinary and even disadvantage schools). Hence, it is difficult to send a talented principal to disadvantage and low-performing schools.

䈄It is not fair to those principals who have been working hard in disadvantage schools and making substantial contribution to their schools improvement though their school are still low-performing schools.

To improve the professionalism of principals, it was necessary to establish a profession-oriented and performance-related rank system for principals to replace the conventional hierarchy. In 1994, Education Bureau of Jingan District, Shanghai issued a local policy document titled *Provisional Regulations of Jingan District on Principal Career-ladder System* to replace the conventional hierarchy for school principals in the district (Yuan, 1996). It is known as the term *Principal Career-ladder System* (PCLS) was first officially used and also the first policy initiatives set out by a local education authority to develop and implement a district-wide profession-oriented and performance-related rank system for principals (Wang, 2012; Wang, 2016; Wang, 2017; Yuan, et. al., 2017). The establishment of PCLS as one of local policy initiatives was endorsed by Chinese central government in 1999. In the document *The Decision of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Deepening Education Reform and Promoting Quality-Oriented Education in An All-Round Way*, CCCPC and the State Council called for local governments to try out the PCLS, gradually improve the selecting and promotion system for principals, and encourage outstanding principals to serve in disadvantage and challenging schools (CCCPC and the State Council, 1999).Since then, encouraging, promoting, and implementing the PCLS has been reiterated by Chinese central government (State Council,2001; Office of the National Medium and Long Term Education Working Group,2010; Organization Department of CCCPC and MOE,2017; CCCPC and the State Council,2018). By 2018, the PCLS has been implemented in most provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government. However, there is no unified the PCLS across the country because the PCLS is actually a type of performance-related pay system. It is impossible for central government to establish a unified PCLS for principals all over the country since the principal salary system which set in terms of local consumption level is different from province to province, and even different from district to district.

To further explain the PCLS in detail, we take the PCLS of Shanghai as an example. Under the PCLS of Shanghai, the school principals are classified into a hierarchical rank system with five rank titles and eleven levels (see Figure 2.2).

 *Levels* 

# **Figure 2.2 The rank titles and levels of** *Principal Career-ladder System* **of Shanghai** Initial principals start from the rank title of Junior Principal at Level C. They will promote to Level B and Level A if they pass the annual appraisals in the first year and the second year. The junior principals at level A are eligible to apply for the rank title of Middle Principal. The candidates for Middle Principal will be evaluated and get the rank title of Middle Principal if they pass the evaluation. Principals who get the title of Middle Principal start from Level D and then promote to next level (e.g. from Level D to Level C, from Level C to Level B, etc.) biennially if they pass the annual appraisal for two consecutive years. However, the middle principals will be eligible to apply for the rank of Senior Principal after three years working as Middle Principal. Namely, they can apply for the rank of Senior Principal in second year of Middle Principal at

Level C if they think that their performance is good enough. As candidates for Senior Principal, they will be evaluated and get the rank title of Senior Principal if they pass the evaluation. The rule of promotion from Level D to Level A of Senior Principal is almost same as promotion rule for Middle Principal. Although Senior Principals will be eligible to apply for the rank of Superfine Principal after two years working as Senior Principals, it is difficult for most of candidates to pass the strict evaluation because the quota of Superfine Principals is generally less than five percent of the total number of serving principals (SMEC, 2015a). Evaluations for the candidates of Middle Principal, Senior Principal, and Superfine Principal in Shanghai are conducted according to *evaluation and accreditation criteria for primary and secondary school principal career-ladder of Shanghai (Revised edition)* developed and published by Shanghai Municipal Education Commission. The framework of the criteria consists of three indicators and eight sub-indicators (see Table 2.2). The *The* 



Source from: Shanghai Municipal Education Commission,2015b.

evaluation indicators and sub-indicators for Middle, Senior, and Superfine Principals are same but the detailed contents under the sub-indicators to evaluate the candidates of different rank titles are different. Besides the criteria, the prerequisites for applicants who apply for any rank titles are also set. It is noteworthy that one of prerequisites for applicants is to have lessons in their schools and no less than two periods each week (SMEC, 2015a). It suggests that principals should never

#### *2.2.5 Term-Accountability by Objectives* [REN-QI-MU-BIAO-ZE-REN-ZHI]

*Term-Accountability by Objectives* [REN-QI-MU-BIAO-ZE-REN-ZHI] refers to the system to ensure a principal, in his/her leadership term, to take responsibility in setting appropriate objectives for his/her school development and leading school members to achieve the objectives, and the principal will be finally evaluated in the light of the extent of objectives achievement. In fact, the *Term-Accountability by Objectives* (TABO) is a system closely related to the PCLS in practice and is usually employed as one of supporting systems for PCLS.

Before 1980s, the position of principal in China was a de facto tenured position. At the time, once a person was appointed to the post of principal, there was no definite time limit for his position whether he did more or less and did well or badly. Namely, once a principal was appointed, he/she wouldn¶t be terminated until he/she retired or unless he/she was under extraordinary circumstances, such as committing a crime or coming down with severe illness. Thus, the de facto tenured system for principals was increasingly inconsistent with the societal expectations for principals in the education reform launched in the mid-1980s in China. During the mid-1980s and the early 1990s, some education bureaus at district level in large cities took the lead in abolishing the de facto tenured system for principals by establishing a new system so-called TABO as an alternative to the old system (Ni, 1984; Liu ,1999). To some extent, the idea of the TABO actually drew on some basic ideas of *Management by Objectives* (MBO) presented in Peter Drucker¶s book *The Practice of Management* since 1980s is the time when MOB was introduced into China and became popular soon. Those leaders at education bureaus of districts in large cities who had accepted some basic ideas of MBO put the ideas into the local context and coined the term TABO in early 1980s. TABO as a term was acknowledged and officially used by Chinese government in 2001 in *The decision of State Council's on the reform and development of basic education* (State Council, 2001). TABO was reiterated and advocated by the Ministry of Personnel (MOP) and the MOE when these two departments jointly stated in their RHD that ³the principals of primary and secondary schools should be given a fixed-term appointment. The ordinary term of office for principals is three to five years, and they can be reappointed. It is necessary to make clear principals responsibilities associated with the objectives of their term of office.´(MOP and MOE, 2003). The RHD of the MOP and the MOE in 2003 really gave the momentum to promote TABO being more widely prevalent in China in the early 21st century (Wang, 2004; Cao, 2006; Jia, 2009; Zhang, 2010). In 2017, the Organization Department of CCCPC and the MOE clearly stated in a RHD titled *Circular of Organization Department of CCCPC and the MOE on publishing of Provisional measures for the management of leaders of primary and secondary schools* that the TABO should be generally implemented in managing school leadership team and team members (Organization Department of CCCPC and MOE, 2017). Therefore, the TABO has become a policy requirement that must be implemented since 2017.

In the implementation of TABO, local education authorities usually make some corresponding provisions and detailed requirements. In Tanggu District of Tianjin, for example, the Education Bureau of Tanggu District emphasized that the objectives setting for TABO was not exclusively a principal¶s personal job. Rather, the school staff should involve in the process of objectives setting. Moreover, the principal should report the extent of objectives achievement to school staff at the end of his/her term and the feedback of staff could be a part of basis to determine if he/she can get his/her another leadership term (Jia, 2009). In Daoli District of Haerbin, the education bureau of the district set five-step procedure to exercise TABO. The first step was that the education bureau signed the contract with individual principals to clearly define and describe the performance requirements for the principals on achieving the objectives of their school effectiveness and improvement within their leadership term. Secondly, the education bureau made efforts to enhance their leadership capacity and management skills to address possible challenge by providing principals with various leadership workshops, seminars, and forums. Thirdly, the officials of education bureau worked with professional and consultancy staff of district-level supporting institutions (e.g. teacher training institute, teaching-study office, etc. ) in monitoring individual principals¶ on-going performance of leadership for school effectiveness and improvement and providing principals with timely, professional and targeted support. Fourthly, the professionals of the support units at the district made an effort to identify the cases of best leadership practices by school visits, field observations, and interaction with school leaders and teachers. Then they spread the successful leadership experience over the district. Finally, the directorates of education bureau and professional support units of the district assisted individual principals to find out existing defects in their leadership practice and identified their school¶s potential challenge by providing the information collected from school documents examining and

survey of stakeholders (Liu, 1999). The most important part of the TABO is perhaps the final comprehensive appraisal of the principals¶ performance at the end of their leadership term. The final appraisal will determine whether they can get reappointment for next term or have to leave the position of principal, and whether they can promote to higher rank or stay at their original rank.

#### *2.2.6 Leadership Team Appraisal* **[**LING-DAO-BAN-ZI-KAO-HE]

As we illustrated in Chapter 1, a school leadership team in China refers to all leaders at school level, which is composed of a principal, a Party secretary, vice-principals, and a chairperson of School Trade Union. *Leadership Team Appraisal* [LING-DAO-BAN-ZI-KAO-HE] is the process to appraise the performance of the team as a whole as well as individual performance of each team member. However, the principal is always the focal person in *Leadership Team Appraisal* (hereafter called LTA) since the principal is the chief leader in the team according to the *Education Law of PRC* and the *Principal Responsibility System*. The policy basis for LTA is relevant RHDs jointly issued by the Organization Department of CCCPC and the MOE. LTA can be conducted either at the end of a year (if it is an annual LTA) or at the end of a leadership term (if it is a leadership term LTA). In the most recent published RHD involving the policy of LTA, the Organization Department of CCCPC and the MOE once again emphasized the importance of LTA and stated that the results of the LTA should be respectively fed back to the leadership team and every team member in a proper way, as well as to be recorded and would affect team members¶ career development in the future (Organization Department of CCCPC and MOE, 2017). To fully understand the LTA, it is necessary to explore another three terms, *Reporting Performance and Integrity* [SHU-ZHI-SHU-LIAN], *democratic reviewing* [MIN-ZHU-PING-YI] and *Comprehensive Evaluation* [ZHONG-HE-PING-JIA].

#### *2.2.7 Reporting Performance and Integrity* [SHU-ZHI-SHU-LIAN]

In the term *Reporting Performance and Integrity* [SHU-ZHI-SHU-LIAN@ WKH ³performance´ UHIHUVWRWKH ³leadership performance´ZKHUHDVWKH ³integrity´ UHIHUVWRWKH ³Dleader¶s personal integrity´ *Reporting Performance and Integrity* is one of phases in the procedure of LTA, in which the school leadership team members respectively report their leadership performance and personal integrity to the LTA task group organized by local education bureau(usually composed of officials from education bureau and the professionals from district-level supporting institutions), and all school staff and the representatives of other stakeholders. A normal *Reporting Performance and Integrity* begins with the task group¶s introduction of the purposes of this LTA, the ways of information collection, and the procedure to the LTA. Following the introduction, the principal as the chief leader of leadership team represents the team to report the school¶s progress and achievements in achieving desired goals and objectives. After the principal¶s repot, other members of the leadership team, one by one, report respectively how they fulfilled their leadership responsibilities, how they contributed to achieving desired goals and objectives of the school, and how they kept their personal integrity and didn¶t abuse their authority in their leadership practice. Commonly, the principal¶s report of leadership team¶s performance should focus on how accomplishment of the objectives regarding student outcomes, teacher development and team building, building of staff ethics and code of conduct, campus construction and environment creating, campus safety, and school policy and regulations development while the focal issues of leaders¶ personal integrity is concerned with the appropriateness of school funding allocation, reception costs, school vehicles using, major equipment purchasing, and infrastructure maintenance and renovation (Fu & Li, 2004; Shen, 2005; GY County Education Bureau, 2017).

#### *2.2.8 Democratic Reviewing* [MIN-ZHU-PING-YI]

*Democratic Reviewing* [MIN-ZHU-PING-YI] means to appraise the performance and personal integrity of leadership team members by democratic ways. In practice of LTA, the typical way of *Democratic Reviewing* is to rate leadership team by a performance checklist. It is conducted just following the *Reporting Performance and Integrity*. The LTA task group will hand out a performance checklist with the names of leadership team members to every school staff member and representative of other stakeholders at the venue of *Reporting Performance and Integrity* and asked them to tick respectively on the leadership performance and personal integrity of each member of the leadership team in the light of the rating scale ranging from very much satisfied to unsatisfied. Another way of *Democratic Reviewing* which is also conducted by LTA task group is the individual staff interview. Commonly, they pick up interviewees from the middle managers and teachers of the school randomly and interview with them individually to collect the information about the leadership performance and personal integrity of the leadership team members. Finally, the LTA task group will write a summary of the *Democratic Reviewing* based on the result of performance checklist and the information from the staff interview (Liu & Liu, 2006; GY County Education Bureau, 2017).

#### *2.2.9 Comprehensive Evaluation* [ZONG-HE-PING-JIA]

The LTA is defined in China¶s educational context as a type of *Comprehensive Evaluation* [ZONG-HE-PING-JIA]. The final result of LTA depends on not only the result of *Democratic Reviewing*, but also results or conclusions from some other appraisal means of LTA. In the case of LTA conducted in one of districts of Shanghai, the complete work of the LTA consisted of *Democratic Reviewing* (with 40% weight), mutual evaluation between school leaders within the district (10% weight), the report of school inspection conducted by the district inspection office (20% weight), and the comment of the director/vice-director of the district education bureau (30% weight)(Chen,1999). Finally, the task group will submit a comprehensive LTA report with overall conclusion and detailed comments on school performance, as well as every leadership team member to education bureau. This LTA report will serve as a key reference for school leaders¶ retaining their leadership position or getting reappointment and getting promotion or demotion.

#### **2.3 Summary and Discussion**

In this chapter, nine key terms have been explored and interpreted, by which one can understand the outline and features of China¶s policy regarding management of principals. In exploring the term [HONG-TOU-WEN-JIAN], the author reviewed nine important RHDs concerning management of principals promulgated by Chinese central government, and generally reflected the course of the policy evolution in past 36 years in China. Moreover, one can also see one of Chinese characteristics in supervising leadership which different from those in Western countries, that is, ³cadres(leaders) should be supervised by the Party´ [DANG-GUAN-GAN-BU] (Organization Department of CCCPC and MOE,2017)*.* It is the CPC¶s tradition and one of the CPC¶s principles in leadership, too. Anyway, the principal's status is still a type of cadres in ChinD¶s political or administrative context though Chinese government has recently tended to view principals as professionals rather than officials. It is the reason why most important RHDs regarding principal management were developed and issued jointly by the Organization Department of CCCPC and the MOE (see No. 4 and No.9 RHDs in Table 2.1). Next term concerned by this chapter is [HOU-BEI-XIAO-ZHANG]. The , as one of preparation stages for principals/vice principals, has been highlighted in school OHDGHU¶V preparation since the Organization Department of CCCPC proclaimed in 1992 that school *Red-Head-Document Reserve Principal Reserve Principal*

principals should be normally selected from the reserve cadres (principals) (Organization Department of CCCPC & SEC,1992). The author of this book conducted two interviews respectively with school principals and Education Bureau Officials in 2018. In the interview with education bureau officials at district /county level (hereafter called *Intrview2018-EBO*), all interviewees thought that it was necessary for prospective principals/vice principals to have experience of reserve principal before they were appointed as principal/vice principal. Eleven out of fifteen interviewees confirmed that reserve principal was a no-skip-stage in school leadership preparation of their district/county education system (See Appendix B). In the interview with principals (hereafter called *Intrview2018- Principal*), 14 out of 17 interviewees said that they had had the experience of reserve principal before they got the position of principal/vice-principal (See Appendix B). It seems that the policy about *reserve principal* is positive and effective in &KLQD¶V leadership preparation after we examine the prerequisite, quota and proportion, procedure of selection, pre-service training, and so on. Nevertheless, there are also some defects in the policy. One of salient defects could be the regulation on the restriction for FDQGLGDWH¶s age. Although there is no uniform regulation on the upper age limit for *reserve principal* candidates, they are generally, in practice of leadership preparation, limited to no older than 45years old. The restriction for FDQGLGDWH¶s age is beneficial to the early development and fast growth of young talents, but, on the other hand, the staff is definitely excluded from the candidate list of *reserve principal* if they aren¶t middle managers or don¶t display their leadership talent until middle age. ³This is exactly the opposite of a famous Chinese saying, µ[a] great talent takes time to mature [DA-QI-WAN-&+(1\*@¶´, one of interviewees of *Intrview2018- Principal* said. For those middle managers who are nearly 40 years old, whether or not they can enter the candidate list of reserve principal is crucial because it means, for them, now or never. The third term [GUA-ZHI-DUAN-LIAN] is about a kind of field-based training approach for school leadership which has been widely accepted and employed in China since 1990s. The purpose, format, and content of this field-based leadership training were examined in this chapter by related literature review. Interestingly, we found that the approach of *serving a temporary position* is somewhat similar to the Problem Based Learning (PBL) approach though the former was created by the Chinese leadership practitioners and the latter was developed by the American scholars. In their book *Problem Based Learning in Leadership Development*, Edwin M. Bridges and Philip *Serving a Temporary Position*

Hallinger wrote, ³PBL proponents assume that learning involves both *knowing* and *doing*. Knowledge and the ability to use that knowledge are of equal important. Program designers also assume that students bring knowledge to each learning experience. Moreover, PBL adherents assume that students are more likely to learn new knowledge when the following conditions are met: (1) their prior knowledge is activated and they are encouraged to incorporate new knowledge isto their preexisting knowledge; (2) they are given numerous opportunities to apply it; and (3) they encode the new knowledge in a context that resembles the context in which it subsequently will be used. ´(Bridges & Hallinger,1995, p.5) If this is the underlying assumption of PBL, then it is largely similar to the assumption of . The fourth term *Principal Career-ladder System* **[**XIAO-ZHANG-ZHI-JI-ZHI**]** is a management system regarding principals¶ current income and their career development in the long run. It has had strongly influence and will *Serving a Temporary Position*

continue to have a profound influence on the school leadership selection, preparation, development, and appraisal because it means that the conventional hierarchy for principals has been replaced by a profession-oriented and performance-related rank system. In exploring the term, the author reviewed the conventional hierarchy for principals and identified its major maladies. The author illustrated the policy from central government which encouraged and promoted local education authorities to adopt *Principal Career-ladder System* (PCLS) and examined the progress of PCLS in practice, in particular, the case of PCLS in Shanghai. It is noted that one of prerequisites for applicants who apply for any rank titles is to have at least two lessons per week. This prerequisite once again demonstrates how the assumption of "a good principal, first of all, should be a good teacher " is embedded in China¶s policy regarding principal management. It is found out that the feedback on PCLS was positive in general by reviewing several related surveys and interviews conducted by Chinese researchers in recent years. (Yang, 2006; Guo, 2007; Wang, 2012). Yet, some challenges in implementation of PCLS remain to be addressed though most of principals and local education authority officials agree with the PCLS (Lin, 2016). Ten years after the implementation of PCLS in Shanghai, for example, a survey of Shanghai principals revealed that only a bit change of principals¶ enthusiasm for work, sense of responsibility, average income, and social status has happened since the implementation of PCLS (Yang, 2006). Perhaps, one of the big challenges is that the real performance of principals is technically difficult to be fairly evaluated given the antecedent variables of leadership are different from school to school,

which is difficult for evaluators to make an in-depth comparison and analysis in a limited period of time. The fifth term explored in this chapter is [REN-QI-MU-BIAO-ZE-REN-ZHI]. It was emerged in 1980s when leaders of some local education authorities in large cities would like to change the stale and rigid convention of de facto tenured appointment for principals and to create a new system to replace the old one. The (TABO) turned up as the local initiative of school leadership accountability, but it was advocated by Chinese central government later on and has become a clear and mandatory requirement since 2017. Thus, the TABO has been widely adopted by local education authorities in China since then. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the pioneering TABO proponents actually drew on some basic ideas of Drucker¶s *Management of Objectives*. However, the ideas and notions in implementing TABO in some districts was borrowed from another Western created theory, the Total Quality Management although this Western theory had EHHQPRGLILHGLQ&KLQD¶VOHDGHUVKLSFRQWH[W. Perhaps, it is just a case in point that how Western leadership knowledge, as one of knowledge sources of China¶s school leadership, contributes to contemporary ChinD¶V school leadership practice. The last four terms of this chapter are related to leadership appraisal. In exploring the term **[**LING-DAO-BAN-ZI-KAO-HE]. The author reviewed the most recent policy regarding (LTA), and interpreted the terms *Reporting Performance and Integrity* [SHU-ZHI-SHU-LIAN], *Democratic Reviewing* [MIN-ZHU-PING-YI] and *Comprehensive Evaluation* [ZONG-HE-PING-JIA] which are revolved around th e LTA. Among these three terms, the first one, *Reporting Performance and Integrity* may contain the most distinctive Chinese cultural characteristics given the personal integrity of the principal and other members of the leadership team is set as an independent part that is equally important to leadership performance in LTA. In the view of the majority of Chinese teachers, principal¶s personal integrity is paramount. They admitted in a questionnaire survey that ³personally, I put a higher YDOXHRQP\SULQFLSDO¶Vupright character or moral modeling than his/her knowledge and skills in management´ (see *CSTWCE2017-teachers* in Appendix A). Almost similarly, one Chinese researcher found out, based on a broad interview with primary school teachers in a district, that teachers generally believed that the most important quality of principals is the moral integrity, followed by their skills and capacity in leadership and management (Wang, 2012). Yet, does it *Term-Accountability by Objectives Term-Accountability by Objectives Leadership Team Appraisal Leadership Team Appraisal* 

suggest that there is a potential conflict, in China's LTA, between the requirements for principal professionalization (modern leadership knowledge and skills) and traditional Chinese view for the SULQFLSDO¶V UROH" It remains to be concerned with. As a component of the whole principal management system, the LTA established in the early 1990s has, in general, made the remarkable contribution to promoting the professionalization of Chinese principals. However, in the opinion of some Chinese researchers in the field of school leadership, it is necessary for some aspects of the LTA to be improved. For example, focusing on both the performance of the team as a whole and on individual performance of team members in the LTA can leads, in LTA practice, to confusion between school performance and personal performance (Wang & Yang, 2016). One of the frequent misunderstandings in LTA is that every member of leadership team at a prestigious school must be excellent, and every member of leadership team at a high performing school must perform very well, or vice versa.

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Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (SMEC). (2015b). Shanghaishi zhongxiaoxue xiaozhang zhiji pingding biaozhun ˄xiuding˅[The evaluation and accreditation standards for primary and secondary school principal rank of Shanghai (Revised edition)]. http://www.shmbjy.org/item-detail.aspx?NewsID=4994. Accessed 04 Jul 2018.

Shen, G. Y. (2005). [ How should the principal write the leadership performance report?]. *Zhongxiaoxue Guanli [School Management], 4*, 37. (in Chinese)

State Education Commission (SEC). (1989). Guojia jiaowei guanyu jiaqiang quanguo zhongxiaoxue xiaozhang peixun gongzuo de yijian [Opinions of SEC on strengthening the training work for principals of primary and secondary schools nationwide] http://www.110.com/fagui/law\_116418.html. Accessed 5 Jan 2018.

State Education Commission (SEC). (1990). Guojia jiaoyu weiyuanhui yinfaljguanyu kaizhan zhongxiaoxue xiaozhang gangwei peixun de ruogan yijianNJde tongzhi [Circular of SEC on publishing "Opinions on implementing the induction training for principals of primary and secondary schools"]

http://www.chinalawedu.com/new/201309/wangying2013091115020990826870.shtml. Accessed 5 Jan 2018.

State Education Commission (SEC). (1991). Guojia jiaoyu weiyuanhui guanyu banfaljquanguo zhongxiaoxue xiaozhang renzhi tiaojian he gangwei yaoqiu ˄shixing˅NJde tongzhi [Circular of SEC on issuing the "Prerequisites and job requirements of the principals of primary and secondary schools nationwide (for trial implementation)]. https://www.lawxp.com/statute/s861931.html. Accessed 5 Jan 2018.

State Council. (2001). Guowuyuan guanyu jichu jiaoyu gaige yu fazhan de jueding [The decision of State Council on the reform and development of basic education]. http://old.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe\_16/200105/132.html. Accessed 03 Jul 2018.

The Task Group of Shandong Institute of Administration (2016). Guanyu zhongxiaoxue xiaozhang zhijizhi gaige de diaoyan yu sikao [Investigation and reflection on the reform of the rank system of primary and secondary school principals]. *Shandong Xingzheng Xueyuan Xuebao [Journal of Shandong Academy of Administration], 1*, 120-128. (in Chinese)

Tu, Y. L. (2010). Ruhe fahui guazhi duanlian dui xiaozhang zhuanye fazhan de zuoyong [How to give full play to the role of GZDL for professional development of principals]. *Zhongxiaoxue Guanli [School Management], 7*, 37-39. (in Chinese)

Wang, F. J. (2017). Xiaozhang zhijizhi gaige xianzhuang ji shenhua celue yanjiu [A study on

current situation and deepening strategies for the reform of principal rank system]. *Shandong Renli Ziyuan He Shehui Baozhang [Shandong Human Resources and Social Security], 10*, 34-36. (in Chinese)

Wang, F. Q. and Yang, Y. (2016). 30 nianlia woguo zhongxiaoxue xiaozhang guanli zhidu gaige shuping [Reviewing on the reform of the management system of primary and secondary school principals in China in the past 30 years]. *Jiaoyu Kexue Yanjiu [Educational Science Research], 4*,27-32. (in Chinese)

Wang, L. (2004, Jan. 30). Anhui zhongxiaoxue shixing xiaozhang renqizhi [Carrying out the principal-term-accountability in Anhui province ]. *Xinhua Meiri Dianxun [Xinhua Daily Telegraph]*. *4*. (in Chinese)

Wang, L.(2012). Xiaoxue shixing xiaozhang zhijizhi yanjiuüüjiyu chengdushi qingyangqu de diaocha [A pilot program of rank system for primary school principals: A case study in Qingyang District, Chengdu]. *Jiaoyu Yu Jiaoxue Yanjiu [Education and Teaching Research], 6*, 115-119. (in Chinese)

Wang, W. Z. (2016). Zhongxiaoxue xiaozhang zhijizhi gaige zhong cunzai de wenti ji yingdui celue [The reform of the rank system of primary and secondary school principals: Problems and solutions]. *Suzhou Xueyuan Xuebao [Journal of Suzhou University], 31*(2), 50-56. (in Chinese)

Yang, H. Y. (2006). Woguo zhongxiaoxue xiaozhang jinsheng zhidu de shizheng yanjiu [The promotion system for school principals in China: An empirical study]. *Shanghai Jiaoyu Keyan [Journal of Shanghai Educational Research], 1*, 4-7. (in Chinese)

Yuan, L. et. al. (2017). Xiaozhang zhijizhi laile, xiaozhangǃzhuanjiaǃjiaoshiǃjiazhang zenmekan˛ [The emerged principal rank system: what do principals, experts, teachers and parents think about it?]. http://www.sohu.com/a/206494865\_177272. Accessed 25 Jun 2018.

Yuan, S.R. (1996). Women weishenme yaogao xiaozhang zhijizhi [ Why should we establish the Principal Career-ladder System]. *Zhongxiaoxue Guanli [School Management], 1*, 8-9. (in Chinese) Zhang, J. L. (2010, Feb., 02). Fengtai niannei quanmian tuixing xiaozhang renqizhi [The full implementation of principal-term-accountability in Fengtai District this year]. *Beijing Ribao [Beijing Daily], 8*. (in Chinese)

Zhang, X. X. (2001). Waidi guazhi xuexi shi zhongxiaoxue gugan xiaozhang˄houbei˅chengzhang tigao de yizhong youxiao fangshi [Cross provincial GZDL: An effective way of prospective key principals' development ]. *Liaoning Jiaoyu Yanjiu [Liaoning Education Research], 11*, 51-54. (in Chinese)

Zhang, X. X. (1998). Dangdai zhongxiaoxue xiaozhang de tezhi [The characteristics of contemporary primary and secondary school principals]. *Yunnan Shifan Daxue Xuebao*˄*Zhexue Shehui Kexue ban*˅ *[Journal of Yunnan Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences)], 2*, 40-47. (in Chinese)

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# **Chapter 3**

# **Creating a Culture Fostering Student Development**

#### **3.1 Introduction**

Among the professional standards for principals formulated by the Ministry of Education in 2013 and 2015, the ³creating a culture fostering student development´ was set as one of the six core practices of school leadership (MOE, 2013, 2015). Like many schools elsewhere in the world, China¶s schools also use material and immaterial aspects of school culture to positively influence students and promote their healthy development and growth. As we know, a school culture is made from a set of customs, principles, norms, values, and beliefs and can be manifested by school¶ banner, badge, uniform, decoration, motto, song, rules, events, etc. However, the main concern of this chapter is not focused on all aspects of school culture but concentrated in those leadership behaviors, strategies and school ceremonies on which the Chinese-featured leadership values, beliefs, principles, and styles being reflected. First of all, The terms in this chapter was selected based on broad literature review, in which the author paid particular attention to the works of principals and the stories of successful principals because most of the terms concerned in this chapter are not initially coined or developed by researchers, but by leadership practitioners, and such terms, compared with scholarly terms, often contain rich practical wisdom. Secondly, the author attempted to confirm the value of the terms in leadership practice by interview with principals and questionnaire for principals and teachers in order to focus on the widely accepted and high frequency used terms in China¶s school leadership context. By doing so, nine key terms were finally selected, which include *Putting Student Development First* [YI-XUE-SHENG-FA-ZHAN-WEI-BEN], *Collectivism* [JI-TI-ZHU-YI], *Sense of Ownership* [ZHU-REN-WENG-YI-SHI], *Building a Class-based Student Collective* [BAN-JI-TI-JIAN-SHE], *Flag Raising Ceremony* [SHENG-QI-YI-SHI], *Moral Modeling* [YI-SHEN-ZUO-ZE], *Emotional Management* [QING-GAN-GUAN-LI], *Heart to Heart Talk* [TAN-XIN], and *Home Visits* [JIA-FANG]. Although parts of the terms seem to be the school leadership behavior towards school staff, the effects of the leadership are actually mediated by teachers¶ behaviors towards students in teaching and learning or other school activities and finally make contributions to creating a culture fostering student development via teachers¶ interactions with students.

#### **3.2 Key Terms**

#### *3.2.1 Putting*㻌*Student Development First* [YI-XUE-SHENG-FA-ZHAN-WEI-BEN]

The term *Putting Student Development First* [YI-XUE-SHENG-FA-ZHAN-WEI-BEN] was initially put forward after the old version of (GPE) was replaced by a new version of GPE in 1990s (the GPE as a term will be further explored in Chapter 5). The old version of GPE set out in 1960s placed particular emphasis that education must serve the proletarian politics. A typical example was that late Chinese paramount leader Mao Zedong said in 1964 in a conversation with his nephew, a student of Harbin Engineering University, "class struggle is your key subject.... How can you to be a university graduate without even knowing class struggle? "(Mao,1967, p. 22). It suggested that education is viewed as one of tools for class struggle at the time in China. Thereby students would be soldiers for class struggle. The students¶ individual characteristic, in this context, was negligible as long as they had sufficient revolutionary quality. However, Chinese government decided to adopt the ³Reform and Opening-up´ policy in 1978 after the Proletarian Cultural Revolution was ended. Then the expression ³education must serve the proletarian politics´ of the old GPE was replaced by ³education VKDOO VHUYH WKH FRQVWUXFWLRQ RI VRFLDOLVW PRGHUQL]DWLRQ´ in the new version of GPE. This new orientation of ³serve modernization´ was reinforced when Deng Xiaoping, the chief planner of China's reform and opening up wrote an inscription for the Jingshan School in Beijing in 1983. The Deng¶V inscription was ³education should be geared towards the modernization, the world, and the future.´ (Party Literature Studies Office, 1990, p. 132). Obviously, it was imperative for school education to promote student achievement and preparation for China¶s modernization, global competitiveness, and the future society (e.g., the knowledge society) by fostering more talents who were not only knowledge-based and skilled, but also with innovative consciousness and distinctive personality. The change of educational orientation led by new GPE created a public opinion to advocate school to diversified educational provision to meet the needs of individual students with different personal characteristics. The *Putting Student Development First* (PSDF) as an educational idea was raised under this context. *Guiding Principle for Education*

The PSDF was first officially used in 1998 by Shanghai Reform Committee of Primary and Secondary School Curriculum (SRCPSSC) when the Committee developed the municipal curriculum reform plan for the second phase of primary and secondary schools. 15 In the curriculum reform plan, the meaning of the PSDF was that the school education provision should be suitable for every student and the curriculum should meet various needs of different students to lay a solid foundation for the lifelong development of every student (Zhang, 2002). The MoE seemed to indorse the idea of PSDF in school education when it claimed to advocate "the personalized learning under the guidance of teachers "in its *Compendium for Curriculum Reform of Basic Education (Trial ed.)* published in 2001 (MOE, 2001). In practice, many principals embraced the idea soon and, in the light of their understanding, gave it rich concrete content. In a book, for example, recording the dialogue on school leadership between the book editor and 60 high performing school principals, the term PSDF was mentioned by more than half of the 60 principals as the overriding theme in their leadership practice, and most of them recognized the significance to building a culture fostering student development under the idea of PSDF. One of the 60 principals explained what PSDF was from the perspective of school leadership practice (Ma, et al., 2005, p. 246):

The connotation of the term *Putting Student Development First* is to give first priority to every student well development and growth. A school should manage to provide students with the learning resources as abundant as possible and with the necessary time and space for their ample and independent development. In the process of learning, every student's personal interest, hobby, talent and personality can be brought into full play and developed. That is to say, student affairs regarding their development should be placed to the center stage of school practice, and all other school work should serve the development of every student.

To actualize the idea of PSDF, many schools have made efforts in setting flexible learning objectives for students with different academic level, rebuilding and enriching their school curriculum system,16establishing various student clubs for students with special talent, and

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changing the approach to teaching and learning to tailor education to meet the different needs of students and to assist every student's ample and independent development in the last 20 years. In short, the PSDF as a leadership idea has already had a great influence on the building of China's school culture. The PSDF as an orientation of school development, on the other hand, has exerted a substantial influence on the reform of school curriculum and the transformation of learning approach in China since the term was first officially used in 1998.

#### *3.2.2 Collectivism* [JI-TI-ZHU-YI]

*Collectivism* [JI-TI-ZHU-YI] is a term that has long existed in Western sociological, psychological or educational literature. However, the meaning of *Collectivism*, in China's context, is not exactly the same as that of in Western literature. The essence of the term *Collectivism*, in CPC's official terminology, is that the people's interests stand above everything else (The 19th National Congress of the CPC, 2017). The "people" means here "all public members" or "masses". Mao Zedong argued in 1957 "our People's Government is one that genuinely represents the people's interests; it is a government that serves the people."(Mao, 1966, p. 46) Mao's perspective that the people's interests stand above everything else was later developed into a statement that "individual interests must be subordinated to collective interests, the partial interests must be subordinated to overall interests, and immediate interests must be subordinated to long-term interests."(Zhao, 2014). Later, the *Collectivism* was written into the Article 24 of the Constitution of PRC as one of the civic attitudes advocated by the Constitution (National People's Congress,1982). However, it seemed that it would be not very appropriate to hold on the position that individual interests were absolutely neglected after the 14th National Congress of the CPC set out the transformation from the socialist planned economy system to socialist market economy system in 1992. The term *Collectivism* was understood as "both of the individual and collective interests should be taken into account, but when necessary, individual interests should be subordinated to collective interests (Zhao, 2014). At the moment, individual interests should be subordinated to collective interests is no longer a mandatory requirement, but placing the collective good before self-interest is still advocated. In China's school context, the sense of *Collectivism* is seen as one of moral principles fostering the culture of interdependence between school members as well as the basis of the harmony in school. With this respect, a veteran principal tends in his/her leadership practice to pay attention to protecting the personal interests of school staff while encouraging staff to take

consideration school interests consciously. In China's schools, the building of collectivist climate is usually exercised through various means in school life. One of the typical means to build collectivist culture is *Building a Class-based Student Collective* which is the term will be explored later in this chapter.

#### *3.2.3 Sense of Ownership* [ZHU-REN-WENG-YI-SHI]

Like the *Collectivism*, the *Sense of Ownership* [ZHU-REN-WENG-YI-SHI] is also advocated by the Constitution of PRC. When reviewing the history of modern China, it is claimed in the preface of the Constitution that the Chinese people took the state power into their own hands and became the owner of the country after the founding of the Peopleÿs Republic of China. Thereupon, the *Sense of Ownership* is advocated in Article 42 of the Constitution, "Labor is the honorable duty of all citizens who have the ability to work. Workers of state-owned enterprises and urban and rural collective economic organizations should treat their own work with the sense of national ownership."(National People's Congress,1982) In late Chinese leader Mao Zedongÿs view, the people (sometimes used as synonyms for masses) is not only the master/owner of the country but also the real creator of the world. Mao argued in 1945, ĀThe people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history."(Mao, 1966, p.118), and he strongly advised the CPC leading cadres to respect the masses and appreciate their wisdom, "The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often childish and ignorant, and without this understanding it is impossible to acquire even the most rudimentary knowledge."(Mao, 1966, p.118) In fact, Mao's view on the masses together with the CPC's leadership tenet of the *Mass Line* (see Chapter 1) is the ideological source of the term *Sense of Ownership* in Chinaÿs leadership context. In today's practice of school leadership, however, the term *Sense of Ownership* has no longer carried so much political and ideological meaning. In school leadership practice, principals usually advocate staffÿs *Sense of Ownership* to encourage their organizational citizenship behavior and to arouse their enthusiasm, initiative and creativity in daily routine. As an experienced principal claimed, "one of practical ways to strengthen teachers' *Sense of Ownership* is to explain the significance of school short-term and long-term plan to staff in detail in order to make school staff fully understand that the rise and fall of schools are closely related to themselves."(Fu, 2008) For teachers, the form teachers (form teacher is used synonymously with class advisor in some cases) in particular, one of their responsibilities is to cultivate studentsÿ *Sense of Ownership* so as to develop studentsÿ social awareness, capacity to self-management, and responsible attitudes towards collective good through the way of *Building a Class-based Student Collective.* As the results of *CSSLM2017-principals* and *CSSLM2017-teachers* show, both China's principals and teachers attach great importance to cultivate the *Sense of Ownership* in their day to day work at the moment (see Appendix A).

#### *3.2.4 Building a Class-based Student Collective* [BAN-JI-TI-JIAN-SHE]

*Building a Class-based Student Collective* [BAN-JI-TI-JIAN-SHE] is one of means most widely used in China's school to create class-based cultural environment in which the sense of collectivism, ownership, and positive learning climate are fostered. *Building a Class-based Student Collective* (BCBSC) as a term usually refers to the process of change a collection of individual students of a class into a class collective in which students develop their shared vision and goals for the collective, shared moral sense and code of conduct towards school life while every student has the opportunity to display his/her talent, develop his/her personalized character, and get the acceptance of collective members (Hu, 2007a; An, 2013). The term BCBSC in some other context refers to a mandatory task that the form teachers must undertake and rest of subject teachers must involve in. The fundamental end of BCBSC, anyway, is to assist every student to well accomplish his/her socialization and promote every student's sound development and growth.

Historically, the term BCBSC was originally borrowed from Soviet Union in 1950s during WKH ³OHDUQLQJ6RYLHWPRYHPHQW´7KH6RYLHW HGXFDWLRQLVW\$&0DNDUHQNR Ⱥɧɬɨɧɋɟɦɺɧɨɜɢɱ ɆɚɤɚɪɟɧɤɨILUPO\EHOLHYHGEDVHGRQKLVH[SHULHQFHRIVFKRROOHDGHUVKLSIURPWRWKDW the BCBSC was one of most important means to educate children. He contended that the education exercised "in a collective, by the collective, and for the collective" was the best and most effective way to educate children (Zhao,1992, p. 590). Makarenko summed up the BCBSC as three essential propositions. First, the collectivity was the foundation of education. It seemed to him that a child's "disposition can well develop when he/she takes part in a well-organized, disciplined, tenacious collective life with a sense of great pride over time.ā (Makarenko,1956, p. 289). He believed that the foremost priority for school leadership was building of a collective. Second, the collective was a means of education. Makarenko argued that a collective itself was the teacher for every individual in the collective. Thus, he called for teachers to educate individual students through the collective (Zhao,1992, p. 591). Third, the building of student collective was one of the goals of education. Makarenko insisted that the key purpose of socialist education was to foster the collectivists for Soviet society. He claimed that the primary task of teachers, in the context of socialist society, was to cultivate a strong and conscious collective, and prepare the students with the sense of collectivism to enable them to understand that the collective and the state's interests must be placed unconditionally above the interests of individuals (Zuo & Zhang, 1984; Zhao,1992, p. 592). Indeed, Makarenko's views and arguments regarding the role of collective and collectivism in education shaped Chinese educators' initial understanding of the BCBSC at the time. Nonetheless, the Makarenko's name and his works about BCBSC have faded out of Chinese education for a long time since the "Reform and Opening-up" policy was adopted in late 1978 in China, especially since the idea of *Putting Student Development First* was indorsed by Chinese government in 2001. Although the *Collectivism* is still advocated and the BCBSC is still valued, the core mission of BCBSC has been modified. Today, the fundamental end of BCBSC is no longer to prepare communist soldiers with the sense of extreme collectivism but to promote every student's personalized development in a good collective climate. Or, in the words of an outstanding form teacher, the essential function of a class-based student collective "has transformed from fostering the individuals who absolutely submit to the collective to providing opportunities and resources for the all-round development of each student" (Lu, 2017, p. 4).

The BCBSC is highly valued in current China's school education. In *CSTWCE2017-teachers*, more than 78 % respondents strongly agreed that the BCBSC is great helpful to ensure the quality of learning and to promote students' healthy and sound development. Concomitantly, over 73% of respondents in *CSSLM2017-principals* strongly agreed that BCBSC is the primary task of the form teachers (see Appendix A). In school practice, a form teacher plays the roles of guide, coordinator, and facilitator for BCBSC. The form teacher of a class is normally selected from subject teachers who have good moral character and strong social skills. It is found, based on relevant literature review, that following three strategies have been most widely adopted by the form teachers in the process of BCBSC. The first strategy is to set up the shared norms of a class. In exercising the strategy, a form teacher should not only make the students in his/her class understand and follow the rules and regulations of the school (e.g. the bell schedule, the framework for discipline), but also set up shared norms of their own class. In practice, the form

teachers tend to guide students of their classes to set up the shared norms by creating certain situation to make student understand the importance of shared norms (Hu, 2007c; Gao, 2011). In one of practical cases, for example, a form teacher gave her students a special assignment to learn how to make classrooms clean and tidy in the new students' first week in a primary school. The form teacher divided the class into five groups and six students for each group. Each group turned on the duty to make and keep classrooms clean and tidy at one of weekdays.17 The students of rest groups played the roles of observers and advisors to assist the group on duty to continually improve the way to accomplish the group task with high quality by cooperation among the group members. The form teacher held a class conference next week to encourage students to consider and discuss what matters in a cooperative work and what norms will be helpful for work collectively. It is deemed to be one of good ways to assist students setting up shared norms by their own. (Lu, 2017, pp. 32-33). The second strategy is to develop students' the sense of self-management and the capacity to shoulder responsibilities for the class. Conventionally, a student leadership team called "class committee" will be elected by all students of the class in the first months after new students initiate their school life. A class committee is usually composed of a captain and five or more committee members who take the responsibilities to coordinate the class activities regarding learning, sports, health, entertainment, and social practice. A form teacher usually encourages the class committee to organize student activities by itself and work with rest of students of the class to bring into full play the everybody's initiative and collective wisdom in defining the class vision and manifesting class spirit by their own class motto, badge, song, and classroom decoration, etc. The members of a class committee must be shifted according to the system of rotation after one school year so as to make more students have chance to serve the class collective and get the experience of class leadership (Hu, 2007c; An, 2013). Moreover, to develop every student's leadership capacity, most form teachers always would like to create more "leadership position" for the students who seem to have little chance to be elected as the members of class committee. In a process of BCBSC, a form teacher can create more than 20 such

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³leadership position´ as discipline supervisor, leader of morning exercises, manager of class-mini-library, weather forecaster, personal appearance reminder, and so on and so forth in RUGHUWRHQVXUHDOPRVWDOOVWXGHQWVFDQJHWFKDQFHWRREWDLQWKH³OHDGHUVKLSH[SHULHQFH´(An, 2013; Lu,2017, p. 28-30). The third strategy is to optimize interpersonal climate in the class-based student collective. By various themed activities as well as one on one communication, an experienced form teacher can always lead individual students to develop positive attitudes towards and develop student empathy for their peers with learning difficulties or encountering emotional frustration (Hu, 2007b; Gai, 2012). Anyway, what strategies the form teachers used in BCBSC depends on specific educational situation and individual form teachers personal experience and character because there are no standardized procedure and unified approach to *Building a Class-based Student Collective*. As a researcher said, ³there are no two identical classes in a school, Nor a perfect way of BCBSC.´(Hu,2007a)

#### *3.2.5 Flag Raising Ceremony* [SHENG-QI-YI-SHI]

*Flag Raising Ceremony* [SHENG-QI-YI-SHI] is one of typical school rites of China held every Monday morning to mark the beginning of a new school weekDQGWKH³)ODJ´KHUHUHIHUVWRWKH National Flag RI3HRSOH¶V5HSXEOLF RI&KLQD. According to the *Law of the People's Republic of China on National Flag*, the full time primary and secondary schools, except holidays, should hold a (national) *Flag Raising Ceremony* once a week (1DWLRQDO 3HRSOH¶V&RQJUHVV,1990).After the promulgation of the law, the State Education Commission (SEC) published the *Circular on the implementation of the "law of the People's Republic of China on national flag" and the strict regulation of raising and lowering the national flag in primary and secondary schools* to stipulate that the *Flag Raising Ceremony* is held every Monday morning (except for winter and summer holidays, or in bad weather), and all the staff and students in the school should take part in the *Flag Raising Ceremony* when the ceremony is held (SEC, 1990). The SEC also stipulated the standard procedure for the *Flag Raising Ceremony*. The four-step procedure is composed by (SEC, 1990):

 Flag coming into the field (the flag bearer holds the flag, flag guards on both sides of the flag bearer, to step toward the flagpole accompanied by a small marching band with the instruments of trumpets and drums. At the same time, the presence of all staff and students standing upright).

Flag raising (all staff and students salute the flag while National Anthem is being played).

• Singing the National Anthem after completing the flag rising.

• Speeches under the National Flag (short and instructive speeches by the principal or middle managers).

In school practice, the *Flag Raising Ceremony* is not only a kind of patriotic education to enhance student sense of national identity, but also a means of reinforcing the school spirit by the "speeches under the National Flag". The main topics of the speeches are usually to review school progress made in the past week, to share the stories in the school that reflects the culture advocated by the school, and to praise specific behavior of certain students conformed to the code of conduct that embody the spirit of the school (Song, et al., 2010; Xu, et al., 2016).

#### *3.2.6 Moral Modeling* [YI-SHEN-ZUO-ZE]

*Moral Modeling* [YI-SHEN-ZUO-ZE] refers to a leader attempts to maximize his/her moral leverage over organization members through setting an example for the organization members by his/her personal virtues and moral integrity. The advocacy of leaders' *Moral Modeling* can be traced back to ancient China. For example, Confucius had a well-known saying in *The Analects* that "If the ruler [leader] himself is upright, all with go well even though he does not give orders. But if he himself is not upright, even though he gives orders, they will not be obeyed."(Waley, 1998, p.163) Similarly, some Western pioneers of modern education, such as John Locke in his book *Some thoughts concerning education* in 1693, also had almost similar expressions when they talked about the influence of educator's behavior on students (Yang, 2003). At the moment, however, the *Moral Modeling* is most likely to really work and to be highly valued in China's leadership context. This point of view is based on the findings of relevant empirical studies. In an empirical study to develop a transformational leadership rating scale of China, Chinese researchers identified a dimension of transformational leadership in Chinese leadership context, called *Moral Modeling* which had not been mentioned by Western researchers when they constructed the dimensions of transformational leadership in Western leadership context. Furthermore, they identified, based on the results of several rounds of questionnaire surveys, that the dimension of *Moral Modeling* incorporated eight leadership conducts (Li and Shi, 2005):

Ь%eing honest in performing his/her official duties and not seeking private benefits.

Ь%eing always the first one to bear hardship and the last one to enjoy comfort.

#### 3.2 Key Terms 81

ЬRegardless of personal gains and losses in performing his/her duty.

Ь3utting organizational or colleagues¶ interests before his/her personal interests.

Ь%eing willing to forget his/her personal interests to ensure group/organizational interests.

Ь%eing willing to work with colleagues in a hard time.

Ь1ever taking other¶s products as his/her own, and

Ь1o retaliation against colleagues.

They also found, based on the results of a range of questionnaire, that a leader¶s *Moral Modeling* had a significant positive impact on employee satisfaction as well as organizational commitment. They believed that it reflected, in a way, the difference between Chinese and Western cultural context of leadership because Western researchers hadn¶t identified this leadership dimension in their transformational leadership research (Li & Shi, 2005; Yang, Wang, & Zhang, 2014). Later, the Chinese researchers found in other empirical studies that the leaders¶ *Moral Modeling* had a significant positive impact on team satisfaction (Li, 2014) and the engagement of initiate staff (Li & Mao, 2018). The findings of above-mentioned empirical studies are also supported by the results of the surveys to Chinese principals and teachers conducted in 2017. In the survey of *CSSLM2017-principals*, 60.5 % respondents (principals) STRONGLY AGREED with the questionnaire item of ³sFKRROVWDIIXVXDOO\SXWDKLJKHUYDOXHRQWKHLUSULQFLSDO¶Vupright character and *Moral Modeling* than his/her knowledge and skills in management´ while 35.2 percent of the respondents AGREED with the item. In the survey of *CSTWCE2017-teachers*, 79.7 percent of the respondents (teachers) STRONGLY AGREED with ³Personally, I put a higher value on my SULQFLSDO¶Vupright character and *Moral Modeling* than his/her management knowledge and skills´ while 16.1 percent of respondents AGREED with the same item (see Appendix A). On the other hand, not a few principals affirmed, from the practical perspective, the significance of *Moral Modeling* in school leadership practice. An experienced principal of a senior high school argued that a principal should relied on not only administrative power, but also his/her personal moral standing and *Moral Modeling* to enable teachers to realize their potential at work (Xiang, 2010b). ³It is often said that students¶ behavior is a mirror of their teacher's behavior. Similarly, the teachers¶ behavior also reflects their principal's behavior.´ He added (Xiang, 2010a). Another school principal believed based on his leadership experience that a principal¶V *Moral Modeling* was helpful to building up prestige of the principal, making psychologically compatible between teachers and the principal, and playing, under certain circumstances, the role of substitute for leadership (Wen, 1995). Certainly, the Chinese government has always advocated that leaders from all walks of life ought to set a good example by their own conduct. In *the Professional Standards for Principals of Senior High School*, for example, the *Moral Modeling* is set as one of professional requirements for the principals (MOE, 2015).

,Q&KLQD¶V VFKRROa teacher¶s *Moral Modeling* is also highly valued because a teacher, the form teacher in particular is seen as a leader in leading the class-based student collective, and the *Moral Modeling* is the foundation of teachers' prestige (Yang, 2003). Some related studies have also provided evidence for the importance of teachers¶ *Moral Modeling*. For example, when students were asked in an interview that what was the moment that their teacher impressed them deeply, the answers were, ³Watching the sweat on the forehead of our teacher when he was cleaning up our classroom with us´. ³After sprained my ankle, I was picked up from my home to school by my teacher every morning´. ³Feeling the performance of our class was not good enough, the form teacher criticized herself openly in front of the whole class´ (Guo, 1998). Therefore, &KLQD¶VVFKRROWHDFKHUVDUHHQFRXUDJHGWRGHPRQVWUDWHWKHLUPRUDOVWDQGLQJDQGXSULJKWZKHQWKH\ work with their students in classroom or other occasions in school. However, the teacher¶s *Moral Modeling* is often expressed by another term, (a teacher should) *Be a model of virtue for students* [WEI-REN-SHI-BIAO].

#### *3.2.7 Emotional Management* [QING-GAN-GUAN-LI]

In Chinese school context, *Emotional Management* [QING-GAN-GUAN-LI] generally refers to the leadership behaviors which can encourage and help school staff to positively face challenging situations, to struggle forward in meeting with tough task, to reconcile a broken relationship with their colleagues and even family members, and to smoothly get through whatever personal hard time. So far, however, there has been no universally acknowledged definition of *Emotional Management* in China. Part of the reason is that the term was not originally proposed by any scholars, but rather it was first developed in leadership practice and coined by leadership practitioners. An experienced principal believed that the *Emotional Management* was a leadership approach with humanist orientation reflected on the idea of putting people first. He described the *Emotional Management* as the leadership with empathy, which was concerned about the inner world of school staff. He argued that the *Emotional Management* was DNLQGRI³VRIWPDQDJHPHQW´ in comparison with the ³hard management´ that relied on rules and regulations. The end of the *Emotional Management* was to motivate school staff with emotional factors and to gain the trust of staff by sincerity (Zhang, 2013). Another experienced principal contended that the essentials for successful *Emotional Management* were frequent informal communication with their staff, principals¶ *Moral Modeling*, and substantive support for their staff. According to the principal's view, the regular informal communication between principals and school staff can help principals to understand and decode timely their staff¶s emotions at work. 3ULQFLSDOV¶*Moral Modeling* can help principals to gain the trust of staff. And the leadership substantive support can manifest the respect and sincerity to school staff (Zou, 2002). A number of stories and cases of successful Chinese principals have really provided evidence for the above-PHQWLRQHG SULQFLSDOV¶ YLHZV concerning the essentials for *Emotional Management* (Wu, 2008; Xie, 2013; Lai, 2013; NTRFMO, 2014; Lu, 2017). Furthermore, the value of ³substantive support´ in *Emotional Management* has been particularly affirmed in Chinese school leadership context. For example, when talking about *Emotional Management*, a high school principal who has served as principal in three schools in the past 20 years emphasized that the principal should put his/her staff¶s worries and frustrations in his/her mind and try to provide substantive support for solving the problems they face. It seems to be necessary for a principal who is concerned with *Emotional Management* to take the initiative to visit his/her staff in hospital to show concern for them, to attend the funeral of a teacher¶s spouse as a sign of sympathy, to attend the wedding of his/her staff to offer congratulations to the bridegroom and bride. (Shao, 2018). Similarly, the principal must defend the legitimate interests of his/her staff if their interests are violated (Wu, 2008). By doing so, a principal, in Chinese cultural context, will gain the praise and trust from his/her staff over time. The surveys of school principals and teachers conducted in 2017 also largely confirmed the significance of *Emotional Management* in school leadership. The result of *CSSLM2017-principals* showed that 75.7 percent of the respondents (principals) STRONGLY AGREED with ³It is great helpful for leadership practice to pay attention to emotional dimension of leadership´ while 22.4 percent of the respondents AGREED with the item. In the survey of *CSTWCE2017-teachers*, 80.5 percent of the respondents (teachers) STRONGLY AGREED with ³I prefer the leaders who respect teachers' emotional needs´ while 16.1 percent of respondents AGREED with the item (see Appendix A).

#### *3.2.8 Heart to Heart Talk* [TAN-XIN]

*Heart to Heart Talk* [TAN-XIN] is one of methods most commonly used in the practice of the *Emotional Management.* It refers to the one on one talk between a superior and a subordinate (e.g., a principal vs. a middle manager, a middle manager vs. lower manager, a lower manager vs. an ordinary teacher), which is mainly concerned with emotional needs of school staff. Sometimes, however, the principal can have a *Heart to Heart Talk* with an ordinary teacher directly if necessary. The *Heart to Heart Talk* is a kind of in-depth communication to exchange of views, to enhance mutual understanding and trust, to euphemistically convey the superior's advice for the subordinate, to express the concern and sympathy of the superior to the subordinate, or to express emotional support from the superior to the subordinate. Anyway, the purpose of the *Heart to Heart Talk* is not fixed, but rather depends on specific situations. Like the term *Emotional Management*, the *Heart to Heart Talk* is not a scholarly term, but initially developed and used in &KLQD¶VOHDGHUVKLSSUDFWLFHThe role of *Heart to Heart Talk* in school leadership and management is, by and large, still out of the horizon of school leadership researchers in Chinese universities since there has been very little empirical research on this theme thus far. Nevertheless, Chinese school leadership practitioners do attach great importance to *Heart to Heart Talk*, and they view the *Heart to Heart Talk* as one of effective methods in their *Emotional Management*. In *Intrview2018- Principal*, 16 out of 17 interviewees said that the *emotional management* had been valued in their leadership practice. 15 out of 17 interviewees admitted that they used the *Heart to Heart Talk* and *home visits* (the term will be explored later) whenever necessary. (See Appendix B). In addition, some principals also discussed, in their written works about their *Emotional Management* experience, that how they employ the method of *Heart to Heart Talk* in leadership practice. From such written works by principals, the *Heart to Heart Talk* is most likely to be used when 1) a teacher violates rules and regulations of the school and faces an impending penalty; 2) the performance of a teacher is criticized by students or parents; 3) there is a fierce dispute between two teachers; 4) a teacher is suffering a frustration in his/her work; 5) a teacher has hard time in his/her personal life (e.g. the psychological trauma from marital problems, upset caused by a family accident, and the death of a closest family member) (Zhang, 1996, p. 188; Liu,2000, p. 506; Zou, 2002; Wu, 2008; Lu, 2017; Shao, 2018). Indeed, the written works by Chinese principals over 40 years includes a number of leadership stories about how school leadership, through using the method of *Heart to Heart Talk*, changes teachers¶ negative attitudes towards their work, improves teachers¶ performance, resolves the disputes between teachers, revives teachers¶ enthusiasm after setbacks in their work, and gives teachers comfort and encouragement in their hard time. Moreover, some principals, in their written works, summed up four key words of successful *Heart to Heart Talk* in leadership: listening, empathy, flexibility and sincerity (Li, 2007; Lv, 2010; Liu, 2013). It is important to note that the *Heart to Heart Talk* not only happens between leadership and school staff, but also happens between teachers and students. Teachers, especially the form teachers often use *Heart to Heart Talk* as one of the methods they learned from their school leaders to meet their student emotional needs (Liu, 2007, p.65; Zhang, 2013, p.52, 96; Lu, 2017, p.122).

#### *3.2.9 Home Visits* [JIA-FANG]

*Home Visits* [JIA-FANG] is another method most commonly used in the practice of the *Emotional Management.* It usually refers to the school leaders to pay a visit to staff¶s home through which the positive influence of leadership can be extended beyond the workplace, and the staff and their family members can recognize that they are highly valued by school leadership. As one of methods in *Emotional Management*, it is most likely to be conducted when a teacher is suffering from serious illness or his/her family has hard time. In other cases, school leaders may have a *Home Visit* to convey congratulations to a teacher on the honor he/she obtained and praise, in front of his/her family members, his/her contributions to the school. A *Home Visits* is sometimes used alongside the *Heart to Heart Talk* since the *Heart to Heart Talk* conducted at a teacher¶s home often gets a more effective result than it conducted in school (Xie, 2003; Wu, 2008; Deng, 2015). In general, the *Home Visits* are valued by school principals at the moment. In the survey of *CSSLM2017-principals*, 75.1 percent of the respondents (principals) STRONGLY AGREED with ³In staff management, it is important to have heart-to±heart talk with staff, to try to comfort to staff, or to pay visits to their homes at right time.´ while 22.0 percent of the respondents AGREED with the item. Meanwhile, the *home visits* as a way of expressing leadership concern for teachers is also supported by most teachers. In the survey of *CSTWCE2017-teachers*, 71.7 percent of the respondents (teachers) STRONGLY AGREED with ³It makes me feel warm if a leader can have heart-to±heart talk with me, try to comfort to me, or pay a visit to my home when I have a hard time with my job or my life㻚´ while 21.5 percent of respondents AGREED with the item (see Appendix A).

#### **3.3 Summary and Discussion**

This chapter attempts to explore the key terms which are widely used by school leadership practitioners in WKHLUSUDFWLFHRI³creating a culture fostering student development´ The first term presented in this chapter is *Putting Student Development First*

[YI-XUE-SHENG-FA-ZHAN-WEI-BEN] which is viewed as the overarching belief in building the school culture fostering student development and growth by most of ChinD¶V principals. Just as one of principals interpreted, the term means that a school should give first priority to every student well development, and ensure every student¶s personal interest, hobby, talent, and personality to be brought into full play and develop (Ma, et al.,2005, p. 246). It may not seem new to Western school leadership, but looking back at China¶s old version of GPE, which emphasized that ³education must serve the proletarian politics´, it is undoubtedly a great step forward. The second term *Collectivism* [JI-TI-ZHU-YI] is originally drawn from the CPC¶s terminology. The *Collectivism* or sense of *Collectivism* as one of the civic attitudes is advocated by the Constitution of PRC. In school leadership context, it is seen as one of moral principles fostering the culture of interdependence between school members as well as the basis of the harmony in school though the very meaning of the term has a little bit changed in the last decades. The third term *Sense of Ownership* [ZHU-REN-WENG-YI-SHI] is also originally drawn from the CPC¶s terminology and advocated by the Constitution of PRC. In China䇻s school leadership practice, principals advocate staff䇻s *Sense of Ownership* in order to encourage their organizational citizenship behavior and to arouse their enthusiasm, initiative and creativity in daily routine. For students, the cultivation of *Sense of Ownership* is regarded as a vehicle to develop their social awareness as well as the capacity to self-management. The fourth term explored in this chapter is the *Building a Class-based Student Collective* [BAN-JI-TI-JIAN-SHE]. It refers to the process of change a collection of individual students of a class into a class collective in which students develop their shared vision and goals for their class, shared moral sense and code of conduct towards school life while every student has the opportunity to display his/her talent, develop his/her personalized character, and get the acceptance of collective members. Through exploring this term, one can recognize that the leverage of the Soviet management knowledge over China¶s school leadership is still existed though the young generation of Chinese school leaders and teachers know little about the ³learning-Soviet-movement´ which took place about 60 years ago. However, the core

mission of *Building a Class-based Student Collective* has been modified nowadays. In China¶s school, there is a range of rites and ceremonies to manifest and reinforce the school spirit, thereby making a contribution to the building of a school culture fostering student development and growth. The *flag-raising ceremony* [SHENG-QI-YI-SHI] is selected as the fifth term in this chapter because it is one of typical school rites of China held every week in every school to foster student patriotic awareness and school spirit. By interpreting the term, one can get a glimpse of the panorama of school rites and ceremonies in China¶s schools.

Compared with first five terms presented in this chapter, perhaps the sixth and seventh terms seem more deserving of further discussion. As we know, some Western scholars have pointed out the significance of moral side of school leadership (cf. Sergiovanni, 1996, p.58; Sergiovanni and Starratt, 1998, pp. 45-48). When he discussed the source of authority for leadership, for example, Sergiovanni argued, ³we now rely almost exclusively on bureaucratic authority, psychological authority, and technical-rational authority.« Important as these sources may be, they are not as powerful as moral authority as a basis for school leadership practice.´ (Sergiovanni,1992, p. XV). When Sergiovanni illustrated the moral side of leadership, he listed the elements of moral leadership which consisted of the purposing, professional ideal, community norms, covenant, collegiality and leadership as stewardship, but the leaders' personal virtues are not included (Sergiovanni, 1992). However, the Chinese researchers, Li and Shi identified one of leadership dimensions called *Moral Modeling* [YI-SHEN-ZUO-ZE] in their developing a China¶s transformational leadership rating scale in 2005 (Li & Shi, 2005). Later, the related empirical studies in Chinese leadership context reveled that the leadership dimension composed by eight leadership conducts, through which there was a significant positive impact on both employee satisfaction and organizational commitment (Li and Shi, 2005; Li, 2014). Furthermore, findings of the empirical studies are also supported by the results of the surveys to Chinese principals and teachers conducted by the author of this book in 2017(see Appendix A). It confirms that the principal *Moral Modeling* really works in China¶s school leadership context, and, at the same time, is highly valued by most Chinese principals and teachers (see Appendix A). Does *Moral Modeling* exclusively work in Chinese leadership context? Are there any successful Western leaders with the leadership characters or conducts close to the *Moral Modeling*? Can it be one of potential research themes for Western scholars in the field of school leadership? These questions triggered

by the sixth term in this chapter are worthy of consideration by international colleagues. Next, let's turn our attention to the seventh term *Emotional Management* [QING-GAN-GUAN-LI]. A number of written works of principals and stories of successful leadership have affirmed the positive role of *Emotional Management* in China¶s school leadership practice. The results of questionnaire surveys conducted by the author in 2017 showed that the *Emotional Management* in leadership is really valued by most Chinese principals and teachers (see Appendix A). Similarly, some Western scholars also contended that the emotional side of school leadership should not be overlooked (Hallinger, 2003, p. 291). However, it could be important to note that some differences between Chinese *Emotional Management* and Western *Emotional Management /leadership* (if the *Emotional Management* really exists in Western school leadership practice). For example, ³LQGLYLGXDOL]HG consideration´ seems to be one of aspects of *Emotional Management*, but the scope of the ³LQGLYLGXDOL]HG consideration´ in Chinese and Western leadership may not be the same. In Chinese cultural context, a principal¶s ³individualized consideration´ towards individual teachers is not confined to the workplace, but often extends to teachers' family life. In a successful principal¶s story, the principal was described as follows (The Project Team of Pengzhi Liu¶s Perspectives and Practice of School Education, 2010, p.145):

She [the principal] has sincere feelings for students and teachers. No matter who was in a very hard time, she will shed tears with sympathy. She always tries her best to help the students or teachers in time without hesitation. She hired a ODZ\HUIRUDWHDFKHU¶VSHUVRQDOODZVXLWDVVRFLDWHGZLWKWKHWHDFKHU¶VIDPLO\ trouble; she went to the hospital many times to meet with doctors to discuss and work out the specific plan of medical treatment for her assistant principal who was VHULRXVO\LOO«

It may be difficult for the school leaders in the Western cultural context to understand what this Chinese principal did, but such a ³individualized consideration´ with typical Chinese characteristics must be praised in Chinese cultural context. Throughout the literature on *Emotional Management* in China, there have been little empirical studies on the theme thus far. Anyway, it seems that only when more empirical studies with sophisticated methods and instruments emerge in China in the future will it be possible to truly reveal the mechanism of *Emotional Management* in school leadership.

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# **Chapter 4**

# **Guiding and Facilitating Teacher Development**㻌

#### **4.1 Introduction**

Historically, the Chinese nation had a tradition of respecting teachers and valuing education. For example, Confucius as the typical and outstanding representative of ancient Chinese educator has been respected for thousands of years in China. Although the tradition was almost completely destroyed in the Proletariat Cultural Revolution during 1966-1976, it was quickly restored and reinforced after the end of the Cultural Revolution, especially after the educational reform was launched in the 1980s. In 1985, at the ninth meeting of the Standing Committee of the Sixth National People's Congress, the State Council¶s proposal on the establishment of Teacher's Day was passed, which designated September 10 as Teacher's Day every year (Feng, et al. 2002). From then on, school teachers all over the country have annually celebrated their festival on September 10 in various ways, and local governments and communities expressed respect for teachers and provided teachers with support in substantive ways. In 1986, the first professional title system in Chinese history for primary and secondary school teachers was established by Chinese central government (SEC, 1986). ,WLVDV\VWHPLQZKLFKWKHWHDFKHUV¶VHQLRULW\LVFRXSOHGZLWKWKHLUMRE performance. The establishment of this system not only makes the ladder of teachers' career clear, but also leads teachers' career into the track of professional development. In another development, to construct a pool of quality candidates for the teaching profession, the reform of the ³separated´ teacher education system has been put on the agenda of the central government in 1990s. 7KH³VHSDUDWHG´WHDFKHUHGXFDWLRQV\VWHPUHIHUVWRWKHWHDFKHUHGXFDWLRQV\VWHPVHSDUDWHG from comprehensive higher education system, in which the normal (teacher training) colleges/universities exclusively take the responsibility to prepare teachers for primary and secondary schools of the country. In the normal college/university, a student simultaneously studies both a main subject (e.g. Mathematics, History, etc.) and the pedagogy of that subject, leading to a combined bachelor's degree and teaching credential to qualify as a teacher of that subject. However, it was gradually recognized in 1990s that the academic foundation of the graduates from normal colleges/universities, except for the research normal universities (e.g. Beijing Normal University, East China Normal University, etc) was not strong enough to meet the increasing societal expectations in the era of educational reform (Sun and Yang, 1999; Jin and Wang, 2008). In 1996, the State Education Commission published a RHD, *Opinions on the reform and development of normal education* to set out initiatives to encourage comprehensive universities, the research comprehensive universities in particular, to share partial responsibility of teacher education (SEC, 1996). CCCPC and State Council reiterated the policy to encourage non-normal universities to participate in teacher preparation and teacher development (CCCPC and State Council, 1999). By the end of 2000, fifty-three comprehensive universities of China had undertaken teacher education programs (Li and Shi, 2002). On the other hand, the research normal universities carried out the reform of programs enrichment in the late 1980s. In East China Normal University, IRU LQVWDQFH ³selective courses were offered to students of all majors on the basis of maintaining the fundamental courses. These selective courses were applied in nature or designed to broaden student¶s knowledge. For instance, the Department of Psychology offered psychological consultation, the Department of Economics offered econometrics, and the Department of Environmental Science offered environmental mathematics´ (Yuan, et al. 2015, p.219). As a result, a range of non-normal majors and programs were set up in East China Normal University in 1990s. By the same token, Beijing Normal University has exercised similar reform. By the end of the 20th century, more than half of majors and programs in East China Normal University and Beijing Normal University had been non-normal ones. Thus, the ³separated´ teacher education system was broken through at the turn of the 21st century. Since the beginning of the 21st century, ³because of the improvemHQWLQWHDFKHUV¶VDODU\VFDOHVWHDFKLQJKDVULVHQXS the ladder of preferred occupations´ (OECD, 2011, p.88). Some graduates of prestigious research interested in working in the elite senior high schools in coastal metropolis because of the advantageous working conditions of these schools. It was really the good news for school education that the most gifted and talented young people would like to enter the teaching profession of basic education, but the challenge was that they had not experienced pre-service teacher training. This alternative human resource for teaching profession, together with the fact of unbalanced quality of graduates from different leveled normal colleges/universities at the time highlighted the imperative to set up the credential or license system for those who are going to enter the teaching profession. Consequently, the central government proclaimed in 2010 that the universities (e.g. Peking University and Tsinghua University) have begun to be government would establish the national teacher qualification examination for the candidates of

teaching profession (Office of the National Medium and Long Term Education Working Group, 2010). In the following year, the MOE started a pilot project of teacher qualification examination in a few municipalities and provinces (Wang and Shen, 2017). In 2013, the MOE published the policy document titled *Provisional measures for the qualification examination of primary and secondary school teachers* to set up the policy framework for the competitive examination required to enter the teaching profession, in which the prerequisites for the examinee, the content and format of the examination and other details were clearly stipulated (MOE, 2013). Consequently, the graduates of normal universities/colleges had no longer enjoyed the privilege of naturally obtaining the qualifications of entry into teaching profession upon graduation from then on, and they had to take the competitive qualification examination like comprehensive university graduates if they were going to be teachers. Over the same period, the continuing professional development (CPD) for in-service teachers was also received unprecedented attention from Chinese government because the increasing demand for professional quality of teachers emerged from the curriculum reform (Qu and Cui, 2014; Li, 2018). In 2013, the MOE set out the policy of the mandatory periodical registration system for in-service teachers, and stipulated that the primary and secondary school serving teachers should apply for re-registration every five years to renew their qualifications. The prerequisites for re-registration are that the applicant has completed 360 hours of the continuing professional development (CPD) courses in the last five years and passed the five-year work performance appraisal (MOE, 2013). This policy of periodical registration largely reflects that Chinese government, like the international education community, has held the idea that ³teachers, like many other professionals, need to remain abreast of what is new in their field and be able to respond to the emerging demands of their job´ (OECD, 2017, p.4). However, it is hard to complete the 360 hours¶ off-the-job CPD learning in five years for in-service teachers. On the other hand, researchers claimed that teachers engaged in professional learning only when the learning is substantively helpful to address the specific challenge that they faced every day (Liu, 2003; You and Zhang, 2014). Therefore, school-based teacher development as a prevalent CPD approach came into being as the times require. In fact, most teachers really believe that school-based teacher development is important for their professional growth. In the *CSTWCE2017-teachers*, for example, 72.6 percent of the respondents (teachers) STRONGLY

AGREED with ³school-based development is indispensable to the professional growth of teachers.´ while 21.5 percent of the respondents AGREED with the item (see Appendix A). Consequently, school-based teacher development has become one of the most important parts of the CPD for in-service teachers in China since the 21st century (Zhang, et al., 2005; Yuan, 2015, p. 227). Given school-based teacher development is one of the most widely adopted approaches of CPD for teachers in China today, school principals inevitably are regarded as the key person to guide and facilitate the professional development of teachers who are working at their schools. This is why the MOE respectively designated in 2013 and 2015 ³JXLGing and facilitating teacher development´ as one of the six key leadership practices of the principals in compulsory education schools and senior high schools (MOE, 2013, 2015). Given the above-mentioned China¶s policies and practical situation of teacher education and CPD, it seems reasonable to explore and interpret two groups of terms in this chapter. The first group of terms includes the *Professional Title System for Teachers* [JIAO-SHI-ZHUAN-YE-ZHI-WU-ZHI-DU], the *Honorary Titles for Teachers* [JIAO-SHI-RONG-YU-CHEN-HAO] and the *Periodical Registration of Teacher Qualification* [JIAO-SHI-DING-QI-ZHU-CE], which would provide international audience with the background knowledge about China¶s policy on teaching profession. The second group of terms explored in this chapter are consisted of the *Leadership for School-Based Teacher Development* [XIAO-BEN-JIAO-SHI-FA-ZHAN-LING-DAO], the *Construction of Teacher Ethics* [SHI-DE-JIAN-SHE],the *Passing on Experience by Guidance and Support* [CHUAN-BANG-DAI] and the *Fostering a Cohort of Backbone Teachers* [GU-GAN-JIAO-SHI-PEI-YANG], which are closely associated with the essential responsibilities that China¶s principals must shoulder under the government mandatory requirement of ³guiding and facilitating teacher development´.

#### **4.2 Key Terms**

#### *4.2.1 Professional Title System for Teachers* [JIAO-SHI-ZHUAN-YE-ZHI-WU-ZHI-DU]

obtain the professional titles ³Third-grade teacher´, ³Second-grade teacher´, ³First-grade teacher´, ³Senior-grade teacher´ and ³Top-grade teacher´ successively. The *Professional Title System for Teachers* was set out by Chinese government in 1986 to reinforce the teacher professionalism and provide incentives for teachers¶ continuous learning and professional advancement (SEC, 1986). teaching profession, through which individual teachers have opportunity to climb up gradually and The *Professional Title System for Teachers* [JIAO-SHI-ZHUAN-YE-ZHI-WU-ZHI-DU] is a career ladder of

The *Teachers Law of the People¶s Republic of China,* which came into force in 1994, confirms that the State adopts the *Professional Title System for Teachers* (1DWLRQDO 3HRSOH¶V&RQJUHVV, 1993). The *Professional Title System for Teachers* has become a statutory system in China from then on.

In the RHD of State Education Commission (SEC) in 1986, there were only four professional titles for teachers (from ³Third-grade teacher´ to the ³Senior-grade teacher´), which composed the teacher career ladder set by the SEC. \$VD UHYLVHG YHUVLRQWKHWLWOHRI³7RS-graGHWHDFKHU´ZDV added to the teacher career ladder in the jointly released RHD of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS) and the Ministry of Education (MOE) in 2015(MOHRSS and MOE, 2015). The current five-step career ladder for teaching professionals, that is, the professional title system for China¶s teachers is formulated in accordance with the provisions of the RHD in 2015 (see Figure 6.1). The *Professional Title System for Teachers* is more than a seniority-based, but the sysWHPLQZKLFKWKHWHDFKHUV¶VHQLRULW\LVFRXSOHGZLWKWKHLU job performance. Obtaining the titles of ³third-grade teacher´ and ³second-grade teacher´ are basically based on teachers¶ seniority. All teachers who are qualified to teach can successively acquire these two titles within three to five years. Nevertheless, individual teachers cannot rely only on their seniority to obtain the last three titles (from the ³first-grade teacher´ to the ³top-grade teacher´) because there is a quota system for these three titles. Moreover, the higher the title is, the smaller the quota is. For example, the statistics in 2017 showed that there were 12 million teachers working at the primary and secondary schools of China (MOE, 2017), but the quota in 2018 for ³top-grade teacher´ was 2,604, accounting for only three in ten thousand of the total number of teachers **(**MOHRSS and MOE, 2018). In fact, essential characteristic of the *Professional Title System for Teachers* LV ³competitive´. According to Mr. Lei, the head of task *Professional Title System for Teachers* of the SEC, the significance of establishing professional rank system for teachers lies in abolishing teacher's tenure system and introducing competitive mechanism when teachers climb up their career ladder (Zhang and Lei, 1998). It is believed that the *Professional Title System for Teachers*, particularly the competitive mechanism in the title system has played, over the past three decades, an active role in stimulating teachers' motivation for their continuing professional learning and performance improvement (Chen and Peng, 2016). Concomitantly, the social status of teachers has also been improved because the *Title System for Teachers* highlighted the professionalism of the teaching profession (Li, 2005; Zhou, *Professional* group on

2012). However, debates have been accompanied by the *Professional Title System for Teachers* since it was created. Some researchers criticized that the quota of teachers' professional titles often led to fierce competition among teachers, which resulted in disharmony within teacher teams (Zhou, 2012; Shi et al.,2016). Other critics pointed out that the evaluation in the accreditation of teachers¶ professional titles often involuntarily paid too much attention to the quantifiable part of teacherV¶SHUIRUPDQFH (e.g. their students achievement, their publications, outcomes of scientific research, praises for their open lessons, etc) and neglected the teachers' love for students and their commitment to ordinary daily work which were hardly observed and evaluated by the expert panel of accreditation (Li, 2005; Zhou, 2012; Chen and Peng, 2016).

**Figure 4.1 The five-step career ladder of China¶s teaching professionals** 

#### *4.2.2 Honorary Titles for Teachers* [JIAO-SHI-RONG-YU-CHEN-HAO]

*Honorary Titles for Teachers* [JIAO-SHI-RONG-YU-CHEN-HAO] refers to the titles conferred on the teachers in recognition of their excellent professional achievements and extraordinary contributions in fulfilling their educational duties. Because a few of these titles applies to non-teaching staff, they can also be called *Honorary Titles for Educators* in some context. As noted earlier in this chapter, there has always been a social tradition of respecting teachers in Chinese history. For example, Confucius, as the best-known educator in ancient China, was awarded various honorary titles and autograph inscription by over twenty emperors from Han Dynasty (202 B.C.-220A.D.) to Qing Dynasty (1636-1912). However, the China's modern system of *Honorary Titles for Teachers* was not established until the late 1970s. The first *Honorary Titles for Teachers* of modern China, the *Superfine Teacher* [TE-JI-JIAO-SHI], was created in 1978 when the Interim provisions on the selection of *Superfine Teacher* was jointly issued by the MOE and the National Planning Commission (MOE and NPC, 1978). In subsequent years, several other *Honorary Titles for Teachers* were created, and the formal system of *Honorary Titles for Teachers* in China was established in 1980s. Correspondingly, provincial, municipal, district and county governments also established local system of *Honorary Titles for Teachers* in the same period. At present, there are six honorary titles of teachers established by the central government (see Table 4.1).



Note: MOE= Ministry of Education; MOHRSS= Ministry of Human Resources & Social Security

MOF=Ministry of Finance; SEC=State Education Commission (renamed Ministry of Education in 1998); MoP=

Ministry of Personnel (replaced by Ministry of Human Resources & Social Security in 2008)

Basically, the *Honorary Titles for Teachers* in China can be classified into two categories. One is given to educators for their comprehensive achievements and performance (usually described as ³high integrity, lofty ideals, profound knowledge and kind hearts´ and so on), and the other is conferred on teachers in recognition of their subject-based contributions (e.g. the contribution to Math teaching as well as the contribution to Math teacher mentoring and coaching). The titles of ³National Model Teacher´, ³Advanced Workers in the National Education System´, ³National Excellent Teacher´, ³National Excellent Educator´, and ³National Model Educator´ compose the first category (comprehensive) whereas the titles of ³Superfine Teacher´ belongs to the second category (subject-based). For the first category, along with the honorary titles at the national level there are number of local-level titles which are created by provincial/municipal governments or district/county governments. For example, the *Honorary Titles for Teachers* called Merited Educator of Shanghai and Model Educator of Shanghai are created by Shanghai Municipal Government, while the honorary titles of teachers called People¶s Teacher of Beijing and Excellent Teacher of Beijing are created by Beijing municipal government (SMPG, 2018; BMPG, 2018). As one of annual events to celebrate on Teachers' Day, the awarding ceremonies of *Honorary Titles for Teachers* at national and provincial/municipal level are respectively held in Beijing and the provincial capital cities on the day of Teachers' Day each year. The common name of the second category is *Backbone Teacher* [GU-GAN-JIAO-SHI]. The *backbone teacher* can be further divided into the *backbone teachers* at different levels, such as school level, district/county level, provincial /municipal level. The *Superfine Teacher* as backbone teacher at the highest level is placed at the top of backbone teacher levels (see Figure 4.2). Compared with the awardees of the first category, the awardees of the second category have a larger number (e.g. the quota for *Superfine Teacher* is Å-Å of the total number of teachers), and they have made a more direct and substantive contribution to the curriculum reform and the teaching quality improvement of China¶s primary and secondary schools (Wang and Cai,2005; Ma, 2009; Huang, 2013; Li, 2016).

**Figure 4.2 Levels of backbone teachers** 

#### *4.2.3 Periodical Registration of Teacher Qualification* [JIAO-SHI-DING-QI-ZHU-CE]

The *Periodical Registration of Teacher Qualification* [JIAO-SHI-DING-QI-ZHU-CE] in China¶s context refers to the policy which requires all serving teachers to periodically renew their qualification for teaching every five-year period of time. The Chinese government initially set out the requirement for all in-service teachers of primary and secondary schools to renew their qualification periodically in *The compendium of national medium and long term plan for educational reform and development (2010-2020)* in 2010 (Office of the National Medium and Long Term Education Working Group, 2010). Subsequently, the pilot program of this initiative was exercised in part of provinces. In 2013, the MOE issued the RHD titled *Provisional measures for the periodical qualification registration of primary and secondary school teachers* and handed down that the policy of *Periodical Registration of Teacher Qualification* (PRTQ) would come into RHD, the primary purpose of the policy is to ensure that only the teachers, who are still fit and proper, appropriately qualified and competent to teach after a five-year period of time, can be continuously employed as teachers in China¶VVFKRROV. Those in-service teachers who fail to meet the registration renewal requirements or fail to register within the time limit shall not engage in the work of teaching staff (MOE,2013). Chinese educational researchers generally believe that this policy is of profound significance to promote the CPD for in-service teachers and improve teacher professionalism (Ran, 2013; Liu, 2014; Liu, 2016). Moreover, a mechanism for eliminating the operation from August 2013 (MOE, 2013). By 2015, 28 of 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions of China had implemented this policy (Luo and Wei, 2016). According to the

teachers who are unable to keep themselves up to date and fail to meet the renewal requirements after a period of time has been substantively established by carrying out the specific requirements of PRTQ (see Table 4.2) set by the MOE (Wang, 2017). Also, we can obtain additional information from Table 4.2. The first information is that the policy of PRTQ actually gives schools the power, though it is indirectly, to dismiss those in-service teachers who are judged unsuitable for teaching or have serious misconduct in interaction with their students because the policy set the condition of ³passing annual appraisal at school´ as one of key prerequisites to pass the PRTQ (Wang, 2017). Secondly, the ³code of professional ethics and conduct´ is most valued in contrast to other renewal requirements of the PRTQ. It is described in China¶s educational context as the ³RQH EDOORW YHWR UXOH´, that is, if a teacher has serious misconduct or morally corrupt which violates the *Code of Professional Ethics of Primary and Secondary School Teachers*, no matter how well he or she does in other aspects, he or she will not be able to pass the PRTQ (Ran, 2013).

#### **Table 4.2 Specific Requirements of PRTQ**

#### *Teachers who meet the following requirements can pass the PRTQ:*

 Complying with the national laws and regulations and the *Code of Professional Ethics of Primary and Secondary School Teachers*, meeting the criteria of teacher ethics appraisal stipulated by provincial education authority.

Obtaining qualified level or above in each annual appraisal at school.


#### *Teachers under one of the following circumstances should be suspended their PRTQ:*

 Failure to complete mandatory CPD hours stipulated by the MOE or provincial education authority within a five-year period of time.

 The suspension of educational, teaching and administrative work for more than one semester, except participation in training programs, academic exchanges, or sick leave and maternity leave approved by the school management or local education authority.

Failure to pass school's annual appraisal once in the last five years.

#### *Teachers under one of the following circumstances will fail to pass the PRTQ:*

 Violation of the *Code of Professional Ethics of Primary and Secondary School Teachers* and the criteria of teacher morality appraisal with a pernicious consequence.

 Failure to pass annual appraisal at school for two consecutive years or more than two consecutive years.

Having been revoked teacher qualification according to law.

Source: MOE. (2013). *Provisional measures for the periodical qualification registration of primary and secondary school teachers*.

*4.2.4 Leadership for School-based Teacher Development* [XIAO-BEN-JIAO-SHI-FA-ZHAN-LING-DAO]

*Leadership for School-based Teacher Development* [XIAO-BEN-JIAO-SHI-FA-ZHAN-LING-DAO] refers to the leadership process of guiding and facilitating teachers to proactively participate in school-based training programs so as to ensure teachers to keep them up to date and to have capacity to address the challenges emerged in their daily work. Although it is no doubt that a school principal always takes on the chief role in the practice of *Leadership for School-based Teacher Development*(LSBTD), the LSBTD does not exclusively lie in the principal¶s role because the responsibilities of LSBTD are often shared, in China¶s school leadership practice, by other members of school leadership team (e.g. a vice-principal who is in charge of curriculum and instruction) or middle management (e.g. the head of the office for teacher development). The term LSBTD came into existence when the school-based teacher development was acknowledged as one of key CPD patterns for school teachers in the early 21th century. The *school-based teacher development* became the dominant pattern for teacher development at the time for several reasons. As we noted earlier, China had been a country with a large population of primary and secondary school teachers by the beginning of the 21st century. There were not so many qualified training institutions in China to provide training programs to meet the CPD needs of all school teachers when Chinese government clarified in 1990s that participation in on-the-job-training was a mandatory requirement for in-service teachers. Secondly, it was YHU\GLIILFXOWIRUYDVWPDMRULW\RI&KLQD¶VORFDOJRYHUQPHQWV at the time to be able to allocate enough funds to purchase the CPD programs from normal universities/colleges for all local teachers. Thirdly, it was so hard for schools to reconcile the conflict time between teachers' daily work and teachers' learning if schools sent their teachers to take the CPD programs in normal universities/colleges. Finally, policy makers as well as school principals realized that the hands-on workshop held in schools was more conducive to linking with the teachers' work in real classrooms and thus would be more beneficial to address the existing challenges in teaching and learning of the schools. Thus, a CPD pattern with the characteristics of "[training] **in the school**", "[based-on the current situation] **of the school**", and "**for the school** [development]" was widely favored in China in the late 1990s. It was the pattern that was so-called *school-based teacher development* (Li and Li, 2003; Feng and Meng, 2005; Long, 2013; You and Zhang,2014). In November 1999, the MOE issued the RHD titled *Opinions on implementing "Continuing education program for primary and secondary school teachers"*. In this RHD, the MOE defined primary and secondary schools themselves as one of key bases of CPD for teachers, and called for local governments to provide necessary support for *school-based teacher development* in primary and secondary schools and give full play to the role of primary and secondary schools in CPD for teachers. Meanwhile, the MOE clarified in the RHD that the school principal was the primary person responsible for CPD of the teachers at their schools (MOE, 1999), which was consistent with "guiding and facilitating teacher development", one of key leadership practices set by the MOE in 2013 and 2015 (MOE, 2013, 2015). Over last twenty years, the school-based teacher development has become the dominant CPD pattern for school teachers. Diversified types of programs to carry out the school-based teacher development have created and developed during the same period of time (Liu, 2003; Pei, 2005; Zhang and Lai, 2016). Although researchers have no consensus at the moment on the dimensions or functions of the *leadership for school-based teacher development*, some principals have outlined several ones drawn from their successful leadership practice in leading and facilitating school-based teacher development. From their perspectives, the leadership functions include, but are not limited to (Yuan, 2011; Ma, 2014; Jin, 2015):

Ьestablishing the leadership group headed by principal to make decision on and allocate resources for school-based teacher development.

Ьestablishing a task group headed by middle management (e.g. the director of the office for teacher development) to develop work plan for school-based teacher development.

having the task group working with external experts to develop school-based training programs which closely associate with teachers¶ practice.

SURYLGLQJ incentive for the participants of school-based development to encourage teachers pro-actively participating in the school-based training programs.

Evaluating the effectiveness of school-based training programs periodically, and improving the management of programs implementation in terms of the results of the evaluation.

#### *4.2.5 Construction of Teacher Ethics* [SHI-DE-JIAN-SHE]

The term *Construction of Teacher Ethics* [SHI-DE-JIAN-SHE] refers to the efforts to have teachers adhere to the *Code of Professional Ethics of Primary and Secondary School Teachers* and improve teachers¶ work engagement by management measures and relevant training in order to PDLQWDLQ WKH SXEOLF¶V high trust in the teaching profession. In China, the advocacy of Chinese teachers' professional ethics can be traced back to ancient times. Confucius, one of the best-known educators in ancient China attached great importance to educators¶ ethics. In *The Analects*, the Confucius quotations recorded and compiled by his students after he passed away, there are some Confucius famous quotations about teachers' proper attitudes and conducts in their teaching activity have been passed down to this day. For example, Confucius described his ideal professional attitude of teachers as ³I have never grown tired of learning nor wearied of teaching others what I have learnt [XUE-ER-BU-YAN, HUI-REN-BU-JUAN]´(Waley, 1998, p. 79). In fact, Confucius himself has been regarded as an educator with both profound knowledge and high moral integrity for thousands of years. As noted earlier in this chapter, Confucius was awarded various honorary titles and autograph inscription by over twenty Chinese emperors. In 1684, (PSHURU .DQJ[L IRUPHUO\ VSHOW DV .¶DQJ-hsi) of Qing Dynasty wrote down the plaque of (YHUODVWLQJ 0RGHO 7HDFKHU WR SUDLVH &RQIXFLXV¶ ORIW\ LGHDO DQG QREOH PRUDOLW\ (Shi, 2017). However, the Chinese tradition of valuing teachers' morality did not lead to establishment of an articulated system of teacher ethics before 1980s. In 1984, the first version of the *Code of Professional Ethics of Primary and Secondary School Teachers* was jointly issued by the MOE and National Education Trade Union. Over the next decades, three revised versions of *Code of Professional Ethics of Primary and Secondary School Teachers* were successively released because some new types of teachers' misconduct were growing in teaching profession when the country's economic system changed from a planned economy to a market economy after 1992. Some teachers, for instance, spent a lot of time as private tutor employed by tutoring agency after school hours, which distracted what they should do in their classrooms, while some other teachers were keen to sell learning materials to their students so as to get commission from publishers (Guo, 2011; Wei, 2014). Despite the fact that number of teachers with misconduct was small, it brought about substantial negative effects on teachers¶ social reputation. The primary purpose of continuingly updating the version of the *Code of Professional Ethics of Primary and Secondary School Teachers* during 1980s and 1990s is largely to ensure the social reputation of teaching profession would not be undermined commercially by those teachers who have fewer ethical qualms. In the most recent version of the *Code of Professional Ethics of Primary and Secondary School Teachers* issued in 2008, a six-dimension standard of conduct was defined, which was composed by being patriotic and law-abiding, commitment and dedication to teaching profession, caring for students with kind heart, teaching and educating students by right way, setting an example for students by personal virtue, and adhering to lifelong learning (MOE and NCCECHSTU, 2008). In 2013, the MOE issued the *Opinions on establishing and improving a long-term mechanism for the Construction of Teacher Ethics in primary and secondary schools*, in which the MOE authorized the directors of district/county education bureaus and school principals to respectively assume responsibility for the *Construction of Teacher Ethics* within their jurisdiction (MOE, 2013). At present, the common measures of school management for maintaining and improving the teacher ethics in China include that having teachers to sign moral covenant, establishing a supervisory system of teacher ethics with clear rule of rewards and punishments, providing training programs for teachers (e.g. case study to distinguish the proper and improper conduct), establishing teacher ethics portfolio for individual teachers, inviting students, parents and community members to involve in the teacher ethics appraisal and so on (Wei, 2014; Zhang, 2014; Huang and Li 2016).

#### **4.2.6** *Passing on Experience by Guidance and Support* [CHUAN-BANG-DAI]

The term of *Passing on Experience by Guidance and Support* [CHUAN-BANG-DAI] refers to one of the most widely used types of mentoring for beginning teachers in China, through which the mentor (most probably an experienced and skillful teacher with higher moral integrity designated by the school) passes on both his/her professional experience on teaching and his/her understanding of the school䇻s long upheld beliefs, values and traditions to the mentee (a beginning teacher). It is not only a process for a mentee to learn hands-on knowledge under his/her mentor¶s guidance and support, but also a process of socialization for the mentee in a specific school context. In Chinese, the term *CHUAN-BANG-DAI* [passing on experience by guidance and support] are composed by three . The first is *CHUAN*, meaning ³passing on (the mentor¶V experience and understanding)´. *CHUAN* is actually the goal of the mentoring, while the second *BANG* [support] and the third *DAI* [guidance] are both the means to achieve the goal. Although there is no universal mode of the *CHUAN-BANG-DAI*, following focal issues are usually most concerned with in the practice of *CHUAN-BANG-DAI* (Lu, 1998; Liu, 2014; Dong, 2016):

ЬHow to guiding the beginning teachers, by one on one coaching or scenario mentoring, to build up proper understanding the essence of teaching and learning, and how to develop a positive attitude towards their students, parents and other stakeholders in accordance with the beliefs, values and traditions which upheld by their schools for a long time.

ЬHow to support and assist the beginning teachers who have little hands-on experience of teaching in real classrooms to link what they learned from their university courses with the real situation of classroom instruction.

ЬHow to support and assist the beginning teachers to boost their knowledge base regarding teaching and learning and to enrich their hands-on experience by observing and commentary on the beginning WHDFKHUV¶ OHVVRQV RU E\ SURYLGLQJ WKH beginning teachers with opportunities to REVHUYHPHQWRU¶V*exemplary lesson*s.

ЬHow to facilitate beginning teachers to master the fundamental teaching methods in a relatively short period of time by scenario mentoring.

The effectiveness of *CHUAN-BANG-DAI* has been widely acknowledged and adopted by schools in mentoring beginning teachers in the past decades (Beijing Dongzhimen High School, 1984; Zhang, 1996, p. 61; Li, 2000; Liu, 2014). However, the *CHUAN-BANG-DAI* is not the only type of beginning teacher mentoring in China (Zhang, 2000). In practice, principals tend to use the *CHUAN-BANG-DAI* together with other training strategies to guide and facilitate beginning teacher development and growth.

#### *4.2.7 Fostering a Cohort of Backbone Teachers* [GU-GAN-JIAO-SHI-PEI-YANG]

The *Backbone Teacher* LQ&KLQD¶Vschool context usually refers to those teachers who have earned the respect of their students and colleagues because of their high integrity, sound content knowledge of the subject they teach and profound understanding of subject-based didactics, and can take on leadership roles in school-based curriculum reform and teacher development (Feng and Xu, 2005; Guo, 2006). *Backbone Teacher* as a term was first used in a policy document of the MOE in 1962 (MOE, 1962), but *Action plan for the promotion of education in the 21st century Backbone Teacher Backbone Teacher* (MOE, 1998. Feng, et al., 2002). Since then, the training of *Backbone Teachers* has been one of the educational priorities of the Chinese government. In a most recent and highest rank RHD concerning the reform of teaching profession, the CCCPC and State Council set out the goal to train millions of *Backbone Teachers* by 2035 (CCCPC and State Council, 2018). It indicates that attaching importance to the training of *Backbone Teachers* will be a long-term policy of the Chinese government. Actually, as it was widely believed that the quality of *Backbone Teachers* is one of the key factors to school effectiveness and school improvement, local governments have tended to develop detailed policies to promote the *Backbone Teachers* since the *Action plan for the promotion of education in the 21st century* published in 1998 (Feng and Xu, 2005; Huang, 2016). As one of earliest local policies for *Backbone Teacher* management, for example, the education authority of Jilin, Liaoning Province published in 1999 the *Interim provisions for the management of Backbone Teachers of primary and secondary school in Jilin City*, which encompassed criteria and procedures of accreditation, evaluation, supervision and treatment for *Backbone Teacher*s (Jilin Education Commission, 1999). Over the ensuing years, the ladder of *Backbone Teacher* growth as shown in Figure 4.2 was gradually set up in every provinces of China. According to the central government policy of *Backbone Teachers*, apart from the quota and accreditation criteria of *superfine teacher*, which are set by the MOE, the power in managing *Backbone Teachers* at other levels is reserved for local governments. In this respect, the training approaches for *Backbone Teachers* can be different from province to province and even different from district to district. However, the problem-based learning, project-based learning, themed workshop, peer networking and classroom observation and commentary have been recognized as the most popular and effective approaches in different provinces in the last decades (Wang, 2005; Wang and Song, 2013; Huang, 2016; Qin and Li,2018). Since almost without exception the learning under above-mentioned training approaches happens at *backbone teachers*¶ workplaces, the effective *backbone teacher* training is most likely to be a kind of school-based and practice-oriented learning and exploration.

Given the *Backbone Teacher* grow up from the school practice, it is no doubt that the principal leadership must have an impact on their development and growth. Indeed, the findings of an empirical study revealed that one of the factors that have the greatest impact on the growth of *Backbone Teachers* is principal leadership (Zhou, 2012). The results of some other studies also suggested that the professional growth of *Backbone Teachers* depends not only on their intrinsic motivation and talents, but also on appropriate external factors (e.g. the principal's distributed leadership perspectives, the school's encouraging evaluation policy, the positive team cooperation atmosphere, etc.). In terms of such empirical findings, it is regarded that one of responsibilities that a principal must assume is to foster a cohort of *Backbone Teachers* who are teaching in various subject areas and programs at school (Qiu,2015; Shen and Yin, 2016).

#### **4.3 Summary and Discussion**

In this chapter the author focused on seven key terms connecting with WKHWKHPHRI³JXLGLQJDQG IDFLOLWDWLQJWHDFKHUGHYHORSPHQW´. By exploring and interpreting the first term *Professional Title System for Teachers* [JIAO-SHI-ZHUAN-YE-ZHI-WU-ZHI-DU], we manifested the current career It was created in 1980s with the intention improve the professional status of teaching profession at the same time. However, the competitive promotion mechanism sometimes may cause negative impact on school climate. The second term *Honorary Titles for Teachers* [JIAO-SHI-RONG-YU-CHEN-HAO] refers to the titles conferred on the teachers in recognition of their excellent professional achievements and extraordinary contributions in fulfilling their educational duties. As noted earlier in this chapter, the *Honorary Titles for Teachers* in China can be classified into two categories. Compared with the first category, the teachers with honorary titles of the second category (the subject-based *superfine teachers* and ladder of teaching profession in China. It is largely a performance-related promotion mechanism, rather than a seniority-based system of career development. to change the phenomenon that some teachers just kept muddling along at the time, and also to

*backbone teachers* at all levels) are most likely to make greater contributions to the classroom instruction and the guarantee of the quality of school education. The third term explored in this chapter is about the policy of *Periodical Registration of Teacher Qualification* promulgated in 2013. One of the highlights of the policy is that the schools get the de facto power to dismiss their teachers. The head of the Department of Teacher Affairs of the MOE confirmed in 2015 that more than two thousand in-service teachers had failed to passed the *Periodical Registration of Teacher Qualification* since the policy came into effect in 2013 (Wang, 2017). Two thousand is a small number in contrast to the total number of 12 million teachers in China, but it is a considerable policy change in teacher management anyway. Yet the policy of periodical registration has been accompanied with much debate since it was promulgated in 2013. The key issues of the debate include that who will be the qualified Judger to judge whether a teacher is qualified or not in the periodical registration? Should school leadership, parents, or other stakeholders act as judges? Is it necessary to establish a third-party hearing committee to arbitrate disputed cases? (Luo and Wei, 2016) These questions remain to be answered.

In a sense, the first three terms present the China's policy background of this chapter whereas the next four terms revolve around the key leadership practice of "guiding and facilitating teacher development". From the fourth and fifth terms, one can understand how Chinese government to keep the reputation of teaching profession and to ensure quality of CPD for in-service teachers by requiring principals to take the responsibilities in *Construction of Teacher Ethics* and the *Leadership for School-Based Teacher Development*. From the last two terms, we can see the school leadership strategies in guiding and facilitating the professional development of beginning teachers and backbone teachers.

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㻌 㻌

# **Chapter 5**

# **Planning School Development**

#### **5.1 Introduction**

The *School Development Planning* [XUE-XIAO-FA-ZHAN-GUI-HUA] as a term has not been included in the China¶s lexicon of school leadership and management until the late 1980s and early 1990s (Cao & Hui, 2009; Chu, 2008; Zhu, 2010). "School development planning" is valued because of the role of school leaders was intensified following the China¶s educational reform launched in 1985. The government policies regarding educational reform during the late 1980s and early 1990s yielded two big changes for school leadership. In the *Decision of the CCCPC on the Reform of the Educational System,* the CCCPC decided that ³reform the management system, while strengthening macro-management, resolutely implement simplified administration and decentralization, and increase the level of school autonomy.´(CCCPC, 1985). This position of the CCCPC resulted in the first change that a part of power was delegated from local education authority to school. As we know, the autonomy was always accompanied by accountability. The school evaluation, as one of major means of accountability in China at the time usually exercised in the light of the achievement of the objectives set in a school plan. Consequently, the *school development planning* was turned up as one of highest frequency terms in government policy documents as well as one of school leadership priorities in the early 1990s. Secondly, Chinese government called on in the early 1990s that the nation¶s mode of school education should transform from the *Exam-oriented Education* [YING-SHI-JIAO-YU] to the *Quality-oriented Education* [SU-ZHI-JIAO-YU] to provide children and young people with well-rounded education to foster their all-round development. In the same period, the government also advocated and encouraged schools to build up their own features and specialties rather than every school looked the same. Therefore, it was essential for school leaders to plan their school development in accordance with the government-set direction of *Quality-oriented Education* and the *Guiding Principle for Education* 㼇JIAO-YU-FANG-ZHEN㼉 while considering their schools tradition and status quo. Then the terms *Exemplar Senior High School* [SHI-FAN-XING-GAO-ZHONG], *Commissioned Management* [WEI-TUO-GUAN-LI], and *New Quality School*  [XIN-YOU-ZHI-XUE-XIAO] were consecutively coined and widely used in China¶s school

leadership practice in the decade because of Chinese government¶s initiatives of expanding the scale of senior high school education and expanding quality schools to promote balanced-development of compulsory education. To continue to expand quality education and promote balanced-development of compulsory education, the most recent initiatives of Chinese government were the *Schools Running by Group* [JI-TUAN-HUA-BAN-XUE] and the *Neighboring Schools Networking* [XUE-QU-HUA-BAN-XUE]. For a China¶s principal, the leadership behavior of ³planning school development´ has been increasingly complex when he/she has both to develop his/her home school¶s development plan and the client school¶s plan in the context of *commissioned management*, or even to work with colleagues in several member schools to develop a very ³big´ plan for the school cluster in the context of *Neighboring Schools Networking*. It could be one of the reasons that the ³planning school development´ was set as the first one of six key leadership practices in *The Professional Standards for Principals of Compulsory Education Schools* (MOE, 2013) and *The Professional Standards for Principals of Senior High Schools* (MOE, 2015). In fact, it is almost impossible to avoid using one or more of the above-mentioned terms when school principals play the role of planning school development. In this sense, it is hardly to understand how the practice ³SODQQLQJVFKRROGHYHORSPHQW´ works in China's education context without understanding these terms at first. Thus, the *School Development Planning*, *Quality-Oriented Education*, *Guiding Principle for Education*, *Exemplar Senior High School,* , , *Group* and *Neighboring Schools Networking* will be explored and interpreted in this chapter.  *Commissioned Management New Quality School Schools Running by* 

#### **5.2 Key Terms**

#### *5.2.1*㻌*School Development Planning* [XUE-XIAO-FA-ZHAN-GUI-HUA㼉

*School Development Planning* (SDP) [XUE-XIAO-FA-ZHAN-GUI-HUA] in China's educational context is a term borrowed in 1990s from Western education literature, but with such Chinese characteristics as strongly initiating and promoting by local education authority, assuring and monitoring by the Party organization at school in the process of developing and implementing the plan, and having to submit the draft of the plan to the Staff Congress for approval before implementation.

Conventionally, the role of China¶s school principal as well as the school leadership team had been an agent to convey the will of the local authority and to fully implement government instructions on school education and never taken the responsibility to plan school development until the nation-wide educational reform was launched after the publication of the *Decision of the CCCPC on the Reform of the Educational System* in 1985. With the advance of the reform, the government both delegated part of power to schools in managing the funding for teacher development, choice of teaching methods, and developing internal rules and regulations that conform to the school's history and current surrounding while at the same time maintaining the government control over the direction of school development (Liu, 2005; Cao & Hui,2009). This change prompted the principals to consider and to make a comprehensive plan for the development of schools rather than only maintaining day-to-day operation. Moreover, in some districts where the pilot program of *Principal Career-ladder System* or *Term-Accountability by Objectives* was being exercised, it was necessary for principals to work out the development plan for their schools because the plan was one of the major bases of leadership evaluation in the *Principal Career-ladder System* and the *Term-Accountability by Objectives*. In the mid-1990s, *The empowered school: The management and practice of development planning* (1991) authored by David H. Hargreaves and David Hopkins was introduced to China and their perspectives, concepts, and strategies on *School Development Planning* (hereafter called SDP) were greatly influenced China¶s education sector. The SDP as a term was borrowed from Hargreaves and HopNLQV¶s article to the practice of school planning in some districts of China at the time (Deng, 2006; Chu, 2008, 2014; Zhu, et al., 2010). The next momentum to drive the further spread of SDP in China was the joint projects implemented in a part of Western provinces of China. The projects funded by international organizations and Western countries for Chinese education, as we know, began to emerge after Chinese government decided to adopt the Reform and Opening-up policy in 1978. By 1990s, the funding support of international and Western organizations for basic education in China increased and most of such projects aimed to support the primary and secondary school education in western provinces, the least developed areas of China. In the beginning, the aid funds were mainly used to improve the conditions of running schools in the least developed areas, such as increasing school buildings and teaching equipment. Yet, the results were not very satisfactory. Later, the project sponsors found that some new school buildings were almost destroyed just in a few years and a lot of apparatus and equipment had been left unused in the schools that claimed to

be underfunded. There was only one reason for this phenomenon, that is, the low level of

management. As a result, the project sponsors decided to turn from ³hardware´ assistance to ³software´ development (Yin, 2004). From 1999 to 2005, The China-UK Gansu Basic Education Project mainly funded by UK Department for International Development was implemented in four counties of Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province. One of the major goals of the project was to introduce the SDP to over 670 primary and secondary schools in the four counties in order to improve leadership and management in these schools (Zhu, 2010). Another joint project, China-UNICEF project on principal training and the SDP started in 2001. The primary purpose of the UNICEF-sponsored project was to deliver the idea, concept, strategies, and skills of SDP to principals in 50 state-identified poverty-stricken counties in Western provinces of China by training and intended to improve school leadership and management in the 50 counties by spreading the SDP to the schools of these counties (Yin, 2004). After several years of implementation of the above joint projects, field investigation found that the SDP had been carried out in few member schools of the project. One of the main reasons was that the project funds were mainly used to train principals whereas teachers in project member schools didn¶t understand what SDP was because few trained principals were able to really convey the importance, knowledge and skills of SDP to the middle level managers and teachers for various reasons. 䇾The leaders of many project member schools have accepted the idea of SDP, but they, in actual leadership practice, tend to only place the sign of the SDP Project School at their schools¶ main entrance but not to carry out the actual work, or they exercised SDP in their schools by way of mere tokenism because of the bondage of their inherent ideas and ways of thinking´, one of Chinese experts of CHINA-UNICEF project said with a sigh (Yan, 2006). On the other hand, the leadership and management practice of the schools had little improved though many principals claimed that the training program concerning SDP was helpful (Yan, 2006; Zhu, et al., 2010). Nevertheless, the joint projects indirectly promoted the further dissemination of the idea, concept, and strategies of SDP to the rest of parts of China. The original notions and strategies of SDP developed by Hargreaves and Hopkins have been widely accepted and applied in the process of the *Exemplar Senior High School* accreditation, *New Quality School* accreditation, and the evaluation of *Principal Career-ladder System* and *Term-Accountability by Objectives* in Beijing, Shanghai and other Eastern cities and provinces of China in the last 25 years.

Anyway, the last 25 years have witnessed how the SDP was introduced to China and applied

to China¶s school leadership practice. Today, SDP is one of the most frequently used terms in China¶s school leadership practice, and the hard copy of a school development plan for a certain school, as one of essential school documents, can be found either on principal¶s desk or in the folder of every principal¶s office. Many principals, particularly those in the more developed cities, are very familiar with the process of developing and implementing the school development plan in their schools and also understand how to use the process of the plan development to promote teachers to participate in it. However, the SDP in China¶s leadership practice is the SDP with some Chinese indigenous characteristics and a bit different from the SDP in Western context.

#### *5.2.2 Quality-Oriented Education* [SU-ZHI-JIAO-YU]㻌

The term, *Quality-Oriented Education* [SU-ZHI-JIAO-YU] approximately means, in school educational context of China, the well-rounded education for all-round development of all students. It has used so far as an antithesis to the term *Exam-Oriented Education* [YING-SHI-JIAO-YU]. Before we explore the terms *Quality-Oriented Education* (hereafter called QOE) and *Exam-Oriented Education* (hereafter called EOE), it is essential to understand the historical context in which &KLQD¶V VFKRRO V\VWHP ZDV DOPRVW completely destroyed by the Proletariat Cultural Revolution (PCR) during 1966-1976 (OECD, 2011, p. 85):

Formally the Proletariat Cultural Revolution, it was started by Mao in 1966 as a national-scale political campaign to eliminate all bourgeois influences in the FRXQWU\¶V ³VXSHUVWUXFWXUH´ DV RSSRVHG WR WKH HFRQRPLF LQIUDVWUXFWXUH 9LROHQW activities sought to remove and destroy all symbols of bourgeois culture, such as music, drama, opera and novels, and to make sure their replacements were rooted in proletariat ideology. Activities in all these art forms had to start again from VFUDWFKXVLQJDIHZ³model´SURWRW\SHVFUHDWHGIURPSXUHSUROHWDULDWLGHRORJ\,W became a social campaign and intellectuals were the most vulnerable. Among the UHYROXWLRQ¶V consequences was the closing down of conventional schools. They were replaced with schools led by political teams of workers, peasants and soldiers, and the curriculum was totally revamped to reflect WKHHVVHQFHRI³FODVV VWUXJJOH´7KHUHZHUHVHYHUDODWWHmpts to resume schooling, but with little effect. Higher education institutions were suspended, replaced by new institutions admitting only workers, peasants and soldiers regardless of their academic merits. Professors and intellectuals were sent to factories, villages and remote places to be ³UH-HGXFDWHG´ 7KH FRQFHSW UHIOHFWHG D XWRSLDQ LGHDO RI HJDOLWDULDQLVP ZKHUH everybody produces for the state and the state distributes its wealth equally among its citizens. But the reality was total stagnation of the economy, a society of ³HTXDO SRYHUW\´ DV HFRQRPLVWV UHFRJQLVHGLQ KLQGVLJKW ,WLV QR H[DJJHUDWLRQWR say that China had to rebuild the entire education system in the late 1970s and early 1980s from the ruins left by the Cultural Revolution.

Spontaneously, the priority of post-PCR policy on school education was to terminate the chaos and re-building necessary order in education. As one of government initiatives to rebuilding a normal state of education, the *National College Entrance Examination* (NCEE) system, which had been suspended for ten years, was restored in 1977. More than 5.70 million Chinese young people took part in the NCEE in the winter of 1977, of which about 270 thousand were selected and admitted to universities and colleges of the country in the spring of 1978 (Ke, 2007). In 2007, Chinese media held a series of commemorative events to commemorate the 30th anniversary of restoration of the NCEE system. One can see that restoration of the NCEE system is really a milestone in China¶s education rebuilding movement and even in the entire history of China¶s contemporary education from such headlines of news reports as ³The college entrance examination brings hopeful dawn to the nation´(Yi, et. al. 2007), ³The restoration of the college entrance examination is a rebuilding of social justice´(Yu, 2007). In the same year, the National Education Examination Authority (NEEA), China Youth News, and ATA Inc. jointly conducted a large-scale survey to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the NCEE system. The results of the survey showed that 73.3% of the respondents believed that the NCEE system was generally fair; 89.6% of the respondents who had got chance to study in universities and colleges by taking part in the NCEE believed that their destinies had got various degree of change and such change is particularly obvious for those from the families with low socioeconomic status; 44.8% of the respondents thought that there were not many ways to success beyond the NCEE, while 25.5% of the respondents thought "few" or "no" way to success beyond the NCEE (Zhao, 2007). From here we see that the restoration of the NCEE system had positive significance for China¶s education at that time. Yet, as every coin has two sides, the NCEE system is not an exception. When school leaders, teachers, students, parents and other stakeholders all attached too much importance to the NCEE, a mode of EOE was consequently emerged in China¶s school education in 1980s. EOE refers to a mode of school education in which the fundamental purpose of school education is dissimilated into having students learn how to get as high a test score as possible. The most remarkable characteristics of the EOE are identified as (Liu, 1997; Zhu, et al., 2006; Tao, 2007; Wang, 2012):

ЬSchools focus their attention only on subjects of high-stakes test while rest of subjects are ignored;

ЬTeachers focus their attention only on teaching the knowledge within the scope of the examinations and the test-taking skills while rest of knowledge and skills are ignored;㻌 㻌

ЬA minority of students who would get high scores in exams receive much more attention than the majority of students;㻌㼍㼚㼐

Ь Students¶ study burden is overweight in most of primary and secondary schools, and the students µ burden of senior high schools is excessively overweight.

It¶s fair to say that not a few educational researchers, policy makers and practitioners, some principals in particular, of China, made efforts in the early 1980s to change the tendency of EOE (Tao, 2007). Nevertheless, the EOE was like a machine running at high speed with own momentum and nobody could stop it. In his keynote speech at The Third National Congress of Chinese Society of Education in 1987, Liu Bin, the Vice Director of State Education Commission coined the term ³Quality-Oriented Education´ QOE) (Liu, 1987). It is also known as the first time that the term was officially used (Zhu, et al., 2006). Following the first usage of the term in 1987, QOE as a term was highlighted in such important policy documents as the *Compendium for China¶s Educational Reform and Development* (CCCPC and State Council, 1993) and *Opinions of the CCCPC on Further Strengthening and Improving Moral Education in Schools* (CCCPC, 1994). In 1999, CCCPC and State Council delivered a significant decision titled *Decision on Deepening Education Reform and Promoting Quality-oriented Education in an All-Round Way* (CCCPC and State Council,1999). It meant that QOE took center stage of China¶s educational reform, and a complete transformation from EOE to QOE was underway. Furthermore, the Article 3 of the amended edition of the *&RPSXOVRU\(GXFDWLRQ/DZRIWKH3HRSOH¶s Republic of China* which went into force in 2006 specified that ³[In] compulsory education, the State policy on education shall be implemented and quality-oriented education shall be carried out to improve the quality of

education and enable children and adolescents to achieve all-round development - morally, intellectually and physically - so as to lay the foundation for cultivating well-educated and self-GLVFLSOLQHG EXLOGHUV RI VRFLDOLVP ZLWK KLJK LGHDOV DQG PRUDO LQWHJULW\´ (1DWLRQDO 3HRSOH¶V Congress, 2006). For China¶s primary and secondary schools, implementation of the QOE has been a statutory requirement since the amended edition of the *Compulsory Education Law* went into force in 2006.

What is the government¶s real consideration behind this significant decision? In his memoirs titled *Li Lanqing¶s Memoirs on Education*, former Politburo member of CCCPC and Vice-Premier Li Lanqing who was the top head of China¶s education during 1993 to 2002 disclosed the main reason that Chinese government advocated and promoted the QOE at the time. Li said that the transformation of primary and secondary education to QOE is by no means a denial of the great achievements that had been made in basic education since EOE presented only one of aspects of educational status quo rather than the whole. Given the central government had decided that China's economic growth mode should be fundamentally transformed to rely mainly on scientific and technological progress and the quality of labor force (rather than low labor costs), the decision of the central government to fully implement the QOE intended to enhance the employability, innovation and entrepreneurship of China¶s labor force, and tried to transform the population pressure into demographic dividend as well as into human resource advantage (Li, 2003, pp.300-304). As for how to implement QOE in an all-round way, the Vice Director of the State Education Commission, Liu Bin presented a general framework in his speech at the National Experience Sharing Conference of QOE Implementation in Primary and Secondary Schools in 1997. The framework consisted of four policy initiatives and three breakthroughs (Liu, 1997):

Ь,nitiatives: changing educational ideas and perspectives by guiding public opinion, training educators, and sharing successful experience; developing assessment system conforming to the QOE; fostering a high-quality teaching workforce to meet the needs of QOE implementation; optimizing the process of education and teaching and learning by curriculum reform.

Ь%reakthroughs: improving the outcomes of disadvantage and under-performing schools; reducing excessive schoolwork burden for primary and secondary school students; reform the examination system.

Later, the policy initiatives proposed by Liu in 1997 were really carried out in China and

achieving the QOE was also a steadfast direction for China's education reform. However, Liu didn¶t provide, in his speech in 1997, specific road map and timetable for QOE implementation. He reminded the audience at the National Experience Sharing Conference of QOE Implementation in 1997 that the QOE implementation was likely to be a complex, arduous and long-term process. Perhaps, Liu¶s judgment was proven over the ensuing years. Five years later, the result of a survey to teachers in primary and secondary schools conducted in Guangdong Province showed that 58.2% of the respondents said they had confidence in implementing QOE in primary and secondary schools; 58% of the respondents believed that "there are much difficulties in practice of QOE implementation, but there is indeed progress and a bright future."(Ding, and Zhou, 2003). In the *Intrview2018-EBO*, all interviewees believed that educators¶ ideas and notions on education has largely changed since the curriculum reform, as one of policy initiatives to promote QOE, launched in 2001. Nowadays, few educators see EOE as a normal mode of education any longer. The teaching approaches are more flexible and diversified than before, and the degree of teachers¶ professionalism is obviously higher than that of their previous generation. But meanwhile, 11 of the 15 interviewees admitted that the problem of excessive schoolwork burden for students and too intense competition in high-stakes examinations has not yet been solved 䠄see Appendix B䠅.

Over 30 years has passed since Liu first used QOE as an official term in 1987. Based on various research findings concerning the status quo of QOE implementation, we may come up with a conclusion that there is still a very much long way to go to achieve the QOE in China though much progress has been made in QOE implementation in past three decades.

#### *5.2.3 Guiding Principle for Education*㻌㼇JIAO-YU-FANG-ZHEN㼉㻌

The term *Guiding Principle for Education* [JIAO-YU-FANG-ZHEN], in China¶s educational context, refers to the general direction of the educational development and the overarching education policy set by the state or the (ruling) Party in a certain period of time (Dong, C. C. et al., 1985, p.159). In some government RHDs, the *Guiding Principle for Education* (hereafter called GPE) is called the state¶s GPE, while in others, it is called the Party¶s GPE. These two expressions are same in China¶s political context since the ³Party´ here refers to the CPC, the ruling party of China. GPE is a key term coherent with the QOE and also a term as significant as QOE in China¶s education context. For example, Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized the importance of the GPE and the QOE at the same time when he visited a school in Beijing in 2016. He pointed out in his remarks at the school that the basic education played a basic and precursory role in the national education system. The direction for development of the basic education should be well set and the Party's GPE should be carried out completely in order to make China¶s basic education getting better and better. Xi stressed at the same time that the QOE was the core of education. The school education needed paying attention to fostering students' creative spirit and practical ability and promoted students to get all-round development (Huo & Zhang, 2016).

 China's GPE was first set out by Mao Zedong at the outreach meeting of Supreme State Council in 1957. Later, the GPE was enriched in 1960s and expressed as ³education must serve the proletarian politics. Education must be combined with productive labor to foster the children and young people to develop morally, intellectually, and physically and become socialist and educated workers.´ (Tang, 2010; Yang, 2013) After Chinese government decided to adopt the ³Reform and Opening-up´ policy in late 1978, a new version of the GPE was gradually formulated. In spite of many times and various sorts of discussions and even controversies on the GPE for decades (Bai, 2003; Tang, 2010; Cheng, 2012, Yang, 2013; Li,2017; Yang, et al., 2017), it was finally fixed by the Article 5 of *Education Law*˄*amended edition*˅in 2016 and expressed as, ´Education shall serve the socialist modernization and the people. It must be combined with productive labor and social practice to cultivate socialist builders and successors with all round development of morality, intelligence, physique and aesthetic accomplishment for the socialist cause.´ (1DWLRQDO 3HRSOH¶V Congress, 2016). It is essential for China¶s school principals to think over how to plan the development of their schools in the light of the GPE because it¶s one of the essential and statutory requirements for school and school leadership.

#### *5.2.4 Exemplar Senior High School* [SHI-FAN-XING-GAO-ZHONG]

The *Exemplar Senior High School* [SHI-FAN-XING-GAO-ZHONG] refers to the outstanding senior high schools selected in the light of official criteria. It is, in some other context, known as the government project named ³Exemplar Senior +LJK6FKRRO´

From a historical point of view, the predecessor of the *Exemplar Senior High School* as a program was the *Key High School* [ZHONG-DIAN-ZHONG-XUE] project in 1950s. After the founding of the People¶s Republic of China in 1949, the new state which was built on the ruins of the four-year Civil War immediately confronted with a shortage of talents in economic recovery and social construction. It was imperative for the newly established government to prepare sufficient college-and career-ready personnel from the qualified senior high school graduates by improving the quality of high school education within a short time. Yet, the newly established government was unable to allocate enough resources to improve the quality of all high schools in China since the country¶s per capita GDP was only US\$14-19 in the first five years of the 1950s (MOE, 2003, P. 666). Thus, the Chinese government had to develop a project of *Key High School* that classified a part of schools as key schools while others as ordinary schools in order to concentrate limited resources on quality assurance in key schools. In 1953, 194 high schools of the country were named as *Key High Schools*. 194 schools were a very small portion (4.4%) of the large number of high schools in China (Li, 2003, p. 276). According to related policy, the *Key High Schools* were given priority in funding, human resource, school facilities, and selection of students. By extraordinary input, the *Key High Schools* had constantly improved the quality of their teaching and learning and prepared a number of excellent graduates for the country since then (Feng, 2007). Historically, the project of *Key High School* made a great contribution to prepare quality graduates of senior high schools for China¶s universities and colleges as well as for the country¶s industry and agriculture by concentrating limited resources during 1950s and 1960s. However, with the increasing demand for senior high school education in the early 1990s, the issue of expanding the scale of senior high school education was put on the agenda of Chinese government. The State Council called on building up 1000 high quality senior high schools throughout the country in its RHD in 1994, *³Compendium for China¶s educational reform and development* (State Council, 1994). In this RHD, the old name *Key High School* was replaced by a new name *Exemplar Senior High School* KHUHDIWHUFDOOHG³ESHS´To lead the high school expansion into the direction of QOE, The State Education Commission (SEC) issued a RHD titled *the Circular of the State Education Commission on Evaluation and Accreditation of 1000 Exemplar Senior High Schools* in 1995. The SEC¶s RHD set out a nationwide project to select and name 1000 ESHS according to the State *Opinions of State Council on carrying out* 

over 2 billion RMB (about 300 million USD) to reconstruct 11 key senior high schools (Li, 2003, p.279). The reconstruction of key senior high schools includes the expansion the size of campus

Council¶s requirement in 1994 by evaluation and accreditation in order to set an example for ordinary senior high schools in the country. In the mid-1990s, Shanghai took the lead in investing with a stadium and the building of new school building with science laboratories, computer rooms, gymnasium, in-door swimming pool, cinema, planetarium, etc. in which the advanced facilities and ICT devices were equipped. Of course, these 11 key senior high schools, after the reconstruction, became the first cohort of ESHS in Shanghai later on. In the local policy documents on ESHS, Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (SMEC) defined the ESHS as the senior high schools with following characteristics (SMEC,1995; SMEC, 2004):

ЬCompletely implementing the GPE, and exemplary carrying out the educational laws, regulations and relevant policies.

ЬHaving set a correct orientation for school development, and proactively participated in educational reform.

ЬHaving built a high-quality teacher team, and good infrastructure and equipment.

ЬHaving got high-performance in school management and student outcomes, and created own specialty and uniqueness in education to foster students' all-round development in morality, intelligence, physique and aesthetic accomplishment.

ЬHaving got positive feedback from stakeholders as well as universities/colleges on the school graduates.

ЬHaving a long history, and getting a high reputation in the municipality wide.

However, the ESHS is by no means a simple copy of *Key High School* after all. As the first local education system to carry out the ESHS project, the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission stipulated that every ESHS must undertake following responsibilities in addition to guaranteeing its high- quality teaching and learning and outstanding outcomes (SMEC, 2004):

ЬA ESHS should hold at least one public event opening to educators in the city to show the progress or outcomes of the ESHS's exploratory program in school education

ЬA ESHS should be the training base for local primary and secondary school principals and teachers to undertake the task of mentoring the school leaders and teachers from other schools as required.

ЬA ESHS should has superior human resource in one or more subjects with its own specialty and uniqueness in teaching and learning of the subjects. The school should make contributions to the improvement of the performance of school education of this city through professional impact on its neighboring schools.

ЬA ESHS should shoulder the responsibility of supporting disadvantage schools (one of them should be a rural school in the suburbs of the city) by teacher mentoring and classroom coaching, etc.

Obviously, it was necessary for the principals of ESHS to work with their colleagues to develop school development plan in accordance with the new requirements for ESHS. In a sense, the ESHS was another driving force behind the leadership practice of "planning school development".

By the end of 2002, the number of students in China's senior high schools had expanded from 9,380,000 to 16,840,000 by the ways of expansion of existing senior high schools and establishing a number of new ones (Li, 2003, p. 281). Moreover, either the expanded senior high schools or newly established ones were constructed according to the State-set standards for ESHS construction. From then on, the ESHS had replaced the *Key High School* to play the leading role in China's high school education, and the term *Key High School* has no longer been used.

#### *5.2.5 Commissioned Management* [WEI-TUO-GUAN-LI]

The *Commissioned Management* [WEI-TUO-GUAN-LI] first emerged in the rapid progress of urbanization in the early 21st century in Shanghai, one of the cities with the highest urbanization rate in China, as one of policy strategies to bridge the quality gap of compulsory education between the suburbs and city center of Shanghai. Historically, the suburbs of Shanghai are mainly made up of rural areas. With the expansion of industrial enterprises, commercial business and social services from city center to suburban areas at the turn of the 21st century, the expected urbanization rate in Shanghai's suburbs had reached 62% by 2005 (SDRC, 2006). However, the relatively rough pattern of school management and lower performance of school education still remained in suburbs of Shanghai at the time. Hence, how to bridge the quality gap of compulsory education between the suburbs and city center became one of the priorities for equalization of compulsory education in Shanghai. In 2005, the Education Bureau of Pudong District conducted a pilot project named *Commissioned Management (CM)* to commission a high performing school in the city center to take over the management of an under-performing school at rural area of Pudong District. Consequently, the rural school made a considerable progress in school management and student outcomes after two years commissioning of the school management. The welcome result of this pilot project enlightened the educational policy makers in Shanghai to adopt the CM project to try to bridge the quality gap of compulsory education between the suburbs and city center of Shanghai. In 2007, Shanghai Municipal Education Commission kicked off a two-year municipal CM pilot project. 20 rural under-performing schools in suburbs of the city were commissioned by high performing schools or qualified education agency. The second round of municipal CM project successively stared in 2009, 44 rural schools benefited from the second round CM. A survey concerning the effect of the first two rounds CM projects showed that most of member schools of the CM projects had improved in their management, student outcomes, teachers' professionalism and social reputation since they took part in the projects (Zhu, 2011). After several rounds practice of CM, the purpose of CM was clearly stated as ³mobilizing quality education resource in city center to support the complete improvement of school education in suburbs, and promoting the quality and balanced development of Shanghai¶s compulsory education.´ (SMEC, 2015a). Moreover, the rules and regulations concerning the CM were also completely developed. The SMEC-proposed procedures of CM were as follows (SMEC, 2015a):

ЬStage 1: CM preparation

a) The education bureaus of city area districts provide the education bureaus of suburban districts with the recommended list of those high performing schools or the eligible non-government educational agencies willing to take the responsibility of CM.

b) The education bureaus of suburban districts select the one or more client schools according to the status quo of the districts¶ compulsory education development.

c) The individual education bureaus of suburban districts develop the bidding document and organize the tendering and bidding activities respectively.

d) The schools or non-government education agencies winning bid sign a two-year performance contract with the education bureaus of suburban districts.

ЬStage 2: CM implementation

a) A school or an education agency as the winning bidder conducted two-year CM according to the performance contract. During the two-year CM, a task group consisted of at least three staff (usually one manager with two experienced and talented teachers) from the bid winning school/agency should be stationed in the client school, and other skillful teachers in various subjects from the bid winning school/agency will coach the teachers of the client school as necessary.

b) The education bureau of a suburban district should provide the bid winning school/agency with

necessary fund and acts as a supervisor to take responsibility for on-going supervision in process of two-year CM.

c) The annual or mid-term evaluation of the effect of CM should be conducted.

ЬStage 3: Final evaluation of CM

a) The final evaluation of the performance of CM will conduct at the end of the second year, and at least half of the evaluators should be the experts from SMEC¶s expert pool according to the related rules of SMEC on CM.

b) The SMEC would publicly praise the bid winning school/agency with outstanding performance in CM (the above three-stage procedure of the CM is outlined in Figure 5.1).

a)Recommending qualified schools/agencies from city arear;


a) Two-year CM; b) On-going supervision; c) Annual or mid-term evaluation.

a)Final evaluation;

b)Commending outstanding performance in CM

#### **Figure 5.1 The three-stage procedure of the** *Commissioned Management*

In 2017, the SMEC started the sixth round of CM. Compared with the first five rounds of the CM, there were two changes this time. First, the CM cycle was extended from two years to three years, so that the bid winning schools/agencies would get more sufficient time to improve the management, teaching and learning, and teacher professionalism in the client schools. Second, given the performance of rural schools in suburbs of Shanghai had been generally improved in the past five rounds of CM, the pertinence of the sixth round of CM was particularly stressed (SMEC, 2017). It meant that the bid winning schools/agencies should identify some of the key problems that hampered the further development of the client schools and develop appropriate strategies and approach to problem solving by ³planning VFKRRO GHYHORSPHQW´ for the client schools. In other words, it was very important to apply the ideas, knowledge and skills of *School Development Planning* to the sixth round of CM.

The CM project was first created in 2005 in Shanghai, but then spread to other parts of China. For instance, the Lianyungang City in Jiangsu Province started to implement a pilot project of CM in 2010 by Shanghai (Zhang, 2011). At present, the CM, as one of alternatives to ensure the equality and balanced development of compulsory education has been widely adopted by local education authorities in various provinces of China.

#### *5.2.6 New Quality School* [XIN-YOU-ZHI-XUE-XIAO]

Conventionally, the term ³quality school´ was often used synonymously with the *Key High School* or *Exemplar Senior High School* in China¶s educational context. The *New Quality School* [XIN-YOU-ZHI-XUE-XIAO] refers to an alternative type of quality school with some different characteristics from conventional ones, and more responsive to stakeholders¶ demands and expectations in the 21st century. As noted earlier in this chapter, Chinese government had named 194 high-quality high schools as *Key High School* in 1950s and 1000 high-quality senior high schools as *Exemplar Senior High School* in 1990s. Nevertheless, it was only a very small number in terms of the huge school education system of China. According to the educational statistics in 2010, China¶s 257 thousand primary schools and 69 thousand high schools (the vocational schools not inclusive) had an enrolment of nearly 180 million students (MOE, 2012). By 2010, when more and more parents were increasingly looking for quality schools for their children, the shortage of quality schools had become a big challenge for Chinese education policymakers. On the other hand, for decades, Chinese government hadn¶t officially named any primary and junior high schools as ³key school´ or ³exemplar school´ because the basic policy for compulsory education was equality and balanced development though there were a few de facto high-quality primary and junior high schools in every district or county. Under such a circumstance, the *New Quality School* came into being.

The *New Quality School (NQS)*, as a term, was officially coined by the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (SMEC) in 2011. In the previous year, the *Shanghai's Medium and Long-Term Educational Reform and Development Plan (2010-2020)* was published by Shanghai Municipal Government. The core mission of Shanghai's compulsory education was set as ³ensuring all children to have equal access to high quality education´ (Shanghai Municipal Government, 2010). To accomplish this core mission, there should be more quality schools to respond to the parents¶ needs and societal expectations. Since China's compulsory education schools (from primary to junior high phase) are both non-fees paying and non-selective schools, every community is designated as a certain school attendance area based on the principle to ensure every child can attend a nearby school. Thus, one of the critical indicators of achieving ³HQVXULQJ DOOFKLOGUHQWRKDYHHTXDODFFHVVWRKLJKTXDOLW\HGXFDWLRQ´ is that parents really feel that there is just right a satisfactory school in their community. In 2011, the SMEC kicked off a three-year project of NQS and 25 compulsory education schools recommended by education bureaus of districts joined the project as pilot schools. Later, the pilot schools increased to 43 because there were more schools would like to join the project of NQS. The NQS is defined as the compulsory education schools that had no high-reputation historically and no extra input of funding and human resource at present, but their students can make more progress than expected with respect to their students' original academic foundation by making efforts in providing various curriculum choices and diverse learning experiences to tailor the school provision to meet the needs of specific groups of students (e.g., gifted and talented, low attaining, with family ground of low social-economy-status), and so on (Hu, 2013; Xia, 2013; SMEC, 2015b). Moreover, an expected NQS should be with three characteristics: a) every child in the school was treated fairly and impartially; b) being concerned with not only student academic achievements, but also the healthy and happy growth of every student; and c) continuing exploring how to improve teaching and learning to foster student all-round development, and how to change a under-performing school into a satisfactory school in the community (Hu, 2013; Anon, 2015). Based on documentary review and field studies, a researcher who participated in NQS project in Shanghai identified two typical paths to achieve the goal of NQS among 43 pilot schools that: a) the self-remedy of organization: the school concentrates on solving the problems that hinder the development of schools (e.g., fragile leadership, deficient rules and regulations, insufficient human resource, unsatisfactory outcomes, unsuccessful experience, little trust from parents, low social reputation) one by one, and finally changes a poorly organized school into a well-organized one by setting up an open and interactive relationship with the parents and wider community, reconstructing school culture on the quality of teaching and learning and adopting appropriate leadership strategies; b) educational innovation: the schools are good at catching opportunities (e.g., participating in time in some promising pilot programs funded by government, etc. ) and able to transform the opportunities into school's exploring projects to improve school's performance and social reputation (Xia, 2013).

In 2015, SMEC decided to promote the further development of NQS by the pattern of NQS cluster so as to provide more compulsory education schools the opportunity to participate in a new round of NQS project SMEC, 2015b. By 2017, the number of NQS in Shanghai had reached 380, which was equal to 25 percent of the total number of compulsory education schools of the municipality, Parents' satisfaction with their children's outcomes in NQS was over 90% (Xu, 2017). Like the project of *Commissioning of Management*, the NQS project, as one of alternative strategies to ensure the equality and balanced development of compulsory education, was also first created in Shanghai and then gradually influence the compulsory education reform in other parts of China. In 2016, the education authority of Changzhou, Jiangsu Province decided, for example, to worked out the plan to build up 100 NQS to promote balanced development for local compulsory education schools (Wang, 2017). Inevitably, for schools striving to transform themselves into *New Quality Schools*, redevelop their school development plans must be one of leadership priorities.

#### *5.2.7 Schools Running by Group* [JI-TUAN-HUA-BAN-XUE]

*Schools Running by Group* [JI-TUAN-HUA-BAN-XUE] is one of the terms coined in China's expansion of quality schools in the early 21st century. It usually refers to a prestigious school-centered school networking organized as a school group in which a prestigious school acts as a leading school to drive the member schools of the group to develop together, and to improve their performance to pull off the support and trust of stakeholders. *Schools Running by Group* (hereafter called SRG) as a pattern of school networking was first emerged around the year of 2000 in Hangzhou, the capital city of Zhejiang Province (Wang, 2013; Yan, 2016). By March 2006, there had been 51 school groups and 188 member schools were operating under the pattern of SRG in Hangzhou (Zhu, 2006). The initial model of SRG is relatively simple, and the popular model at the time was that a prestigious school annexed other related low performing schools or built new campuses of the prestigious school in the communities where there was shortage of quality schools. The SRG in Hangzhou as one of government measures to promote the expansion of quality schools aroused interest from other metropolitan governments. Beijing, for example, began to try the SRG in 2005. Almost all the pilot projects of the SGR had achieved positive results. As one of typical cases, it only took two years for a member school of the Peking Primary School Group to change from an under-performing and undersubscribed school to a high profile and oversubscription school (Yin, 2017). In 2012, The State Council published the *Opinions of State Council on further promoting the balanced development of compulsory education*. In the section ³promoting quality education resources to be shared´ of the State Council¶V RHD, the State Council made clear that ³encouraging the establishment of school networking, exploring the *Schools Running by Group*, advocating school-to-school assistance, implementing the *Neighboring Schools Networking*, and improving the overall level of school running´(State Council, 2012). After that, the development of the SRG in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and other metropolises was greatly accelerated. Beijing started a project called "Urban-Rural Linkage School Construction" in 2012, and the municipal government allocated special funds to promote the development of the SRG in the city's newly developed areas. Later, the SRG was extended to almost all districts of Beijing (Li, 2017). By the end of November of 2017, 217 school groups had been established and 610 member schools, approximate one third of the total number of primary and secondary schools in the city were operating under the pattern of SRG in 16 districts of Beijing. At the same time, the models of SGR had been more diverse than before, including the ³a prestigious school +newly established schools´, ³a prestigious school +under-performing schools´, ³a prestigious school + ordinary schools´, and ³a prestigious middle school + a few under-performing primary schools´ in which the member schools were closely coupled or loosely coupled (Yin, 2017). The specific operating mechanism of individual SRGs could be different. The SRG would be operation as a big school with one legal entity when the prestigious school fully took over management of other member schools (closely coupled). Whereas majority of SRGs were operation as a school federation with several legal entities (loosely coupled), in which the prestigious schools influenced other member schools through sharing resources with the member schools or providing member schools with professional coaching, mentoring, and supervision but without interfering in member schools¶ financial and personnel affairs. In this case, the prestigious schools would receive an additional grant from their local education authorities to make up for their inputs to their member schools. In Shanghai, SMEC, the municipal education authority encouraged four districts of the city in 2014 to conduct the pilot projects of SRG. In

2015, the SMEC issued *Opinions of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission on promoting high-quality and balanced development and promoting the Schools Running by Group and the Neighboring Schools Networking´* to promote the SRG within whole city, and set out the goals that ³by the end of 2017, fifty percent of the compulsory education schools in the whole city will be operation under the pattern of SRG or *Neighboring Schools Networking* (it¶s the term to be explored in 3.2.8). The member schools of SRG and *Neighboring Schools Networking as a Cluster* should meet the minimum criterion of the *Basic Standards for Running Compulsory Education Schools in Shanghai*. The effect of the projects of SRG in Shanghai is encouraging since the satisfaction of students, parents and communities, on average, is over eighty-five percent. (SMEC, 2015c). By June 2018, there had been 128 school groups in Shanghai, in which 644 member schools were operating under the pattern of SRG (Shang, 2018).

The SRG has grown so fast over past decade largely because of strong administrative impetus of local education authorities. Of course, the government-driven projects, in China¶s education context, will yield high efficiency. Yet, the situation of so rapid development without in-depth reflection inevitably makes some new challenges. The identified challenges include that the legitimacy of establishing SRG was questioned by some staff of the member schools, and the high-quality human resource of a prestigious school was over-diluted with the fast expansion, and so on. In some cases, the cultural conflict between the prestigious school and other member schools were emerging (Zhang, 2017; Yin, 2017). Thus, the recent policy on the SRG seems to have been more considerate. The SMEC, for example, pointed out that not every prestigious school or high performing school was qualified to play the leading role of the SRG. Rather, only the prestigious or high performing schools that meet the following four conditions could act as the leading school of a SRG: a) the principal of the school upheld educational concepts that met the needs of the times and was able to manage the school by scientific way; b) the school had the capability to allocate sufficient resources to support other schools; c) the school had a good social reputation; and d) majority staff of the school were willing to do so (Zheng,2014). Moreover, the SMEC stipulated that whether or not to be a member school of the SRG should be the voluntary choice of a school, and school leaders should listen to the opinions or suggestions of the school In addition, the SMEC was aware that although the models of SRG could be varied, every SRG in Staff Congress before they made the final decision to participate in a school group (SMEC, 2015c).

compulsory education stage should develop its development plan according to the *Basic standards for running compulsory education schools in Shanghai (2011)* and was evaluated later in the light of the objectives that set out in the SRG¶VGHYHORSPHQWSODQ (Zheng,2014). Thereby, planning the development of the SRG is one of priorities for the SRG leadership, and the leadership practice of ³SODQQLQJVFKRROGHYHORSPHQW´LVKLJKOLJKWHGDJDLQ.

#### *5.2.8 Neighboring Schools Networking* [XUE-QU-HUA-BAN-XUE]

*Neighboring Schools Networking* [XUE-QU-HUA-BAN-XUE] refers to a community-based school network in which the neighboring schools collaborate with each other by the way of sharing various resources and successful experiences, interacting in teaching-study activities, and co-organizing network-based teacher development programs. In practice, the *Neighboring Schools Networking* (NSN) is most likely to be a loosely coupled school federation in most cases, so it is also known as a community-based school partnership. The NSN, like the SGR, was also one of government initiatives promote the balanced development of basic education emerged in the early 21st century. These two terms are often mentioned side by side in Chinese government policy documents (e.g., Shanghai Municipal Education Commission¶s *Opinions of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission on promoting high-quality and balanced development and promoting the Neighboring Schools Networking and the Schools Running by Group [2015]*). However, the term *Schools Running by Group* was created by the educational practitioners in Hangzhou and the first pilot project of *SRG* was also kicked off in 2000 in Hangzhou whereas the term *Neighboring Schools Networking* was coined by the educational practitioners in Beijing and the first pilot project of NSN was exercised in 2004 in Beijing (Li, 2006).

#### **5.3 Summary and Discussion**

In this chapter, we have explored eight key terms around the theme of ³planning school development´. Given WKH ³planning school development´ is placed as one of six key leadership practices for school principals by the MOE (MOE, 2013, 2015), it is no doubt for us to focus on the term *School Development Planning* [XUE-XIAO-FA-ZHAN-GUI-HUA㼉 in the beginning of the chapter. By reviewing the process of how the *School Development Planning* (SDP) was introduced to China and applied to China¶s school leadership practice, one can see a typical example of the influence of Western school leadership knowledge on Chinese school leadership practice. The SDP as a whole has been well applied in China¶s education context thus far but there are some things that need to be improved. As noted earlier in this chapter, one of the Chinese characteristics with which the SDP in China¶s education context is ³strongly initiating and promoting by local education authority´. The promotion of local education authority is conducive to improving the efficiency of SDP implementation, but, on the other hand, it is inevitably with some bureaucratic maladies. An education researcher cited an example that on SDP that a district education bureau required the schools in the district to develop and submit their five-year development plan within three months. The researcher believed that it was so hard for schools to work out a quality plan for next five years in such a short time (Wei, 2017). Secondly, even though principals all know the truth that SDP is a means rather than an end in itself, they still put too much effort into the perfection of the text because they also know the result of SDP review links to their future career and the reviewers hardly examine the whole process of SDP except for the text of a plan itself. Finally, the author would like to draw the attention of international researchers who have interest in Chinese culture in leadership to the case of China-UNICEF project on principal training and the SDP in which the issue of cultural adaptation emerged. Why the SDP borrowed from Western countries did not get very good results in the Western provinces of China, but had a positive impact on promotion of SDP in the eastern coastal cities? It reveals a fact that the so-called Chinese culture is made up of a lot of different subcultures, and there are differences between these subcultures. The second term *Quality-Oriented Education* [SU-ZHI-JIAO-YU] has been one of cardinal concepts in China¶s education reform in the last 30 years. As one of statutory requirements for school education, it is essential for principals to well understand the connotation of *Quality-Oriented Education* (QOE) and have the QOE reflected in every part of school development plan. In exploring this term, the author reviewed the historical background of QOE as well as *Exam-Oriented Education* (EOE) (as a term opposed to the QOE), the connotation of QOE and EOE in China¶s educational context, the purposes and policy initiatives of Chinese government for QOE implementation, and the current status of QOE implementation in China. As pointed out previously, there are still some obstacles to be overcome in achieving the QOE though much progress has been made in QOE implementation in past 30 years. One of the hardest nuts to crack in QOE implementation is how to reduce the excessive schoolwork burden for students and excessive pressure on students in preparing to take the *National College Entrance Examination* (NCEE). Liu Bin, the Vice Director of the State Education Commission pointed out in 1997, ³the essential function of the NCEE is selection, which is always contradictory to the QOE.´ (Liu, 1997) The assuming solution proposed by Liu at that time was the diversification of college entrance examination. He argued that it would be difficult to exercise the EOE in schools if the college entrance examination became diversified. He conceived, ³with different exam papers, and two or more times chance to take the examinations, it would not be easy to exercise µteaching to the test¶, they have to improve their well-rounded quality to adapt to a variety of examinations.´ (Liu, 1997) Unfortunately, the hardest nuts in QOE implementation has been never cracked since Liu made his prediction about the effect of examination reform in 1997. The National Assessment Center for Education Quality (NACEQ), a professional institution affiliated to MOE conducted a large-scale survey of year 4 and year 8 students from 2015 to 2017 and published the *Monitoring report on the quality of compulsory education in China* in 2018. This report revealed that the sleep time of students is generally insufficient, and the proportion of students participated in the afterschool private tutorial was quite high and student¶s pressure caused by learning was high, too.(NACEQ, 2018) The results of a most recent survey on private tutoring showed that the proportion of China¶s secondary school students participating in private tutorial of Mathematics, Foreign Languages and Chinese Language and Literature (these are three key subjects in NCEE) was between 65.7% and 74% and the average number of afterschool tutoring hours per week was 21.4 hours. The motivation of students to take part in the private tutorial was ³to improve academic performance´ (71% of the respondents) or ³for the exams´ (74.6% of the respondents) (Zhi & Chen, 2018). The findings of these surveys have, in a sense, demonstrated that Liu¶s prediction is not true after so many rounds of NCEE reform in the last 30 years. Frankly, Liu underestimated the desire of students as well as their family to pursue their bright future or change their families¶ fate through the NCEE, the most influential high-stakes and selective examination. Although many schools have been attempted to reduce students' schoolwork, parents tended to increase their children¶s burden by purchasing the private tutoring. That's why most of principals and teachers agreed in *CSSLM2017-principals* and *CSSLM2017-teachers* that the major obstacle to reduce VWXGHQWV¶ H[FHVVLYH EXUGHQ came from the parents and the society (see Appendix A). Given ³almost all families, regardless of socioeconomic status, to have high hopes for their FKLOGUHQ¶V IXWXUHDQG VXFK KRSHVWUDQVODWHGLQWRKDUGZRUNDQGDGDSWDELOLW\WR GLIILFXOWOHDUQLQJ environments.´ (OECD, 2011, p. 84), it may be inevitable for the examination reform, which aims at reducing the excessive schoolwork burden for students and excessive pressure on students in preparing to take the NCEE, to be defeated by the cultural tradition existing throughout the entire Chinese world, including the Chinese communities both in and out of mainland China. Perhaps, it is also one of major reasons for the failure of similar reforms in Hong Kong and Taiwan (Feng, 2017). The third term presented in this chapter is *Guiding Principle for Education* 㼇JIAO-YU-FANG-ZHEN㼉. 7KHGLIIHUHQWFRQQRWDWLRQVRIWKHWHUPLQ0DR¶V era and in the time of ³5HIRUP DQG 2SHQLQJ-XS´ LQ WKH ODWH V DQG RQZDUGV ZHUH H[DPLQHG LQ WKLV FKDSWHU In carrying out the *Guiding Principle for Education* (GPE), one of salient problems in leadership practice is that the GPE is not completely carried out in some cases though significance of carrying out the GPE is repeatedly emphasized (Shi, 2017). On the other hand, some scholars criticized that the existing expression of the GPE is incomplete. They argued that it is unduly emphasized for education to meet the needs of the state whereas the education¶s function in fulfilling the development of individual students¶ personality has been overlooked to some extent (Wang, 2006; Li, 2014). The fourth term interpreted in this chapter is *Exemplar Senior High School* [SHI-FAN-XING-GAO-ZHONG]. The author began with the review of the Key School Program, the predecessor of *Exemplar Senior High School* (ESHS) program which initiated by Chinese government in 1950s to prepare quality graduates of senior high schools for China¶s universities and colleges as well as for the country¶s industry and agriculture by concentrating limited resources under the circumstance of a shortage of talents in economic recovery and social construction. Unlike the *Key High School* program, the ESHS program was to expand the scale of senior high school education to meet the social needs for quality high school education in 1990s. At the same time, the program was required to play the leading role in local school education reform and development toward the direction of QOE. Generally speaking, ESHS program has adapted to the needs of expanding the scale of high school education in the era of high-speed development of economy and urbanization of China though some new challenges associated with the ESHS program to be addressed. For instance, it is not very fair for neighboring schools of a ESHS that the ESHS always pick the high-achieving students since they have the priority in school enrolment (Liu, 2005; Tao, 2008; Tang & Fan, 2013). The fifth term *Commissioned Management* [WEI-TUO-GUAN-LI] refers to one of policy strategies to ensure the equity and balanced development of compulsory education in China. It was first developed in 2005 in Shanghai to bridge the quality gap of compulsory education between the suburbs and city center of Shanghai, and was widely adopted by local education authorities in various provinces of China later on. Taking Shanghai as an example, we explored the term by reviewing several rounds *Commissioned Management* (CM) of the city, examining the established rules and regulations regarding the CM. Through six rounds of CM, most under-performing schools in rural area of suburban districts has improved their performance and social reputation. Concomitantly, the leadership teams and teachers in high performing schools of city center have learned a lot in rethinking the SDP and rebuilding school policy for client schools to improve the client schools¶ outcomes within two or three years. Findings of the survey concerning the effect of the first two rounds CM projects suggested that the most difficult part in implementing a CM project is how the staff of the client schools to emotionally accept the ³invasion´ of external forces (Zhu, 2011). For emotional acceptance and cultural integration, it will take a lot of time. This was probably why Shanghai municipal education authority decided to extend the CM project cycle from two years to three years in the implementation of the sixth round of CM in 2017 (SEC, 2017). The sixth term in this chapter is *New Quality School* [XIN-YOU-ZHI-XUE-XIAO]. It refers to an alternative type of quality school first emerged in Shanghai when the SMEC promoted the equality and balanced development of compulsory education in 2011. The exploration of this term began with examining the difference between conventional quality school and NQS. Also, the social background of the *New Quality School* (NQS) and the typical paths to achieve the goal of NQS in practice were reviewed. Based on reviewing the literature about NQS and the NQS case materials, it is not difficult to find that one of key leadership capacity for principals in the process of creating a NQS is still how to work with their colleagues to work on the *School Development Planning* (SDP) because, through the process of SDP, they will be likely to identify the major challenges confronting their schools, reach a consensus with colleagues as well as other stakeholders, set a new vision, and employ appropriate strategies to change the status quo of their school (Yin, 2013, pp.102-106; Xia, 2013; Hu, 2014; Shen, 2015). The last two terms in this chapter are *Schools* 

*Running by Group* [JI-TUAN-HUA-BAN-XUE] and *Neighboring Schools Networking* [XUE-QU-HUA-BAN-XUE]. The former refers to a prestigious school-centered school network while the latter refers to a community-based school network. The *Neighboring Schools Networking* (NSN) is most likely to be a loosely coupled school federation in most cases, so it is also known as a community-based school partnership. In this chapter, we review the projects development, policy provisions and achievements of the SRG and NSN in several metropolises. So far, most educational policy makers, practitioners and researchers have acknowledged that the SRG and NSN have indeed made considerable contributions to the quality and balanced development of basic education, especially compulsory education in China. However, some researchers and even policymakers believe that some challenges, with further development of the SRG and NSN, still need to be addressed in the future. First, in practice of the NSN, quite a few leaders of leading schools tend to export their own leadership concepts and management systems to member schools indiscriminately. It would be likely to lead to a potential cultural conflict. Some researchers argued that the priority of the SRG and NSN is, after all, to bridge the gap of student academic achievements between the leading school and member schools rather than replacement of school culture and tradition of the member schools (Guo & Zheng, 2015; Guo, 2015). Second, Mr. Li, the deputy director of basic education of Beijing Municipal Education Commission recognized that the local governments should, in implementation of the SRG, act as a coordinator in allocating funds and other resources to provide the school groups with necessary support, and play a supervision role by evaluation. They should not restrict the autonomy of SRG too much. (Li, 2017). Namely, a prestigious school needs not only additional funds but also additional discretionary power in the prestigious school-centered school network. Third, a primary school principal contended in a published article that it was necessary to establish a mechanism to allow a member school withdrawing freely from a SRG when the outcomes of the member school will have been good enough after several years¶ efforts in the SRG. For this kind of schools, they don¶t have to always be under the shadow of a prestigious school (Zhang, 2018). The principal's point of view suggests that the SRG or NSN may have suppressed the development of some schools that could have become better. Another challenge behind the arguments of above researchers, policy maker, and principals is how to improve the quality of the studies on the rich and vibrant practices of the SRG and NSN. In fact, there has been too little sophisticated empirical research on the SRG and NSN thus far. As the case of the SRG we mentioned in the 3.2.7 of this chapter, it only took two years for an under-performing and undersubscribed school to become a high profile and oversubscription school after the school participated in a school group. How did this school's rapid improvement happen? What factors contributed to this big progress? How much contribution have they made respectively? Has the school lost anything while getting its improvement? These answers are still unknown because there are no empirical research findings about this case. Last but not least, it should be noted that specific policies and practices regarding SRG and NSN may be different in different cities or provinces because local education authorities have the right to decide on the detailed rules for the implementation of SRG and NSN in their jurisdictions. For example, the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission reiterated in its policy documents that neither SGR nor NSN was designed to turn many schools into one big school. The government didn¶t intend to create a ³big principal´ to map out and handle every detail of leadership and management in the member schools (Liu, 2014; SMEC, 2015c). However, the policy regarding NSN of Xi¶an, the capital city of Shanxi Province was quite different from that of Shanghai. Li Yinke, the director of Xi¶an Education Bureau introduced in 2014 that the pilot project of NSN started off in four districts of Xi'an in 2012, and expanded to all districts/counties of the city in 2013. By the end of spring semester, 1788 compulsory education schools in Xi¶an had been integrated into 416 neighboring school network. Moreover, the ³nine-unified management had been carried out in every member school of all 416 NSN of the city. The so-called nine-unified management encompassed the unified strategies for school development, unified allocation of all equipment and facilities originally belonging to individual member schools, unified curriculum plan, unified redeployment of teachers, unified activities of lesson preparation, unified activities of teaching-study, unified network-based teacher training, unified student assessment, and unified school evaluation (Li, 2014). It is a typical case to remind international researchers who would conduct empirical studies on some local education policy or school leadership practice in China that the findings of an empirical study or the results of a policy analysis in a given city or province may not necessarily be used to infer the overall situation of China. On the other hand,

the case of NSN in Xi an raises a question that whether the NSN will become a sub-district bureau, thereby increasing bureaucracy and red tape in school leadership practice? It is a problem that researchers are worrying about (Guo & Zheng, 2015).

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# **Chapter 6**㻌

# **Leading the Curriculum and Instruction**㻌

#### **6.1 Introduction**

In China, instructional leadership is not a theme that has only recently emerged. In fact, instructional leadership has long been placed in the center stage of ChinD¶Vschool leadership and management, and it has been regarded as a key factor to promote school improvement (Chen, 1957; Jin, 1993; Han, 1996; Geng, 2004; Li, 2015). However, Chinese educators' understanding of instructional leadership is slightly different from the Western counterparts. Zongliu Xiao, the former President of the Chinese Educational Administration Research Association and professor of Central China Normal University asserted, ³a principal¶s obligation is to run a school well. How can we achieve this goal? I think it is very important for the principal to supervise the focal issue of school work. What is the focal issue of school work? It is teaching and learning´ (Xiao, 2003, p. 260). He added, ³To supervise teaching and learning, the principal should go deep into the front line of teaching and learning. What is the µfront line¶? It refers to the classrooms and teaching-study groups [in which the classroom instruction and teaching-study activities conduct]. What are the typical ways for the principal to go deep into the front line? There three basic ways to do so. First, taking the classroom observation«. Second, spending a period of time in a selected work place for investigation « Third, taking on the teaching work by himself´ (Xiao, 2003, pp. 262-263). As an experienced and successful high school principal before he served as the professor at the university, Xiao¶s assertion largely represents the notion about instructional leadership that not only the most of Chinese school leadership researchers but also most of Chinese leadership practitioners upheld. As OECD report analyzed, ³almost all the officers in the government education authorities, both at municipal and district levels, started as school teachers. Most of them distinguished themselves as teachers or school principals with strong track records. This perhaps explains their devoted professional attention to teaching and learning amidst all the administrative chores and political issues they normally contend with. They manage, however, to maintain this teaching focus while at the same time relying on a strategic vision that enables them to navigate a policy arena which goes well beyond education.´(OECD, 2011, p. 89). Furthermore, ;LDR¶VDVVHUWLRQVXJJHVWHGWKHUHDUHWZRHVVHQWLDOEHOLHIVXQGHUSLQQLQJWKHSUDFWLFHRILQVWUXFWLRQDO

leadHUVKLSLQ&KLQD¶VFRQWH[W The first is that instructional leadership is the key function of school leadership as ³teaching and learning´ is the core business of school education. The second is that successful instructional leadership must closely associate with the solid teaching-study in which the principal personally involves. In 2017, the author triangulated the beliefs with the information from the results of *CSSLM2017-principals* and *CSTWCE2017-teachers*. In the *CSSLM2017-principals*, 74.0 percent of the respondents (principals) STRONGLY AGREED with ³It is no doubt that a school should place teaching and learning at the centre of school work´ while 19.5 percent of the respondents AGREED with the item. And 68.3 percent of the respondents (principals) STRONGLY AGREED with ³The essential assurance of the success of instructional leadership is the building of good teaching-study groups and Lesson Preparation Group.´ while 28.2 percent of the respondents AGREED with the item. In the *CSTWCE2017-teachers*, 76.5 percent of the respondents (teachers) STRONGLY AGREED with ³Schools should be centered on teaching because even if moral education is mainly carried out through the vehicle of day-to-day classroom instruction´ while 17.6 percent of the respondents AGREED with the same item (see Appendix A). The information from the *CSSLM2017-principals* and *CSTWCE2017-teachers* largely confirms that most of Chinese principals and teachers hold the above-mentioned beliefs at the moment. Thus, a range of key terms closely associated with instructional leadership composes the first group of selected terms of this chapter, which includes *Teaching-Study System* [JIAO-YAN-ZHI-DU], *Teaching-Study Specialist* [JIAO-YAN-YUAN] *Lesson Preparation Group* [BEI-KE-ZU], *Five-Link-Cycle of Teaching* [JIAO-XUE-WU-HUAN-JIE], *Collective Lesson Preparation* [JI-TI-BEI-KE], *Classroom Observation and Commentary* [TING-PING-KE] and *Open Lesson* [GONG-KAI-KE]. However, given the requirement of curriculum leadership has been emerged since the *Compendium for Curriculum Reform of Basic Education* (trial edition) was issued by the MOE in 2001(MOE, 2001), the instructional leadership, at the moment, is no longer an exclusive leadership factor that can significantly effect on teaching and learning. Rather, the curriculum leadership should be also included. In the curriculum reform policy, for example, the single national curriculum system is transformed into the three-level curriculum system of the national, local and school. With this regard, individual schools have to shoulder unprecedented responsibilities for curriculum development as well as curriculum management. Consequently, the curriculum leadership has become one of key components in principal development and principal

appraisal since 2001. The second group of the selected terms of this chapter thereby revolves around the curriculum reform, which includes *Compendium for Curriculum Reform* [KE-GAI-GANG-YAO], *Three-Level Curriculum Management* [SAN-JI-KE-CHENG-GUAN-LI], *Curriculum Leadership* [KE-CHENG-LING-DAO] and *School-Based Scientific Research Management* [XIAO-BEN-KE-YAN-GUAN-LI].

#### **6.2 key terms**

#### *6.2.1 Teaching-Study System* [JIAO-YAN-ZHI-DU]

*Teaching-Study System* [JIAO-YAN-ZHI-DU]is a system to promote teachers to engage in study and improvement of teaching on a daily basis so as to assure the quality of teaching and learning and the continuous improvement of teachers¶ professional attitudes, knowledge, and skills for teaching. Historically, the initial purpose of establishing *Teaching-Study System* (TSS) in China was to address the practical challenge in the early years of 1950s. When the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, the enrolment rate of primary and secondary schools in China was much lower than that in industrial countries. The statistics in 1949 showed that the enrollment rate of primary schools was 20% and that of lower secondary schools was only 6% (Nie, 2010). To improve the education attainment of the Chinese people soon, the scale of primary and secondary education of the newly founded state was expanded rapidly in a very short period of time. In 1949, there were 346,800 primary schools in China, with 24.391 million students. But by 1952, there were 527,000 primary schools and 51.1 million students, the number of schools and students increased by 51.9% and 109.5% respectively (Zhao, 2014). The scale of primary and secondary education had expanded so fast that the number of qualified teachers was not adequate to meet the demand. Furthermore, due to the shortage of qualified teachers, there was a serious problem of ³skills gap´ among districts, schools and teachers. The TSS as one of government initiatives was to bridge the ³skills gap´ at the time. In1952, WKH FHQWUDO JRYHUQPHQW¶V 0LQLVWU\ RI (GXFDWLRQ published two policy documents titled *Interim Provisions for Primary Schools (Draft)* and *Interim Provisions for Secondary Schools (Draft)*. According to these two RHDs, all primary and secondary schools were required to establish the teaching-study mechanism called teaching-study conference to regularly have subject-based teacher meetings concerning the teaching schedule, improvement of teaching methods, and sharing the lessons from teaching practice (MOE,1952a; MOE,1952b). In 1955, the *3HRSOH¶V (GXFDWLRQ*, an organ magazine of the MOE at the time, published an editorial titled *Education Departments and Bureaus of Provinces and Municipalities Must Strengthen Teaching-Study Work* to call for the establishment of the teaching-study office to assist provincial and local education authorities to assure the teaching quality at schools. Since then, the management system of teaching-study has been established across China (Liang, et al., 2010; Zhao,2014; Hu & Wang, 2017). In the established framework of TSS, a subject-based *teaching-study group* at school is professionally ³supervised for each of its subject areas by the *teaching-study office* in the Education Bureau (in a rural county or city district), which is in turn supervised by the relevant *teaching-study office* in the Education Department in the provincial or municipal government.´(OECD, 2011, p. 88). In 1957, the *Regulations on Teaching-Study Group¶s Work of Secondary Schools* was issued by the Ministry of Education. It was the first time that the central government defined the role of *teaching-study group* as a professional group to handle the subject-based teaching-study activities at school (Liang, et al., 2010). In 1990, the State Education Commission published a RHD titled *Opinions of the State Education Commission on improving and strengthening the work of teaching-study offices* to stipulate teaching research, teaching guidance and teaching management as three major functions of teaching-study offices at all levels (SEC.1990). But in any case, the *teaching-study group* (TSG) and the *Lesson Preparation Group* (LPG) at school constitute the essential foundation and the most important part in TSS framework of China. Moreover, the roles of TSG and LPG have intensified since the curriculum reform of China was launched in 2001. Thus, it has been the foremost priority for teaching-study office at the county or district level to guide and support TSG at local schools to address the subject-based challenges at the school emerging from the curriculum reform since 2001(Hu & Wang, 2017). With this regard, how to improve the quality of school-based teaching-study activities was regarded as the vital issue of the TSS. From then on, the term *school-based teaching-study* was widely used in China¶s school leadership practice. In the three-level (provincial, county/district, and school) TSS, the county/district teaching-study office plays the key role to provide schools with subject-based technical support for county/district wide *school-based teaching-study* since the office members are usually composed of the subject-based specialists who are respectively good at mentoring teachers of all subjects of primary, junior high and senior high schools.

#### *6.2.2 Teaching-Study Specialist* [JIAO-YAN-YUAN]

*Teaching-Study Specialist* [JIAO-YAN-YUAN] refers to the subject-based professionals who

work at provincial or county/district teaching-study offices. Most *Teaching-Study Specialists* are selected from experienced and talented subject teachers of primary and secondary schools and their attitudes, knowledge and skills in teaching are recognized. Given the number of *Teaching-Study Specialists* had been 100 thousand by 2010, it is not a small cohort of subject-based specialists, and they have made a great contribution to China¶s basic education reform in the last decades (Liang, et al., 2010; Zhao, 2014). Initially, the priority of a teaching-study office was to close the ³skills gap´ among schools within a county or a district. Accordingly, the role of a *Teaching-Study Specialist* was to supervise the classroom instruction and to convey the content pedagogical knowledge of a certain subject. The role of *Teaching-Study Specialists* was increasingly intensified after the curriculum reform launched in 2001 because *Teaching-Study Specialists* were required to provide school teachers with technical support in developing school curriculum (school curriculum did not exist in China until 2001) and to take responsibility in leading school teachers to change their teaching approach to meet the new demands of the curriculum reform (Liu, 2009; Liu & Huang, 2018). On the other hand, a survey conducted in 2013 showed that about 70 percent of *Teaching-Study Specialists* are also responsible for monitoring the student outcomes of all schools in their county or district (NCSCTD, 2013). Nevertheless, while it is widely recognized that *Teaching-Study Specialists*  have made great contributions to curriculum reform and teaching quality assurance, some problems ing around *Teaching-Study Specialists* are still remained to be solved. For example, there is imbalance between the professional quality of *Teaching-Study Specialists* who are working in the teaching-study offices of different counties or districts. As a head of a provincial teaching-study office in west part of China pointed out that a part of *Teaching-Study Specialists* in the province were good at inspecting and commenting on the classroom instruction (in most cases, criticizing the teachers¶ performance), but they are unable to work with teachers to explore realistic ways to improve the performance of teaching and learning (Ha, 2012). There is even an absurd phenomenon in practice that some *Teaching-Study Specialists* have not had classes for years, yet they are busy with classroom observations and make comments on teachers¶ performance almost every work day (Li, 2010). On the other side, the *Teaching-Study Specialists* are given too much expectation in some cases. In fact, it will be difficult for *Teaching-Study Specialists* WR IXOILOOWKHLU UHVSRQVLELOLW\WRJXLGHWHDFKHUV¶WHDFKLQJ-study activities at a school if the principal does not pay enough attention to the teaching-study activities in his/her school because *Teaching-Study Specialist*s are not the direct superiors for teachers. After all, they only provide professional support for teachers, and they don't have administrative authority. (Liu & Huang, 2018). To address the challenges and problems emerging from practice, some local education authorities have recently tended to pay more attention to develop training programs for *Teaching-Study Specialists* to improve their professional quality. Meanwhile, they stipulated that principal¶s ability to coordinate external technical resources (including the expertise of *Teaching-Study Specialists*) to support school teachers¶ teaching-study activities would be one of indicators in school leadership appraisal.

#### *6.2.3 Five-Link-Cycle of Teaching* [JIAO-XUE-WU-HUAN-JIE]

*Five-Link-Cycle of Teaching* [JIAO-XUE-WU-HUAN-JIE] reflects a widely accepted point of view of Chinese educators that the teaching quality as well as student outcomes largely depends on what and how teachers do at vital points of a teaching cycle. The five vital points, known as five links, composed by the *lesson preparation* [BEI-KE], *classroom instruction* [SHANG-KE] *assignment* [ZUO-YE], tutoring [FU-DAO], and *assessment* [PING-JIA] (see Figure 6.1). In &KLQD¶V educational context, the *Five-Link-Cycle of Teaching* is viewed as a chain that can connect the entire teaching process in series. Thus, it is one of focal issues for school leadership to develop detailed rules to ensure all teachers to be fully commitment to every link of the cycle. By reviewing on some school regulations and rules on the *Five-Link-Cycle of Teaching*, it can be found that schools requirements for the *Five-Link-Cycle of Teaching* are generally as follows (No.1 Primary School of Northern Zhongshan Rd., 2004, pp.58-62; Yin, 2006, pp.249-252; Mingde Primary School, 2008, pp.44-47; THSAECNU, 2009, pp.1-10):

In the link of *lesson preparation*, teachers are usually required to prepare lessons in advance by collective way. For example, teachers should prepare lessons in advance for the first and second weeks of the semester before the semester starts by the way of *Collective Lesson Preparation* [JI-TI-BEI-KE] organized by the *Lesson Preparation Group* (LPG). The major task of lesson preparation includes, based on the analysis of antecedent learning condition of students, the arrangement of the teaching content and determination of the teaching objectives, pace of teaching, the focus in teaching and the possible difficulty in student learning.

In the link of *classroom instruction*, teachers are required to allocate time properly for each

40-minute lesson, to use diversified teaching strategies in terms of individual students¶ responses in the class, to provide incentives for students with learning difficulties, and to ensure student to understand the core knowledge of the lesson.

The link of *assignment* HQFRPSDVVHV WKH VWHSV RI GHVLJQLQJ VWXGHQWV¶ homework, grading LQGLYLGXDOVWXGHQWV ZRUNDQGFRPPHQWLQJRQRYHUDOOVWXGHQWV¶ZRUNRIDFODVVIn terms of home work designing, teachers are required to design the home work by revolving around the core knowledge while considering appropriate difficulty and workload for students. In the process of grading each student¶s work, teachers are required not only to mark and grade individual students¶ work in time but also to write brief written feedback on students¶ work book when necessary. The commenting on overall sWXGHQWV¶ZRUN RID FODVV usually aims at solving the common problems reflected by students¶ home work. The process of the commenting is actually not a process of students listening to teachers' remarks, but rather, it is a process of the reflection and discussion between a teacher and his/her students.

The link of tutoring refers to the teacher makes additional efforts for students with learning difficulties. Teachers are required to take the responsibility to identify the knowledge flaws of the students with learning difficulties, and to analyze key reasons for their learning failure in learning motivation, antecedent knowledge and skills for learning, learning strategies and after school learning environment. Subsequently, the teacher should develop tutoring programs to provide the students who left behind in learning with one on one tutoring. However, teachers are not required, in the link of tutoring, to exclusively focus on the student cohort with learning difficulties. In some cases, the teacher may also attempt to provide tutoring for the gifted and talented students to foster their higher-order thinking skills and complex problem-solving skills.

In the link of *assessment*, the regular task of teachers is developing the exam paper, supervising students¶ exam, marking the exam papers, analysis of the results of exam, identifying major problems in students learning and summarizing the quality of teaching and learning in a period of time. In the five links, the *lesson preparation* and the *assessment* are usually carried out as team work organized by the LPG.

**Figure 6.1 Five-Link-Cycle of Teaching**

#### *6.2.4 Collective Lesson Preparation* [JI-TI-BEI-KE]

*Collective Lesson Preparation* [JI-TI-BEI-KE] refers to the timetabled meeting of the teachers in a Lesson Preparation Group (LPG)18 in which teachers of the LPG work collectively to "draw up very detailed lesson schemes for a particular topic the following week. Teachers are expected to teach according to the scheme, which is then translated into more detailed lesson plans by and for individual teachers [after the meeting]" (OECD, 2011, p.88). Therefore, the lesson scheme, as the result of *Collective Lesson Preparation* (CLP), serves as a guide for teachers when they prepare specific lesson plans for their lessons. The intention of CLP is to ensure teachers exercise classroom instruction in accordance with the professional requirements for teaching, while there is still room for teachers' individual autonomy and creativity.

Although neither the central government nor the local governments in China have ever made policy provisions on CLP, the CLP regulations have been set in all primary and secondary schools in China without exception (Chen, 2006). Historically, the CLP was created in 1950s to address the challenge of the "skills gap" among teachers in the time of qualified teacher shortage. At the

Both subject-based *Teaching-Study Group* (TSG) and the *Lesson Preparation Group* (LPG) play key roles to ensure the quality of teaching and learning at school on a daily basis. Given the LPG is the professional group of lowest level at school in which the teachers of same subject at the same grade (they usually share one office) communicate and interact directly almost every school day, the professional influence of a LPG on teachers is, in most instances, more frequent and stronger than that of a TSG.

time, the first priority of the CLP ZDV ³XQLILFDWLRQ´ LH XQLILFDWLRQ RI REMHFWLYHV FRQWHQW emphases, didactics, pace and student home work for every lesson delivered by different teachers in the same LPG (Chen, 2003; Zhu, 2011). Consequently, the "unification" indeed guaranteed the base line of classroom instruction, but individual teachers¶ personal style and features in classroom instruction were constrained. However, the CLP has gradually become one of the vehicles for school-based teacher development since the shortage of qualified teachers in China was gradually alleviated in1990s, especially after the beginning of curriculum reform in 2001. Since then, "unification" has been no longer the core mission of the CLP. Rather, sharing of peers' professional experience and discussion of teaching innovation have been the dominant themes in CLP (Chen, 2003). Nowadays, the frequency of the CLP in numerous schools is also declining, from once a week to once every other week. Of course, the specific purposes and ways of the CLP vary from school to school in practice. Yet, in some schools where teachers are still weak, "unification" is still the focal issue in their CLP. Concomitantly, it is helpful for beginning teachers to accelerate them to meet their job requirements by participating in the "unification-centered" CLP (Xue, 2013; Zhou, 2016).As far as the CLP is concerned, the main function of instructional leadership in most schools is to promote a positive climate for the CLP, which includes establishing regulations, allocating internal and external resources, maintaining leadership visibility, providing incentive for LPGs, etc.

#### *6.2.5 Classroom Observation and Commentary* [TING-PING-KE]

*Classroom Observation and Commentary* [TING-PING-KE] is one of regular teaching-study activities in China¶s primary and secondary schools, in which peer teachers as observers observe WKHREVHUYHGWHDFKHU¶VSHUIRUPDQFHRIFODVVURRPLQVWUXFWLRQLQD-minute lesson, listen to, after the lesson, the observed teacKHU¶V explanation about what his/her initiate ideas, objectives, strategies, methods and procedure designed for the lesson in his/her lesson preparation and how he DGMXVWHG KLVKHU RULJLQDO OHVVRQ SODQ LQ WHUPV RI VWXGHQWV¶ UHVSRQVHV GXULQJ WKH classroom instruction, and make evidence-based commentary on the strengths and weaknesses of this lesson and make suggestions accordingly (Zhou, 2016; Ding, 2018). The role of the *Classroom Observation and Commentary* (COC) in China¶s school context is composed by three aspects. The first aspect of COC¶VUROHis regarded as an effective vehicle to promote the renewal of teaching ideas, the sharing of teaching experience, the exploration of effective teaching strategies, and to improve teachers' teaching skills, and ultimately make students benefit more from the classroom instruction (Hu & Si, 2014; Fu, 2017). As a high school principal, Shen pointed out that the primary purpose of COC did not encourage teachers imitate each other's specific behavior in their classroom instruction, but that teachers should have a deeper understanding of the key factors that contribute to a successful classroom instruction (Shen, 2018). In this respect, the *Teaching-Study Groups* in many schools have been engaging in identifying shared characteristics of a qualified classroom instruction in the past decades. For example, the high school principal Li worked with his teachers to gradually identified a shared protocol of a quality classroom instruction through many times of COC. These included (Li, 2015),


However, there are no universal protocol of a quality classroom instruction in practice. There is no doubt that the so-called shared protocol is school-based as well as subject-based. In another words, the protocol of a quality classroom instruction is exclusively shared among the teachers in the same subject at the same school. Moreover, the shared protocol is not fixed, but change with the deepening of teachers' understanding of classroom teaching. The second aspect of the COC's role is to act as an instrument to evaluate teachers' performance since the COC is often used as a lens through which to examine teachers' professional quality. As described in an OECD report, "in many cases, teachers are observed by the school principal or by district education officers when they are being considered for promotions or awards. In short, a Chinese teacher sees a lesson more as a show or a performance, and puts in many hours of preparation to cover the standard 40-minute period." (OECD, 2011, p.88). Finally, the COC is viewed as one of major means to exercise instructional leadership. Most schools in China have established regulations on the COC, which set the timetable and regular procedure of the COC, and stipulate the minimum times of the COC attendance per semester for school leaders and middle managers, particularly the director of the Office for Curriculum & Instruction (OCI). Concomitantly, the records of the COC in each subject will be collected at the end of semester by OCI as one of fundamental information about teaching and learning in school data base. By doing so, the school leaders can make informed decision regarding the quality improvement in classroom instruction and the foci of teacher development. Moreover, there is a consensus in Chinese principals that the principal attending the work place of the COC in person can inspire teachers¶ commitment to the improvement of classroom instruction, thereby principals can play an important role in instruction leadership (Zheng, 2009; Lu, 2012; Qu, 2017). Because of such a consensus, most principals in China maintain a high frequency of attending the COC. A high school principal, for example, claimed that he managed to organize his schedule to make one to two periods of classroom observation every weekday so as to keep linking leadership with classroom (Li, 2015). Another high school principal claimed that he usually made over 60 times classroom observations in each semester and attending the COC had become the habitual behavior of his instructional leadership (Qu, 2017). But for most principals, their frequency of COC attendance is not as high as that of these two principals. Although the positive role of the COC has been generally acknowledged for a long time, the effect of the COC is not always positive for all teachers. A questionnaire survey of Physical Education teachers of primary and secondary schools in Beijing showed that teachers with less than five years of service had the highest enthusiasm for the COC. With the increase of their working years, teachers' enthusiasm for the COC gradually declined (Zhou, 2016). This result suggests that the inexperienced teachers, compared with experienced teachers, are likely to benefit more from the COC.

#### *6.2.6 Open Lesson* [GONG-KAI-KE]

*Open lesson* [GONG-KAI-KE] refers to the lesson that open to internal colleagues or external audience (e.g. teachers from other schools, teaching-study specialists from district teaching-study office, officials of local education authority, researchers in the field of subject-based education from universities, etc.) and provide internal colleagues or external audience with the opportunity to observe and comment upon. The *Open lesson* (OL) in practice can be largely divided into three types so-called *Exemplary Lesson* [SHI-FAN-KE], *Demonstration Lesson* [ZHAN-SHI-KE], and

*Exploring Lesson* [YAN-JIU-KE] in terms of specific purposes of the OL. The *Exemplary Lesson* is the type of lesson that the instructor shows the benchmark of a qualified lesson to the classroom observers who are mostly student teachers from universities and inexperienced or even less qualified serving teachers. The primary purpose of the *Exemplary Lesson* is to train observers (as learners) to be qualified teachers. In other cases, however, an *Exemplary Lesson* taught by a renowned teacher to show how a teacher can give an interesting and vivid lesson for students, in which the observers can witness state-of-the-art didactics and on-the-spot wisdom of the instructor. In this context, the *Exemplary Lesson* is also called *Model Lesson* (Han, 2011). The *Demonstration Lesson* is often used as the instrument of observation and judgment to evaluate the qualification of beginning teachers at the end of their probation. In this case, the instructors of the *Demonstration Lesson* are beginning teachers whereas the observers are their mentors, middle managers and school leaders as well as the subject-based teaching-study specialists from local teaching-study office. Sometimes, the *Demonstration Lesson* is also used as the platform to display some innovative didactics. Teachers at a Mathematics Teaching-Study Group of a primary school, for example, may share the collective outcomes of their efforts in Mathematics didactics improvement with the Mathematics teachers from neighboring primary schools by giving a couple of *Demonstration Lessons* so as to get feedback from peer teachers and to pursue their further improvement in Mathematics didactics. The *Exploring Lesson* as a type of OL became popular after the China¶s curriculum reform in 2001. Schools and teachers have met a range of new challenges since 2001 because of the change of curriculum structure, contents and objectives. The teachers, even the teaching-study specialists are often not sure if they have fully understood and truly implemented new curriculum standards when they try to conduct classroom instruction in accordance with the new curriculum standards. In the circumstances, local teaching-study offices tend to organize *Exploring Lessons* to explore and examine the possibility or feasibility to implement certain strategies as well as specific methods of some pilot programs to address the challenges emerged in the curriculum reform. The instructors of *Exploring Lesson* are usually the teachers who are engaging in a pilot program (Xiao & Lin, 2013; Shao & Qin, 2014). The observers of *Exploring Lesson* are most probably the teaching-study specialists who are leading the pilot program, other teaching-study specialists in the same subject, the highly regarded teachers in the subject and subject-based teaching researchers from universities.

Today, the OL in China¶s school context is regarded as not only the platform to conduct intra-school as well as inter-school COC, but also one of major vehicles to promote the school-based teacher development. In China, almost all experienced teachers have had the experience of giving OL, and the most of distinguished teachers¶ talents, expertise and wisdom in teaching are highly recognized by peers because of their inter-school, inter-district and even inter-province OL (Liu, 2010; Li䠈2014; Shi, 2017; Wang, 2018). The teaching protocols of their OL ³are present throughout China, from remote villages to prosperous cities´(OECD, 2011, p. 89). Compared with the Routine Lesson (RL) [CHANG-TAI-KE], OL usually differ in preparation time, topic selection, design focus, classroom environment and students' performance (Shi and Li, 2016).

#### 7LPHIRUSUHSDUDWLRQ

Preparing for OL often takes several times as long as preparing for RL because the instructor tends to deliberate over the lesson plan and to revise it over and over again during his/her OL preparation.

#### Topic choice

When choosing the topic of an OL, the instructor tends to avoid topics that they are not familiar with, or are not suitable for the "wonderful performance" in his/her classroom instruction, but choose the topics that he/she is most familiar with and good at. In contrast, it is impossible for teachers to deliberately choose a topic for a RL.

#### Focus of design

The focus of the teaching design of RL is the students learning results. That is how to help students to acquire knowledge, to learn skills, and to develop positive values towards the world. Besides the focus of the teaching design of RL, there is another focus of OL teaching design. That is to consider how to display the teaching accomplishment and art of the instructor in front of the observers as much as possible in the process of the OL.

#### Environment and atmosphere

For the physical environment, a RL conducts in a regular classroom whereas an OL has to be taught in a larger space, and even move to the theatre sometimes because too many observers participate in. The change in physical environment will inevitably have an impact on the mentality of the students and the classroom atmosphere.

Student performance

In an OL, the performance of the students who are surrounded by ³stranger audience´ is most likely to be better than their performance in most RLs because the students want to win glory for their teacher and the class collective.

 these above-mentioned differences between OL and RL, there have been critiques of the OL in recent years. Arguments include that people can learn little from the teaching protocols of OL because an OL is primarily concerned with the insWUXFWRU¶s ³show´ rather than students¶ learning; or that the marrow or the highlights of an OL can be hardly replicated in a RL because the OL¶s output-to-input ratio is too low (Zhang, 2009; Wang, 2012; Shi and Li, 2016). In an extreme case, for example, it even took a teacher three months to prepare a 40-minute OL (Zeng, et al., 2011). Nevertheless, most educators of China are the proponents of the OL though there are critiques of it. In China¶s instructional leadership practice, the OL has been viewed as one of effective ways to promote school-based teacher development. Maybe that's why the OL is still widely adopted in teaching-study activities of primary and secondary schools in China at the moment (Han, 2011; Li, 2014; Wang, 2018).

#### *6.2.7 Compendium for Curriculum Reform* [KE-GAI-GANG-YAO]

*Compendium for Curriculum Reform* [KE-GAI-GANG-YAO] here exclusively refers to the *Compendium for Curriculum Reform of Basic Education* (trial edition) issued by the MOE in 2001, in which the policy framework and relevant requirements of the curriculum reform are set out.

#### **Figure 6.2 The timeline of the first seven times curriculum reforms in China after 1949**

The curriculum of basic education in China had experienced seven reforms between 1949 and 2000 (see Figure 6.2), but the changes before 2001 had never been as comprehensive and profound as this most recent one (Zhong et al., 2001, p.3) because the momentum for the curriculum reform policy set out by the *Compendium for Curriculum Reform* (CCR) results from the changed social context of China. As noted in earlier chapters, Chinese government decided to adopt the system of market economy to replace that of planned economy in 1993. Moreover, China became the member state of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. Obviously, it was imperative for China to prepare human resource that fitted for the market economy system and globalized economy. To reach the goal of the human resource preparation, curriculum reform was seen as a vehicle for holistic reform of education (Feng, 2006; Wang,2011). Although policy framework of the CCR consists of eight components, the component 1 and 2 have had the greatest ongoing impact on the leadership practice of primary and secondary schools. In the CCR, one purpose and six objectives of the curriculum reform are set in the component 1. The purpose is articulated as educating students by implementing the quality-oriented education while the six objectives are (MOE, 2001):

1. Shifting from a narrow perspective of knowledge delivery in classroom instruction to a perspective concerned with learning how to learn and fostering positive learning attitudes and values

2. Shifting from isolation among subjects to a balanced, comprehensive, and selective curriculum structure

3. Shifting from out of date and extremely abstruse curriculum content to essential knowledge and VNLOOVLQUHODWLRQWRVWXGHQWV¶ life-long learning

4. Shifting from students learning passively to students developing capacities to proactively process information, obtain new knowledge, analyze and solve problems, and communicate as well as cooperate with others

5. No longer viewing the exclusive functions of curriculum evaluation to be identification and selection, but adding the promotion of student growth, teacher development, and instructional improvement as additional functions of curriculum evaluation

6. Shifting from centralization in curriculum control to leaving room for local and school curriculum.

Given the phenomenon of chalk and talk instruction and rote-learning was very common in Chinese schools at the time, these objectives of curriculum reform would trigger off a significant transformation of China¶s school education, and thereby would indirectly impact on school leadership practice. Concomitantly, according to the component 2 of the CCR, the single-level curriculum structure, which existed between 1949 and 2000, would be replaced by a new curriculum structure with three levels of curriculum ranging from national curriculum to local curriculum and school curriculum. This change meant that schools would take unprecedented responsibilities for curriculum development as well as curriculum management. With this big change, *Curriculum Leadership* as an emerging term began to be used in government policy documents concerning requirements for school leadership (Ye, 2008; Zheng, 2013; Chen and Liu, 2018). However, the realization of the purpose and objectives CCR depends largely on the influence of school leaders on school teaching practice.

#### *6.2.8 Three-Level Curriculum Management* [SAN-JI-KE-CHENG-GUAN-LI]

As noted in 6.2.7, there were seven times curriculum reforms of basic education in China between 1949 and 2000. However, the focus of the first seven reforms were mainly on the increase or decrease of subjects and the change of subject syllabus and textbooks. The centralized curriculum system borrowed from the Soviet Union had not changed since 1949 (Zheng, 2005; Wang,2011). Compared with the previous curriculum reform, one of the most remarkable changes in the latest curriculum reform is the change of curriculum system from centralization towards decentralization, although the degree of this change is still limited. The core of this change is marked by establishing the three-level curriculum structure and system of three-level curriculum management. In the RHD of the CCCPC and the State Council released in 1999, establishment of a new system of three-level curriculum (national, lRFDODQGVFKRROFXUULFXOXPDVRQHRIUHIRUPJRDOVLQ&KLQD¶V basic education was proclaimed (CCCPC and the State Council,1999). On May 29, 2001, the State Council issued the RHD titled *The Decision of State Council on the Reform and Development of Basic Education* and officially proclaimed to carry out the system of three-level curriculum for basic education (State Council, 2001). Ten days later, the MOE was released *Compendium for Curriculum Reform,* in which the responsibilities of the MOE, the provincial education department and school to curriculum management was defined respectively (see Table 6.1).This is the first time since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 that the central government has substantively shared curriculum management power and responsibilities with local governments and schools (Zhong, et al., 2001, p.347; Li, 2010).




Note. MOE=Ministry of Education; PED=provincial education department.

Source: MOE,2001.

Eighteen years after the implementation of the three-level management policy, curriculum leadership at the local and school levels has been developed to a considerable extent. Because of the vast territory of each province and the large number of schools under the jurisdiction of the provincial education department, almost all provincial education departments tend to delegate parts of power and responsibility of curriculum management to the county education bureaus (CEBs) in rural areas and the district education bureaus (DEBs) in city areas. Thus, the curriculum leadership capacity of CEBs and DEBs has significantly developed and improved in recent years through their efforts to coordinate local resources, to provide school leaders and teachers with training programs, and to establish curriculum evaluation and incentive system (Han, 2014; Sun, 2019; He & Yue, 2019). the curriculum leadership capacity of school leaders, meanwhile, has developed in the practice of school curriculum management in past eighteen years. The curriculum leadership at school level will be discussed in detail in 6.2.9.

#### *6.2.9 Curriculum Leadership* [KE-CHENG-LING-DAO]

As noted above, the purpose and the objectives of curriculum reform set out by the CCR in 2001 triggered off a significant transformation of China¶s school education. However, the realization of the purpose and objectives depends largely on the influence of school leadership on school teaching practice. At classroom level, the intended objectives of curriculum reform may be altered and even ruined by the teachers without motivation to change their chalk and talk teaching format, or ³the teachers who have found the new curriculum difficult to handle when preparing their students to do well in public examinations´ (OECD, 2011, p.91). That is, ³educators jokingly describe the situation as follows: µHigh-sounding appeals to promote quality[-oriented] education, down-to-earth preparation for examinations¶´ (OECD, 2011, p.90). Furthermore, the MOE required schools that ³While implementing the national curriculum and local curriculum, schools should develop or select appropriate school-based curriculum in terms of the specific situation of local social and economic development, combining the school's traditions and preponderance, students' interests and needs.´ (MoE, 2001). For school principals, it was undoubtedly the unprecedented challenge for principal leadership. Yet, many principals, as the Chief Officer of Basic Education of Shandong Province pointing out, were not good at leading their schools to carry out the curriculum reform policy at the time because the principals in most schools had depended on, for a long time, the vice-principal in charge of curriculum and instruction to deal with routine instructional management affairs (Zhang, 2011). On the other hand, a deputy director of one of district education bureaus of Beijing revealed in 2008 based on the results of investigations regarding curriculum reform at schools level that the most teachers could neither fully understand new curriculum standards nor handle classroom instruction well in accordance with the requirements of curriculum reform (Ye, 2008). Obviously, both the provincial chief officer of education and the leader of a district education bureau from the capital city, Beijing suggested that it is necessary for curriculum reform at school level to develop principal¶V curriculum leadership capacity. Thus, in the years following the beginning of the curriculum reform in 2001, *Curriculum Leadership* as a term was emerging. Shanghai, compared with other provinces and municipalities, was the first city to draw up clear roadmap for *Curriculum Leadership* development. In 2007, the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (SMEC) set out three paths simultaneously to aim at enhancing principal¶V *Curriculum Leadership* within three years. The first path was to improve the principal¶s capacity of curriculum planning by requiring all schools to develop school-based curriculum plan. It was proposed that the curriculum plan might consist of school vision, school tradition, curriculum expectations of students and parents, curriculum objectives, curriculum structure, curriculum implementation and management, curriculum evaluation, curriculum resources, and mechanism of quality assurance (Yin, 2010; Zhang, 2018). Through curriculum planning, principals would learn how to keep linking central government intention in curriculum reform with school characteristics and specific needs of students and parents, so as to ensure that the general purpose of curriculum reform would be coupled with the school-based curriculum reform objectives. The second path was to enhance SULQFLSDO¶V FDSDFLW\ RI FXUULFXOXP LPSOHPHQWDWLRQ E\ UHTXLULQJ SULQFLSDOV WR ZRUN ZLWK RWKHU members of school leadership team, middle managers and backbone teachers to translate the national curriculum standards into a range of subject-based specific criteria for classroom instruction and other learning activities, so as to put the school-based curriculum plan into practice (Yin, 2010). 7KH WKLUG SDWK ZDV WR GHYHORS SULQFLSDO¶V FDSDFLW\ WR FRRUGLQDWH VFKRRO-based research by requiring principals to construct learning organization and to encourage teachers to engage in the school as well as subject-based scientific research, so as to solve the problems and to address the challenges emerged in the practice of curriculum reform as far as possible (Yin, 2010; WE, 2015). The SMEC published in 2010 a three-year action plan for *Curriculum Leadership* improvement subsequent to the ³three paths´ of enhancing principal¶V *Curriculum Leadership* proposed in 2007. It was actually another three-year project to further enhance principal¶V *Curriculum Leadership*, in which over 50 district-wide or school-wide pilot programs were exercised. Secondly, the content of the term *Curriculum Leadership* was further expanded in this official document of SMEC in 2010. For example, it was called on in this action plan to create the culture which fostered curriculum reform (SMEC, 2010). Subsequently, the National Center for School Curriculum and Textbook Development (NCSCTD) made a special trip to Shanghai to

conduct an in-depth study on the pilot programs of *Curriculum Leadership* in Shanghai since policy and practical exploration of *Curriculum Leadership* strengthening and improvement in Shanghai had received considerable repercussions across the country. In 2013, the NCSCTD set up six pilot zones of *Curriculum Leadership* exploration in which thousands of schools involved (WE, 2015). Since then, the *Curriculum Leadership* as a term has been widely used in China¶s school leadership practice. However, given *Curriculum Leadership* as a term in China¶s context arises from practice and there is not a clearly defined definition, the practices in different provinces and cities lead to different definitions, which can be slightly confusing for international researchers. By reviewing a variety of different definitions, the term *Curriculum Leadership*, broadly speaking, encompasses a range of functions of curriculum planning, school-based curriculum development, curriculum resources allocation, curriculum implementation and management, curriculum evaluation, research team building for curriculum reform and creation of the culture fostering curriculum improvement (Zhang, 2011; Chen, 2013; Liu, 2014; Wei, 2015; Gao & Tan, 2016; Li & Zhou, 2018). On the other hand, *Curriculum Leadership* as an area of leadership practice, which has been on-going development. One of recent developments is that the distributed perspective is introduced into the practice of *Curriculum Leadership*. It is recognized that *Curriculum Leadership* is not an exclusive role of the principal, or other members of school leadership team. Rather, *Curriculum Leadership* is probably best conceived as a set of functions which must be carried out by both school leaders as well as teachers (Ding, 2015; Zhang, 2018; Cao, 2018). Nevertheless, challenges are emerging in the practice of *Curriculum Leadership* in China, which are identified as unbalanced development of *Curriculum Leadership* between coastal cities and inland of China (Gao & Tan, 2016; Yang, 2016), unbalanced performance in different functions of *Curriculum Leadership* (Zhu, et al, 2017), the school-based action of curriculum reform, in some cases, exclusively reflects the principal's personal preference rather than students' real needs (Wei, 2015), and the research methodology concerning *curriculum leadership* is not sophisticated (Chen & Liu, 2018).

#### *6.2.10 School-Based Research Management* [XIAO-BEN-KE-YAN-GUAN-LI]

*School-Based Scientific Research Management* [XIAO-BEN-KE-YAN-GUAN-LI] is an assembled term, which is gradually developed from the practice of China's school education after the curriculum reform launched in 2001.

Although the Central Institute of Education Sciences (renamed National Institute of Education Sciences in 2011) had been set up in 1957 by Chinese central government, it was not until the early 1980s that China's education practitioners got chance to have access to the term *educational research*. For China's education practitioners, the significance and the promising future of *educational research* were initially discussed in the late years of 1970s in Shanghai by a group of school teachers who were all with the personal interest in *educational research* and got together voluntarily to discuss research issues regularly. Interestingly, among these teachers who were keen to promote educational research at grass-root level, most of them were actually amateurs (even laymen) in *educational research*. With their enthusiastic and persistent lobbying, they finally persuaded the leadership of Xuhui District Education Bureau of Shanghai to set up in September 1978 a formal team of *educational research* which is said the first official unit of *educational research* at local level (Feng, 2005, p.1). Four years later, Shanghai Institute of Educational Sciences (renamed Shanghai Academy of Educational Sciences in 1995) was set up as one of the earliest provincial institutions of *educational research* in the People's Republic of China. By October 1982 (that was the time when Shanghai Institute of Educational Sciences was founded), *educational research* in Shanghai had gone through a process from "individual educators' interest" and "voluntary following years, provincial and district/county-level institutions of educational research were established one another throughout the country. The primary role of institutions of educational research at the time was to disseminate the knowledge of scientific research by training programs and to introduce the research progress in education sector through relevant publications. Since then, the term *educational research* has gradually been widely used by China's school educators. In 1984, the founding director of Shanghai Institute of Educational Sciences argued at a conference that the research themes of *educational research* conducted by local research institutions and primary and secondary schools should mainly focused on practical issues at schools rather than the themes of theoretical research. "We should identify research themes from the problems in school practice that need to be studied and solved urgently" he proposed (Feng, 2005, p.16). His view was widely accepted at the time and reinforced later in curriculum reform after 2001(Xing, 2000; Liu, 2004; Zhou, 2005; Chen, 2009). A high school principal even asserted that the problems that arisen in the course of school-based curriculum reform were, of course, the research themes of the school, and the solutions to them would be based on the *educational research* conducted at school (Huang, 2018). Perhaps, that's why nowadays school leaders and teachers prefer using the term *school-based research* to using the term *educational research.* group of amateurs" to "institutionalized practice". In the

With the curriculum reform gradually gaining ground after 2001, China's local authorities and school leaders recognized that it was imperative to foster the *scientific research* ability of teachers because the implementation of curriculum reform would not solely rely on the teaching-study convention, but should step up efforts to build a *school-based scientific research* team to energize their schools (Liu, 2002; Fang, 2004). The *scientific research* here refers to the research highlighted by the data-based and evidence-based methodology because there has been an emerging consensus in last ten years that the complex task of school-based curriculum reform needs the support from empirical research (Liu,2017; Chen & Liu, 2018). Thus, the term *school-based research* has been recently replaced by *school-based scientific research*.

In another development, the recognition of the significance of *scientific research* became one of the driving forces to promote principals to consider how to ensure the research in their school to be exercised "scientifically" by establishment of a specialized office to manage school-based research projects. Consequently, the term *school-based scientific research management* was naturally accepted by principals. This development has yielded a prevalent trend that more and more schools have tended to establish the Office for Scientific Research & Teacher Development (OSR&TD) over past nineteen years since the launch of curriculum reform. The OSR&TD as one of middle management of a school performs management functions concerning school-based research and takes responsibility in improving teachers' knowledge and skills on scientific research by relevant training programs. More specifically, the OSR&TD usually fulfill the following roles (Wu, Feng, &Wei, 2008, p.258):

ЬTo assist school leadership to identify emerged as well as emerging challenges in implementation of curriculum reform, and to prepare consultation paper for leadership decision making when necessary.

ЬTo deliver scientific research knowledge to teachers by teacher training.

ЬTo develop school scientific research plan in terms of leadership decision, and coordinate teachers to apply for the research projects at school, district and provincial levels.

ЬTo supervise the progress of granted projects and the condition of funds usage.

ЬTo organize an expert meeting for project appraisal upon completion of each project.

ЬTo release newsletters of school scientific research regularly.

ЬTo be responsible for collection and filing of school research data.

Now that the OSR&TD has been set up at a school, what role should the principal play in the management of school-based scientific research? In terms of successful cases, the roles of the principal in *school-based scientific research management* basically include (Xing, 2000; Wu, Feng and Wei, 2008, p. 261),

•To aware of the value of *school-based scientific research* to the development of schools and to see it as one of the priorities of school leadership.

•To make decision on the orientation and purposes of *school-based scientific research* and to guide the process of the school research planning.

•To establish an effective management agency (e.g. the OSR&TD) of *school-based scientific research*.

•To provide incentives for teachers to be research educators.

•To create a school climate that can foster the *school-based scientific research*.

#### **6.3 Summary and Discussion**

After the key terms revolved around instructional leadership are explored and interpreted in this chapter, the features of the instructional leadership in China's context have risen to the surface. For instance, there is a three-tier *Teaching-Study System* at provincial, district/county and school level. The subject-based *Teaching-Study Specialists* from district/county teaching-study office closely work with the *Teaching-Study Group* as well as the *Lesson Preparation Group* at schools to provide district/county wide schools with technical support on daily basis. Not surprisingly, one of the dimensions of instructional leadership in China's context is to coordinate and to make best use of external professional human resource to maximize school effectiveness in teaching and learning and, at the same time, to improve the professional quality of teachers. A second instance is that the unique teaching-study convention and format (e.g. *Five-Link-Cycle of Teaching*, *Collective Lesson Preparation*, *Classroom Observation and Commentary*, etc.) are highly valued in China's school context. Moreover, one of the beliefs underpinning the convention and format is that successful instructional leadership must be based on the solid teaching-study in which the principal personally involves. So, it is hard to imagine that a principal who is ignorant of classroom instruction being respected by teachers. By the same token, it is hard to imagine that a principal exercises instructional leadership well without maintaining high visibility at the work place of teaching-study activities.

Apart from the terms around instructional leadership, we also examined a set of terms regarding the curriculum reform, through which the status quo of *Curriculum Leadership* in China's context has been presented. There is no doubt that the curriculum reform in China has made great achievements since the reform was launched in 2001. Concomitantly, the curriculum reform has also brought some challenges to school leadership. The biggest challenge for *Curriculum Leadership* in many schools is the standards of the national curriculum are not flexible. Although the curriculum system consists of national, local and school curricula, the high-stakes testing subjects (e.g. Chinese language and literature, Mathematics, Foreign Languages) are all categorized into the domain of national curriculum. China is a country with a large population of school-age children. According to the statistics in 2017, there were 186 million students and 12 million teachers (non-teaching staff not included) at two hundred and fifty thousand primary and secondary schools distributed in different parts of the country under different economic levels of development (MoE, 2017). As many high performing teachers choose to move to the schools in coastal cities, it is hard for teachers in small towns and rural areas of mainland China to fully change their teaching approaches in accordance with the new requirements of curriculum reform because they lack the capacity to ensure their students' test scores to be higher enough in high-stakes test if they abandon the traditional teaching methods they have been familiar with. This situation has resulted in the problems in the practice of *Curriculum Leadership* in China, which are identified as unbalanced development of *Curriculum Leadership* between coastal cities and inland of China (Gao & Tan, 2016; Yang, 2016). Secondly, teacher workloads have excessively increased accompanied with the progress of curriculum reform. With the implementation of curriculum reform, the requirements and expectations for the role of a teacher are accruing. In traditional Chinese culture, the primary responsibility of a teacher is not only to teach students the knowledge and skills of subjects but also to guide the process of socialization for students. Therefore, the term "educator" is quite different from "instructor" in the Chinese cultural context because an "educator" is not only an "instructor" but also a "moral guide." If a teacher only acts as an "instructor," he or she will be seen as an unqualified teacher. In this sense, when the question of "who is a qualified teacher?" is raised, the traditional answer is very simple: A qualified teacher is an educator. Recently, the answer has changed to "not only an educator but also a learner" because for teachers in the era of curriculum reform, they have too much new knowledge to learn. Even more recently the answer has become "an educator, learner, innovator, facilitator, researcher…." Consequently, teacher workloads have been rapidly increasing with the endless requirements and expectations from the reform. This raises serious questions for school

leadership: What is the peak load for a teacher? Will a number of teachers collapse or even burnout some day? Can a fatigued teacher work well? Will the intended new teaching approach required by curriculum reform be altered and even ruined by a fatigued teacher in classroom instruction? Such questions still remain to be answered though some principals are aware of this challenge and are trying to take measures to deal with it. (Feng, 2003; Feng, 2007; Li, 2009; Wang, 2017).

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# **Chapter 7**

# **Optimizing Internal Management**

#### **7.1 Introduction**

As one of school leadership key practices, the "optimizing internal management" was initially set out by *The Professional Standards for Principals of Compulsory Education Schools* (MOE, 2013a) and *The Professional Standards for Principals of Senior High Schools* (MOE, 2015), and was more specifically described in the *Management Standards for Compulsory Education Schools* (MOE, 2017). According to above-mentioned RHDs, this leadership key practice consists of two prongs of requirements for school internal management. One requires the principal and leadership team to establish a set of internal policies, processes, and procedures to ensure that schools rigorously follow the statutory and government provisions concerning creating beautiful and safe school and securing student wellbeing. The other requires the principal and leadership team to exercise leadership in accordance with the key principle and work style of leadership upheld by the Communist Party of China (CPC). Given the statutory and government provisions about the first prong are rigid and inflexible, there is not much difference between schools in carrying out these provisions. It is no exaggeration to say that one can have a fair idea of the first prong of requirements for China's school internal management by understanding the terms *Management Standards for Compulsory Education Schools* [YI-WU-JIAO-YU-XUE-XIAO-GUAN-LI-BIAO-ZHUN], *Standards for School Construction* [XUE-XIAO-JIAN-SHE-BIAO-ZHUN] and *School Safety Management* [XUE-XIAO-AN-QUAN-GUAN-LI] in China's policy context. The second prong of requirements for school internal management can be associated with the routine management system in schools, in which the CPC's leadership principle of *Democratic Centralism* [MIN-ZHU-JI-ZHONG-ZHI] and work style of *Criticism and Self-Criticism* [PI-PING-YU-ZI-WO-PI-PING] are embedded. As noted in Chapter1, the CPC's leadership principles and work styles have had far-reaching impact on school leadership and management in the past seven decades since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. In this respect, it seems necessary to explore the term *Democratic Centralism and other relevant terms at first if one needs to fully understand the second prong of* requirements for school internal management. With this in mind, the author decided,

based on broaden literature review, to explore another five terms regarding "school internal management", which are most frequently used both in Chinese government policy documents and in school leadership practice. These terms are *Democratic Centralism*, *Criticism and Self-Criticism*, *Democratic Meeting* [MIN-ZHU-SHENG-HUO-HUI], *Routine Management System* [CHANG-GUI-GUAN-LI-ZHI-DU] and *Transparency in School Management* [XIAO-WU-GONG-KAI].

#### **7.2 Key Terms**

# *7.2.1 Management Standards for Compulsory Education Schools*  **[**YI-WU-JIAO-YU-XUE-XIAO-GUAN-LI-BIAO-ZHUN]

*Management Standards for Compulsory Education Schools* [YI-WU-JIAO-YU-XUE-XIAO-GUAN-LI-BIAO-ZHUN] is an overall and systematic rules and criteria on school management set by Chinese government for all primary and junior secondary schools (known as nine-year compulsory education schools), in which the fundamental beliefs and values, general goals and ends, essential principles and specific requirements are defined (Xu, 2015; Zhu, 2018).

In China, the nine-year compulsory education system was stipulated by the *Compulsory Education Law of the People's Republic of China* in 1986. According to the law, the nine-year compulsory education covers six-year primary education and three-year junior secondary education (as an exception, Shanghai's nine-year compulsory education refers to five-year primary education and four-year junior secondary education), which is completely free universal education for Chinese children aged 6 to 15(National People's Congress, 1986). By the end of 2011, all provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the central government) had passed the evaluation of compulsory education conducted by the Office of National Education Inspection. It means that China has basically achieved nine-year compulsory education throughout the country. However, as the State Council pointed out in 2012 in its RHD titled *State Council's Opinions on Promoting the Balanced Development of Compulsory Education*, "there are still obvious quality gaps in school education and management among regions (east, middle and west China), urban and rural areas and schools. The contradiction between the increasing demand for high-quality education and the insufficient supply of high-quality education remains prominent." (State Council, 2012a) On the other hand, a national inspection report on compulsory education revealed

that by the end of 2016, 62.4% of counties/districts of the country had passed the evaluation of "approximately balanced development of compulsory education" whereas the compulsory education in 37.6% counties/districts still remained the condition of unbalanced development (ONEI, 2016). Moreover, the ratios of passing and failing to pass the evaluation between east, middle and west China were also "unbalanced" (see Figure 7.1). To promote the nation-wide balanced development of compulsory education, the State Council called for the establishment of a national standard for compulsory education schools' operation (State Council, 2012).

Source: Office of National Education Inspection (ONEI). (2016). *Report on the inspection and evaluation of the balanced development of compulsory education in 2016*.

In December 2017, the MOE officially published the *Management Standards for Compulsory Education Schools* and demanded all compulsory education schools to achieve conformity to the standards (MOE, 2017). The standards are composed by six management dimensions, twenty-two tasks and eighty-eight responsibilities, in which part of the tasks and responsibilities of dimension 5 and dimension 6 are closely related to the theme "optimizing internal management". In a sense, the internal management of a school will be optimized if these tasks and responsibilities are well fulfilled (Sun, 2018; Ou,2018; Xu, 2018).

**Table 7.1 dimensions and tasks of the** *Management Standards for Compulsory Education* 

#### *Schools*

#### **Dimension 1. Ensuring equal access**

#### *Tasks:*


#### **Dimension 2. Fostering student all-round development**

#### *Tasks:*


#### **Dimension 3. Leading teacher development**

#### *Tasks:*

•Strengthening the management of teachers and the construction of teacher ethics.

•Improving teachers' ability in teaching and educating.

•Developing a support system for teacher development.

#### **Dimension 4. Building up higher standards for education and instruction**

#### *Tasks:*


#### **Dimension 5. Creating a harmonious and beautiful environment**

#### *Tasks:*


• Creating a positive school culture.

#### **Dimension 6. Construction of a modern management system**

#### *Tasks:*


Source: the MOE (2017). *Circular of the Ministry of Education on the publication of the "Standards* for *management in compulsory education schools"*

#### *7.2.2 Standards for School Construction* [XUE-XIAO-JIAN-SHE-BIAO-ZHUN]

The *standards for school construction* [XUE-XIAO-JIAN-SHE-BIAO-ZHUN] refers to the State-set mandatory criteria and technical specifications for the construction of school architecture and other infrastructure, which applies to any new construction, expansion and reconstruction projects of regular primary and secondary schools19 in China. As far as setting standards for school construction are concerned, China is perhaps much later than Western developed countries. In the first forty-eight years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were no standards for school construction. According to relevant literature, a large number of school houses were rude and shabby when the founding of the new Republic in 1949 (Gao and He, 2015). The statistics in 1956 showed that only 38% of schools were operating in qualified and quality school buildings or school houses in Shanghai. Most of these schools were former mission schools, Christian-founded modern schools and colonial schools which distributed in British, American, French, Japanese colonial settlements in Shanghai, and the traditional Chinese academies for the children from Chinese noble families. The rest of 62% schools were operation in the architectures of former local business office buildings, guild halls, warehouses, resident apartments and even abandoned temples and churches (Liu, 2002, p.5). Functionally, it was so hard for these industrial, domestic and religious architectures to meet necessary needs of school education, and there were a lot of challenges in lighting, ventilation, sound insulation, fire prevention, evacuation and so on (Liu, 2002, p.6). It was the real picture of school architecture in Shanghai known as the most

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developed city in China in 1950s. In the following twenty years, the overall condition of school buildings in China was worse than in the 1950s, because there were not sufficient funds to support new constructional projects of school architecture and infrastructure (Liu, 2002, p.65). One of the evidences of the poor condition of school buildings in China at the time was a request report of the MOE for State Council's instruction in 1981 titled *The Request Report of the Ministry of Education on Solving the Problem of Serious Casualties Continuously Occurring Because of the Accidents of Collapse of Dilapidated and*'*angerous Building/houses in Primary and Secondary Schools*. The request report disclosed that there were a large number of dilapidated andGangerous houses out of repair in existing school architectures, and casualties often occurred. If the central government did not require local governments to take resolute and effective measures in time, the personal safety of teachers and students was not guaranteed. The MOE suggested in the request report that local governments spend two or three years or a little longer to ensure that all schools are safe, all classes have their classrooms and all students have their desks and benches so as to ensure that classroom instruction in all schools can be normally conducted (State Council,1981). Apparently, there was no way for Chinese government to take into account the issue of the standards for school construction since the aim of the MOE at the time was just to ensure that "no more people will be killed [in the accident of school buildings/houses collapse], so as to reassure students, parents, teachers and school leaders after 1981." (State Council,1981). However, with the rapid growth of China's economy in 1990s, new construction, expansion and reconstruction projects of primary and secondary schools have greatly increased across the country. During 1996 to1999, for instance, eleven high-spec boarding schools was built in Shanghai, most of which occupied more than 10 hectares, and the largest campus occupied over 18 hectares (Liu, 2002, p.97). Nevertheless, in rural and remote areas, it was almost impossible to build such high-spec schools in 1990s. In order to avoid the imbalance in the construction of urban and rural schools, the State Education Commission (renamed the Ministry Education in 1998) developed and issued in 1997 the first standards for school construction in China, *Standards for the Construction of Rural Regular Primary and Secondary Schools (for Trial Implementation)*. After 10 years of trial implementation, the MOE officially issued the *Standards for the Construction of Rural Primary and Secondary Schools* in 2008. Given the constructional standards for city schools, particularly for the schools in the metropolises is usually higher than

that for rural schools (cf. MOE, 2002a; SMEC, 2004), the *Standards for the Construction of Rural Regular Primary and Secondary Schools* can be regarded as the State-set technical base line of school construction in China, through which one can see China's school leaders are fulfilling their function of "optimizing internal management" with what campus infrastructure. With this in mind, the author lists the State-set mandatory requirements for the construction of regular rural *standards for* in China. primary schools in Table 7.2 and 7.3 in order that readers can get a glimpse of the *school construction*





Source: the MOE. (2008). *Standards for the construction of rural regular primary and secondary schools*. Beijing:

China Planning Press. p.15.




Note: labor education site, bike parking lot and dormitory are not included in this table.

Source: the MOE. (2008). *Standards for the construction of rural regular primary and secondary schools*. Beijing: China Planning Press. p.33.

#### *7.2.3 School safety management* >XUE-XIAO-AN-QUAN-GUAN-LI]

*School Safety Management* >XUE-XIAO-AN-QUAN-GUAN-LI] is one of key aspects of school internal management in China, which encompasses the school leadership efforts in protection, response and recovery of school violence and bullying incidents, school bus transportation accidents, athletic injury accidents, food hygiene accidents, fire accidents, personnel injury accidents in school-organized events(e.g. student spring excursions), student wrongful deaths, violent assaults from outsiders, and other on campus crisis incidents. For decades, it has been one of essential requirements set by relevant laws and policies for school education in China to provide a safe, secure and peaceful school setting for all students. For instance, the Article 24 of the *Compulsory Education Law of the People's Republic of China (the first edition)*stipulates that " [A] school shall establish a sound safety system and emergency response mechanism, offer its students safety education, intensify the management and eliminate the potential risks in a timely manner so as to prevent the occurrence of accidents" (National People's Congress, 1986). Given the primary and secondary schools in China have traditionally had fences and the access control

system, the challenges for school safety were not salient until the 1990s. With the increase of social mobility and the complexity of social security in 1990s, multi-hazard emergencies and a variety of safety challenges for schools were gradually increased. Consequently, the condition of school safety became one of the issues highly concerned by the society (Lin, 2011). Former Chinese Minister of Education, Yuan Guiren once admitted frankly at a meeting of Educational Sector of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), "[If] you ask me, what's the biggest pressure on the Ministry of Education right now, I'll tell you, it's [school]security" (Zhao, 2016). Several surveys regarding the status quo of school safety showed that most school safety accidents were closely related to the unsatisfactory condition of *School Safety Management*. Such as the defects in school security system, insufficient security equipment, unqualified security staff, without necessary security training for teachers and students, lacking of security and threat assessments and so on (Shen, et al., 2009; Li, 2015; Rao, 2017). With regard to the improvement of *School Safety Management*, dozens of central government RHDs relating to *School Safety Management* have been released since 2000 (Lin, 2014), in which nine of them have had a high impact on the practice of *School Safety Management* (see Table 7.4). These RHDs require, in terms of various aspects of *School Safety Management*, schools to provide all students with a physically and psychologically secure learning environment and school setting by improving the practice of safety management (MOE, 2002b, 2002c, 2006, 2013b; MOE and MoH, 2002; State Council, 2007, 2012b; CTSMC, MOPS and MOE, 2010; MOPS and MOE, 2015; MOE, CTSMC, SPC, SPP, MOPS, MOCA, MOJ, CCCYL and ACWF, 2016 ). Based on review of the policies and regulations of the Chinese government on *School Safety Management* in recent years, three key characteristics can be identified. First, school principals are regarded as chief responsible person of school safety. On the one hand, the role of "the chief responsible person" imposed to the post of principal brings high stress on principals. On the other hand, it also facilitates principals make efforts to improve safety management in their schools. In fact, nowadays in China, a number of principals are collaboratively working with school staff, students, parents as well as other school stakeholders in school safety, and working on crisis preparedness planning, detailed risk-reduction measures, regular safety drill and training, building school-based incident command system and crisis team, and other proactive strategies and practical measures to ensure their school environments remain safe and secure (Yang, 2012; Li, 2016; Sun, 2018). Second, the focus of government policies concerning school safety over a period of time is often closely related to emerging school safety incidents highly concerned by society. For instance, the school bullying and violence incidents have been recently highlighted in China because the video clips about the bullying or violence between students of primary and secondary schools have been exposed by social media one after another. Forty-three serious bullying incidents were revealed by

social media and mass media between 2014 and 2015, in which some victims were beaten to death or committed suicide (Zhao, 2016; Yao, 2017). These high-profile school bullying and violence incidents shocked the government and society. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang repeatedly expressed concern about bullying and violence in schools on various occasions in 2016. Consequently, the *Guiding principles on preventing the violence and bullying among primary and secondary school students by the Ministry of Education and other nine State institutions* was published in the same year (Wang, 2017; Yao, 2017). Third, in terms of policy and practice in China's *School Safety Management*, more attention has been paid to the "prevention" of school safety accidents than to the "response to" and "recovery from" the school safety accidents. One of typical cases is what Zhu Zhiwen (the Vice Minister of Education in charge of primary and secondary school education) emphasized that "safety first, prevention first" when he talked about school safety at a national conference concerning the *Management Standards for Compulsory Education Schools* (Zhu, 2018). Indeed, the "prevention" ought to be the "first priority" in the *School Safety Management* compared with "response" and "recovery". Nevertheless, good safety management needs to simultaneously take into account the prevention, response and recovery since the complete chain of *School Safety Management* is composed by these three ones. Perhaps it is one of very meaningful research themes of *School Safety Management* in China in the future.





 violence incidents according to law and regulations. • Pooling up the resource from school, parents, local authorities, and wider community to collaboratively prevent the bullying and violence among students.

Note: ACWF=All China Women's Federation; CCCYL=Central Committee of the Communist Youth League; OCTSMC=Office of Comprehensive Treatment of Social Management Committee; MOCA=Ministry of Civil Affairs; MOE= Ministry of Education; MoJ=Ministry of Justice; MoPS= Ministry of Public Security; SPC=Supreme People's Court; SPP=Supreme People's Procuratorate.

#### *7.2.4 Democratic Centralism* [MIN-ZHU-JI-ZHONG-ZHI]

*Democratic Centralism* [MIN-ZHU-JI-ZHONG-ZHI] is one of key principles underpinning leadership practice of CPC. *Democratic Centralism* does not a simple combination of "democracy" and "centralism", but rather, it emphasizes on the interdependent, inter-restrictive and reciprocal relationship between them (Zhang, 2018; Li and Wang, 2018). Since the CPC has been the ruling party in China for the past 70 years, inevitably, the *Democratic Centralism* has been embedded into the school leadership system and the practice of school internal management. The typical case of using *Democratic Centralism* in school leadership and management is the four basic norms of the decision-making for school major issues. The first norm is called *collective leadership* [JI-TI-LING-DAO] which means that any school major issues must be decided by the leadership team rather than by one member of the team. The second norm is *democratic centrality* [MIN-ZHU-JI-ZHONG] which means that before the decision-making on school major issues, possible alternatives must be fully discussed at a meeting by the leadership team and then summarized by the head of the team (usually, the school principal) to focus on one or two feasible options. The third one is *individual consultation* [GE-BIE-YUN-NIANG] which means that the head of the leadership team canvasses for views of leadership team members individually on what option is the best one the process of after the *democratic centrality*. The fourth norm is *decision by meeting* [HUI-YI-JUE-DING]. It is that after the steps of *democratic centrality* and *individual consultation*, the decision concerning a school major issue must be finally made, based on the

proposal prepared by the head of the leadership team, by voting through all members of the leadership team at the *School Affairs Meeting* [XIAO-WU-HUI-YI] (ODSMPC, 2010). As the head of leadership team and the chairperson of the *School Affairs Meeting*, the principal still plays a chief role in the school decision-making under the four norms of *democratic centralism* anyway. Of course, a good principal under *democratic centralism* should be a leader who not only fully promotes democracy, but also is good at centralization and unification (Zhang, 2018).

What is the correlation between *democratic centralism* and school performance? So far, there has been little sophisticated empirical studies on this theme. However, the information drawn from some surveys of school staff may provide useful reference about the theme. For example, the result of a school staff survey covering 300 primary and secondary schools in eight districts of Beijing showed that 94.72% of the respondents believed that "it is necessary for school principals to carry out the principle of *democratic centralism* [in leadership practice]" (REDBMEC,1997). It largely means that the majority of Chinese educators acknowledge the legitimacy of *democratic centralism* in school education context. The result of the survey conducted in Beijing also revealed that the schools with good implementation of *democratic centralism* have a variety of mature rules and procedures of decision-making, and the performance of these schools usually higher than that of others (REDBMEC,1997). It suggests that the *democratic centralism* is likely to have some positive effects on school performance.

#### *7.2.5 Criticism and Self-Criticism* [PI-PING-YU-ZI-WO-PI-PING]

*Criticism and Self-Criticism* [PI-PING-YU-ZI-WO-PI-PING]is regarded, in China's leadership context, as one of key methods to adjust the relations between members of an organization, resolve the contradictions within the organization and improve the performance of individual members as well as whole organization. It was created by late Chinese supreme leader Mao Zedong (formerly spelt as Mao Tse-Tung) during the time of Chinese revolutionary war and has been advocated by the CPC over past 80 years (Han, 2007).In some other contexts, it is also viewed as a cherished tradition or unique work style of the hallmark distinguishing the CPC from all other political parties in the world (Zhou and Li, 2018; Hu, 2018; Liu, 2018).

Mao Zedong put forward in the *Resolution of Gutian Conference* in 1929 that the "criticism" within the Party was the means to strengthen the Party's organization and increase its fighting capability. He also proposed in the *Resolution* that critics should not use criticism as a weapon to

attack others, nor should criticized persons be allowed to treat critics with a retaliatory attitude (Han, 2007). It could be the first time that the use of *criticism* was described and explained in an official document of the CPC. In 1935, at the Zunyi Conference, one of the most significant meeting in CPC's history, a part of senior CPC leaders criticized the previous wrong leadership policy of the Party and took the initiative to admit the personal fault in it. It could be the first practical case within the Party that the *criticism* was linked with the *self-criticism* (Hu, 2018). In 1937, Mao Zedong elaborated the term *criticism and self-criticism* in his paper *On Contradictions*, and argued that contradictions within the Party should be solved by means of *criticism and self-criticism* (Mao, 1991, p. 311). In 1945, the *criticism and self-criticism* was officially named as one of the three work styles of the CPC at the 7th National Congress of the CPC, and Mao argued the significance of the *criticism and self-criticism* at the Congress, "Conscientious practice of self-criticism is still another hallmark distinguishing our Party from all other political parties. As we say, dust will accumulate if a room is not cleaned regularly, our faces will get dirty if they are not washed regularly. Our comrades' minds and our Party's work may also collect dust, and also need sweeping and washing. The proverb 'Running water is never stale and a door-hinge is never worm-eaten' means that constant motion prevents the inroads of germs and other organisms. To check up regularly on our work and in the process develop a democratic style of work, to fear neither criticism nor self-criticism, and to apply such good popular Chinese maxims as 'Say all you know and say it without reserve', 'Blame not the speaker but be warned by his words' and 'Correct mistakes if you have committed them and guard against them if you have not'üthis is the only effective way to prevent all kinds of political dust and germs from contaminating the minds of our comrades and the body of our Party. " (Mao,1966, pp. 259-260). For more than seventy years since 1945, *criticism and self-criticism* has been one of the work styles advocated by the CPC. Particularly, after the founding of People's Republic of China in 1949, a general consensus has gradually emerged in all walks of life in China that the *criticism and self-criticism* is one of the helpful ways to improve leadership and management performance. In the current practice of school leadership, *criticism and self-criticism* is most commonly used for collective reflection of leadership team and individual reflection of team members, particularly for the reflection of the head of leadership team (the principal), in order to continuously improve leadership performance. In practice, the *criticism and self-criticism* between the members of

school leadership team specifically exercises through the way of the *democratic meeting*.

#### *7.2.6 Democratic Meeting* [MIN-ZHU-SHENG-HUO-HUI]

*Democratic Meeting* [MIN-ZHU-SHENG-HUO-HUI] is a special meeting attended by members of a leadership team, through which the *criticism and self-criticism* between leadership team members is exercised. The *democratic meeting* is usually held every six months (at the end of semester), but it can also be held at any time in terms of actual needs. According to the rule of the *democratic meeting*, the meeting should be accordance with following procedure (CCCPC,2016):

gBefore the *democratic meeting,* the meeting attendees (leadership team members) should extensively collect opinions on leadership team from school staff and make heart to heart talk between attendees to share ideas and perspectives on leadership performance.

gAt the *democratic meeting*, the meeting attendees should carefully identify the defects and drawbacks in leadership practice in the past, profoundly analyze the subjective and objective reasons and clearly define the focal issues to be improved, and should take pertinent measures.

gAfter the *democratic meeting*, the meeting attendees should proactively take action to address the challenges resulting from the identified defects and drawbacks and improve leadership performance.

For the attendees of the *democratic meeting*, four basic principles for the *criticism and self-criticism* at the *democratic meeting* are usually required to follow. Firstly, the *criticism and self-criticism* should be proceeding from the fundamental interests of the public. As Mao Zedong said, "If we have shortcomings, we are not afraid to have them pointed out and criticized, because we serve the people. Anyone, no matter who may point out our shortcomings. If he is right, we will correct them. If what he proposes will benefit the people, we will act upon it." (Mao, 1966, p.265) This well-known quotation in Mao's article *Serve the People* written in 1944 has been repeated countless times at the *democratic meetings* of leadership at all levels in all walks of life in China since the CPC came into power and became the ruling party of China in 1949. Secondly, the *criticism and self-criticism* at the *democratic meeting* should follow the principle of *seeking truth from facts* [SHI-SHI-QIU-SHI]. Chinese President Xi Jinping elaborated the principle in 2013 as, "Criticism should be based on public good, sincere attitude and appropriate ways. It should seek truth from facts, distinguish right from wrong, and distinguish between truth and falsehood. It should not treat people from the standpoint of personal grievances, gains and losses,

interests, and intimacy or alienation." (Xi, 2013). Thirdly, the criticism at the *democratic meeting* should be aimed at helping those criticized to improve their performance because one of the ends of the meeting is to make the leadership team more united in fulfilling leadership core missions (Liu, 2018). Finally, the head of a leadership team (e.g. the principal in a school leadership team) should take initiative role in *criticism and self-criticism* at the *democratic meeting*. Deng Xiaoping, late Chinese leader and chief designer of China's reform and opening-up policy in 1978 stressed in 1983, "all CPC members, no matter who they are or what posts they hold, should be prepare to criticize others and themselves" (Deng, 1993, p.38). Deng's this remark was actually aimed at senior officials of the CPC at the time. Since the attitudes and behavior of the head of a leadership team at the *democratic meeting* have exemplary effects on other members of the leadership team, it is crucial that the head of a leadership team to take initiative role in *criticism and self-criticism* at the *democratic meeting* (Zhang and Jia,1999; Chen, 2018).

#### *7.2.7 Routine Management System* [CHANG-GUI-GUAN-LI-ZHI-DU]

*Routine management system* [CHANG-GUI-GUAN-LI-ZHI-DU] refers to the school-set system for internal management to maintain school working order and day-to-day operation. Given the *routine management system* is one of three key systems in a common framework of China's school internal system (see Figure 7.2), it is regarded by Chinese school leadership practitioners as one of most fundamental preconditions to run a school successfully (Xu,1991; Xiao,1994, p.95). In the framework of school internal system, the school charter works as a school's constitution, the *job responsibility descriptions* respectively defines responsibilities for all posts of the school staff, the *job performance appraisal system* sets the performance appraisal criteria and procedure for all staff posts, while the *routine management system* sets rules and regulations for seven areas of routine management in a primary or secondary school. As shown in Figure 7.3, the routine management system covers the systems of transparency in management; school regular meetings, personnel management, the management of scientific research projects conducted by teachers, the management of moral and citizenship education for students, curriculum & instruction management, and the logistics management & ancillary services, in which the *transparency in school management*, in a sense, is one of the routine management systems with most distinguished characteristic of China (see Figure 7.3).

**Figure 7.2 a typical framework of school internal system**

**Figure 7.3 the typical structure of a school routine management system**

#### *7.2.8 Transparency in School Management* [XIAO-WU-GONG-KAI]

In China's school management context, the *Transparency in School Management* [XIAO-WU-GONG-KAI] is regarded as a type of democratic form in school routine management through which school staff, students, parents, and other stakeholders have the right and the means to have free and easy access to the school information about the decisions on school major issues (e.g. school strategic plan, enrollment policy, staff salary and benefit program, etc.) as well as the data on school budget, finance, audit and fees paid by parents except for the information of state secrets, personal privacy or endangering campus security. The key purposes of the *transparency in school management* are to create democratic management environment, encourage all school staff and other stakeholders being their commitment to school development and improvement by the way of participatory management, and hold school leadership accountable and fighting against possible corruption (Yin, 2006, p. 258; Luo, 2008; Cheng, et al., 2013).

Traditionally, there was little transparency in decision-making of China's schools. It was quite common in China's schools that decisions were made behind locked doors and the school staff and outsiders have fewer possibilities to have access to such information. However, with the increasing requirement of the Chinese government on the democratic management for schools and the rapid development in the use of the Internet, the expectations of school stakeholders for the transparency in school management have emerged since the late of 1990s. In 1999, National Education Trade Union (NETU), in its document titled *Opinions on exercising the transparency in school management*, called on exercising the transparent management in schools and required the trade unions at school level to proactively involve in the promotion of the transparency in school management (NETU,1999). The MOE and All-China Federation of Trade Union (ACFTU) required local education authorities in 2002 to take the *transparency in school management* as one of indicators in school evaluation (MOE and ACFTU, 2002). In the following years, local education authorities in China developed and released the local detailed measures to promote the policy document issued by the MOE and ACFTU in 2002. Consequently, the *transparency in school management* has gradually become one of basic requirements for school internal management in China. According to the government policies on *transparency in school management*, publicity of the information about school major decision-making, except for the information of state secrets, personal privacy or endangering campus security, should release not only about the results of decision-making but also about the process and procedure of decision-making. Moreover, schools must file and archive the minutes of decision-making meetings (Zhou, 2007; Cheng, et al., 2013). In practice, schools have created a variety of concrete measures to implement the policies on *transparency in school management* since 2002. Examples include establishing a steering group headed by the principal to lead the practice of *transparency in school management*, establishing a task group to develop specific school policy to ensure the implementation of transparency in school management, establishing a inspect group headed by the Chairman of School Trade Union, creating a special column on school web-site to release the information about decision-making, setting a bulletin board for the publicity of relevant information and data, setting a "suggestions & complaints box" to collect the feedback of the public opinions concerning school decisions, and so on (Cheng, et al.,2013; Yin, 2006, p. 260). Although there are various ways to convey the how and why information of a major decision of school, the most important way, at present in China, is the School Staff Congress anyway according to relevant policies (NETU,1999; MOE and ACFTU, 2002). The School Staff Congress is usually held twice a semester, listens to the principal's report and votes anonymously on major decisions. Apart from the School Staff Congress, some theme-specific hearings are usually held prior to the decision associated with stakeholders' interests, in which the representatives of staff, students, parents or other relevant stakeholders are invited to participate (Yin, 2006, p.100; Zhou, 2007).

#### **7.3 Summary and Discussion**

In this chapter, eight key terms revolving around school internal management in China were explored and interpreted, through which the government requirements and societal expectations for "optimizing internal management" would be understood. To interpret the term *Management Standards for Compulsory Education Schools*

[YI-WU-JIAO-YU-XUE-XIAO-GUAN-LI-BIAO-ZHUN], the author paraphrased the term and gave the definition of the term in China's school leadership context based on literature review, and analyzed the policy background and the government intention to develop and set the standards. Since part of dimensions in the framework of the standards (e.g. the dimension 5 and 6) are closely connected to school internal management, the standards can be viewed as the policy basis of "optimizing internal management" in China. The second term of this chapter is *standards for school construction* [XUE-XIAO-JIAN-SHE-BIAO-ZHUN]. Given China's construction standards for urban schools have been higher than those for rural schools thus far, it is helpful to understand the baseline of China's construction standards for schools through the State-set mandatory criteria and technical specifications for the construction of rural schools showed in Table 7.2 and 7.3, and to get a general profile that China's schools are operating in what physical environment. The fourth term *School Safety Management* [XUE-XIAO-AN-QUAN-GUAN-LI] is concerning one of key aspects of school internal management in China. Based on review of the policies and regulations of the Chinese government on *School Safety Management* in recent years, it can be found that the Chinese government's requirements for *School Safety Management* are gradually expanding to a broader range of content. For example, in the past, bullying prevention was not included in the scope of *School Safety Management*, and the discretion to deal with bullying was authorized to the class form teacher. But now the issue of preventing and addressing bullying has been included in the scope of safety management at school level. In terms of the status quo of *School Safety Management* in China, several challenges still remain to be addressed in the future. For instance, largely, the existing government policies and regulations on *School Safety Management* are developed and formulated on the basis of considering the urban school settings. In many cases, however, they may be not suitable for the settings of some rural schools since the settings of rural schools is more diversified than those of urban schools (Li, 2015). The

fourth and fifth terms explored in this chapter reflect the influence of the CPC, the ruling party over the past 70 years, on school leadership. The specific meaning of *democratic centralism* [MIN-ZHU-JI-ZHONG-ZHI] and its application in the practice of school internal management, especially in decision-making processes were examined. By doing so, the *democratic centralism* which has been regarded as a cherished tradition of the CPC is likely to be fully understood by outsiders. The *criticism and self-criticism* [PI-PING-YU-ZI-WO-PI-PING], as one of unique work styles of the CPC created by Mao Zedong nearly 90 years ago, is often used in school leadership practice as a strategy or a specific method used in leadership reflection and improvement. Over the past decades, some Western scholars have been interested in the term *criticism and self-criticism*, although they have not fully understood the exact meaning of the term in China's leadership context. For example, when he commented on the forms of "total quality management" (TQM) in 1994, American scholar Robert Joseph Thomas, the professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote,ĀTQM has been adopted in two distinctly different forms in U.S. industry. One form is consistent with the broad philosophy of its advocates and emphasizes continuous improvement and learning at both the individual and the organizational levels. Although advocates of this approach don't use these terms, their conception of TQM is one of unrelenting scrutiny, criticism, and improvement—a conception that is reminiscent of Mao's 'self-criticism' (cf. Mao Tse-Tung, 1976; Schurmann, 1970). The intent is to prevent the institutionalization and ossification of any organizational process. The other form involves aroutinization of TQM in narrow (and in some cases ridiculous) activities: for example, the tightening of quality standards without any change in or greater understanding of the processes that lead to quality problems; increased penalties for defects; and the application of both tighter standards and higher penalties to activities for which they have little apparent meaning or benefit (such as typing errors per page). In the first form, TQM techniques are intended to facilitate change; in the second form, they are used to prevent change" (Thomas, 1994, p. 209). However, if one would like to fully understand the term *criticism and self-criticism*, he also needs to understand the sixth term of this chapter, *democratic meeting*, because the *democratic meeting* is a typical platform for leadership reflection in China, through which the *criticism and self-criticism* is usually exercised. Following the sixth term, the term *routine management system* [CHANG-GUI-GUAN-LI-ZHI-DU] was explored. From the Figure 7.2 and 7.3, the *routine management system* in framework of school internal

management and the seven sub-systems which compose the *routine management system* were clearly showed. The last term explored in this chapter is the *transparency in school management* [XIAO-WU-GONG-KAI]. As a part of school routine management system, it is a latest product in the implementation of school democratic management advocated by Chinese government. The government's policy on *transparency in school management* and the specific practices of *transparency in school management* at schools were reviewed and examined in this chapter. The author believes that the international audience can understand, through the interpretation of the above eight terms, the context in which China's school leaders strive to fulfill their key leadership practice of "optimizing internal management".

#### **References**

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# **Chapter 8**

# **Accommodating the External Environment**

#### **8.1 Introduction**

China and the Western countries have different historical traditions in terms of the relations between school and community. The Chinese educational historians have a summary of Chinese school education in ancient times, which is called XUE-ZAI-GUAN-FU [education never takes place out of official compound]. This saying is based on three fundamental characteristics of school education during initial stage of school education in ancient China (the period of time so-called the Chinese society with slave system). The first characteristic is that school education is exclusively the experience of the children from royal and noble families, and never allowed to extend to common man. Secondly, the school house is set in the royal palace or an official residence, in which a certain official or a couple of officials take the role of teachers. To be more exactly, these officials are only part-time teachers, since they also take other governing responsibilities in central or local governments. So, it is known as GUAN-SHI-BU-FEN [there is no explicit role boundary between officials and teachers]. Thirdly, there is no separated educational administrative organ, and the educational administration is only one of sections of civil administration. On the other hand, a school is not only the place for teaching and learning, but also the venue for government ritual activities such as sacrifices. Moreover, the ritual activities themselves are regarded as a part of the content of school education. Thus, it is known as ZHENG-JIAO-HE-YI [education is integrated into general governance] (Mei,1995, pp. 59-60; Wu and Feng, 1998, p.50). In this case, it is not surprising that Chinese schools isolated from local communities at the time. In modern China, although the modern school education was no longer confined to the saying "education never takes place out of official compound", either government schools or private schools, including the Christian-funded schools still had little substantive connection with local communities since a Chinese school house was usually surrounded by high wood fence or concrete barrier, and there was little interaction between people inside and outside the school wall. Moreover, a Chinese school, an urban school in particular, for a long time in the past, was built in a community didn't mean that its students were necessarily the children from the families of the community (Feng, 2008). This phenomenon of alienation between Chinese schools

and local communities may be different from that of the European and North American countries. For example, local public schools in the United States have kept close relations with local communities, and a large portion of school revenues have come from local property taxes for a long time (Urban and Wagoner, 2009, pp. 133-134).

Although the bridge of school-community communication was gradually built after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the substantive change in traditional relations between schools and communities did not occur in China until the mid-1980s with progress of educational reform (Chen and Feng, 1998, p.1). The pioneering practices in building up closer relationship between the schools and local communities emerged in 1986 in Shanghai and Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu Province. The typical way to do so was to establish a type of coordinating body called Education Committee of the Community (ECC) which co-chaired by the school principal and the community head as well as enterprises and business leaders to coordinate local resources to provide the school with possible technical and financial support. Concomitantly, the school tried to meet the local needs in school enrolment and sharing school sports ground and facilities on weekends (Ye, 1990; Yue, 1994). These cases exerted influence on more and more schools in other cities of China soon, and the ECCs mushroomed in the following years across the country. Chinese educational policy makers welcomed and encouraged the practice of building closer relationship between schools and communities, and even wider society because they realized that it was conducive to promoting the *quality-oriented education*. The CCCPC and the State Council made a clear statement in1993 that the central government encouraged primary and secondary schools to work with local enterprises, institutions, neighborhood committees or villagers committees to establish community-based education organizations with coordinating functions in order to pool up resources from all sectors of society to support school construction, participating in school management, optimizing the educational environment, and exploring appropriate forms of connecting school education to society in line with the characteristics of primary and secondary schools (CCCPC and State Council,1993). In the *Decision of State Council on the reform and development of basic education* released in 2001, the State Council called for schools to further improve communication and cooperation with local community, made full use of community resources to provide students with a variety of activities beneficial to them, and create a community environment to blossom students into well-prepared and socially-engaged

citizens. The State Council also called on local governments to raise funds through various ways and build a range of local social practice bases for students (State Council, 2001a). Apparently, the

government's position was shifting from generally encouraging closer relationship between schools and communities to making specific demands on how to make the relationship closer. Furthermore, the involvement of parents and community in school management and school evaluation was emphasized in *educational reform and development (2010-2020)*.Two years later, the MOE required all schools to establish the Parent Committee and defined the role of committee in school management (MoE, 2012). In another development, a number of new communities around cities continuously increased with the scope of cities expanded to their surroundings in China's urbanization in the early 21st century. To meet the needs of school-age children from the families in newly built residential quarters to attend school nearby, Chinese Minister of Education called on in 2018 that compulsory education schools must be built for school-aged children in any new residential quarters (Chai and Liu, 2018). In fact, not a few provincial governments have recently required that it is necessary for any construction planning of new residential quarters to taken into account, as a part of construction of public services infrastructure, the construction of public schools in accordance with the State-set standards for school construction (PGHP, 2017; GOPGSP, 2018). The policy requirement has brought about an unprecedented picture, in which the construction of a new school and residential buildings are simultaneously completed in many new residential quarters in China. It means that a school and its local community are like twin brothers from very beginning, and there will be few barriers to communication between them. This phenomenon together with government initiatives in bridging schools with local communities has transformed each individual school into an open system in the society. Consequently, "accommodating the external environment" as one of key leadership practices was finally written in the professional standards for primary and secondary school principals (MOE, 2013; MOE, 2015a). On the other hand, school educators have come to realize that it is difficult for them to address all challenges in school education without assists from and cooperation with parents and community. For instance, most of principals and teachers, as noted in Chapter 5, agreed in *CSSLM2017-principals* and *CSTWCE2017-teachers* that the major obstacle to reduce students' excessive burden came from the parents and the society. At present, some enterprising school leadership practitioners have created *China's compendium of national medium and long term plan for* 

a variety of strategies and develop a range of programs to work with parents and local community to improve the effectiveness in moral and citizenship education for students as well as to expand the collaboration between school and wider society, some of which have been widely accepted and used as high frequency terms. These terms can be identified from government RHDs, school-developed management documents and school principal-written articles and books with the themes about "accommodating the external environment". Among these widely used terms, the highest frequency ones include *Parent Committee* [JIA-ZHANG-WEI-YUAN-HUI], *Parent School* [JIA-ZHANG-XUE-XIAO], *Local Studies* [XIANG-TU-JIAO-YU], *Social Practice Base* [SHE-HUI-SHI-JIAN-JI-DI], *Opening of School Resource* [XIAO-YUAN-ZI-YUAN-KAI-FANG], *School Open Day* [XUE-XIAO-KAI-FANG-RI] and *University-School Collaboration* [DA-XUE-YU-ZHONG-XIAO-XUE-HE-ZUO]. It seems essential for international audience to know and understand these high frequency terms selected in this chapter if they would like to gain insight into real leadership practice of *accommodating the external environment* in China.

#### **8.2 key terms**

#### *8.2.1 Parent Committee* [JIA-ZHANG-WEI-YUAN-HUI]

The *Parent Committee* [JIA-ZHANG-WEI-YUAN-HUI]in China is a voluntary body comprised of elected parental representatives, which is intended to facilitate parental participation in school management, support school and family social interaction, promote open communication, understanding and cooperation between parents and school staff so as to create a more supportive learning environment for students (Zhang, 2016; Cao, 2018). The term was first used by an official document of the State Education Commission (SEC) in 1988 when the *Parent Committee* was regarded in the document as one of means to carry out the moral and citizenship education for students (Wen, 2015). In practice, the *Parent Committees* were established only in a small number of schools in the early 1990s, and its role was limited to support the moral and citizenship education for students by facilitating the ample communication between schools and families (Lin, 1992). To respond to the central government's policy that encourage schools to proactively cooperate with parents and local community, some local governments made relevant local policies to intensify the role of the *Parent Committee*, and viewed the *committee* as one of vehicles for optimizing school external environment in the 21st century. In Pudong New District of Shanghai,

for example, the district education bureau launched a district-wide project in 2003 concerning the establishment of the *Parent Committee* in schools to explore the ways that *Parent Committee* participated in parts areas of school management (Yin, 2006). The Government of Shandong Province issued a provincial policy document in 2009 to call for all schools in the province to establish the *Parent Committee*. The result of a sampling survey in the province conducted in 2012 showed that both school staff and parents were generally satisfied with the work of the *Parent Committee* at schools (Lu and Zhao, 2013). In the early practices in Shanghai and Shandong in the first decade of the 21st century, the roles of the *Parent Committee* in different schools seemed almost same, but their specific responsibilities are not identical. In some cases, the *Parent Committee* was exclusively responsible for bringing parents' opinions and ideas to school leadership, sharing successful cases of parents-children interaction, and encouraging parental involvement in the programs of after school enrichment. Nevertheless, in some other cases, the *Parent Committee* involved in more substantive management matters (e.g. appraisal the performance of the form teachers, selection of student uniform style, selection of student lunch suppliers, etc.) (Yin, 2006, p. 307, pp. 414-416, p. 574; Lu and Zhao, 2013). In 2012, the MOE issued the *Guiding principles of the Ministry of Education on the establishment of Parent Committees in kindergartens and in primary and secondary schools*, in which three key duties of the *Parent Committee* were set out. According to this RHD of the MOE, the first duty of the *Parent Committee* is participation in school management, which includes making suggestions on school work plans and important decision-making, especially on matters of vital interest to students and parents, and overseeing school activities and events to help schools improve their work. The second duty of the *committee* is to support school education by coordinating additional resources and expertise from parents for school programs and activities, and sharing right ideas and practical skills in kid education among parents. The third duty of the *committee* is to be an effective channel of communication between the school and families by informing parents about school progress recently made and the school major initiatives or measures to be taken in the near future. Apart from the duties of *Parent Committee*, the MOE also required in the *Guiding principles* of 2012 that members of the *committee* must be elected through democratic procedure rather than directly designated by the school (MOE, 2012). However, the requirements of the MOE cannot be achieved overnight in all schools since the country is so large. Perhaps specific responsibilities of the *Parent Committee* in schools in different parts of China would be never exactly the same, but one thing is clear that the *Parent Committee* in most schools at the moment does not interfere, based on the information drawn from the *CSSLM2017-principals*, in the school decisions regarding classroom teaching affairs (see Appendix A).

#### *8.2.2 Parent School* [JIA-ZHANG-XUE-XIAO]

*Parent School* [JIA-ZHANG-XUE-XIAO] does not refer to a type of brick-and-mortar schools, but the school-developed training program for parents, through which parents can acquire the knowledge and skills about the development of both parents and of their children and the relationship between them, and have opportunities to share practical cases and specific methods in addressing some of the most challenging issues confronting parents today in their interaction with their children. The primary purposes of the program are to improve parents' knowledge and skills in parenting, promote mutual understanding between parents and teachers, and strengthen cooperation between schools and parents (Yin, 2006, p.417, p. 571; Hong, 2017). Since most parents work on weekdays, the training courses or activities are usually scheduled for evenings or weekends. For parents, anyway, the training program is not compulsory, and whether they participate in the program is decided by parents themselves. There are three main reasons for the rise of *Parent School*s in China in the past three decades. Because of the influence of Chinese traditional culture, "education (basically examination preparation) is viewed as the sole route for upwards social mobility, the only hope for an individual's future."(OECD, 2011, p. 84) a large number of Chinese parents attach great importance to their children's academic achievements, but neglect the cultivation of their children's civic quality and the development of their healthy personality. Obviously, this is contrary to the citizenship required in the 21st century (Fan, 2012). Secondly, the rapid development of science and technology and the increasingly use of Internet and social media, have a tremendous impact on adolescents' lifestyles. Some parents are often frustrated when interacting with their adolescent children. Others are busy with their business all day and have little time to be concerned about their children. these students are not short of money but lack of pastoral care from parents (Xie and Wang, 2012). Thirdly, the data from China's sixth census in 2010 showed that the average educational attainment of parents of juveniles (persons under the age of 18) was not high at the time (see Table 8.1). It suggested, to some extent, that some Chinese parents may lack of the competence to fulfill their parental role expected by Chinese society in the 21st century (Zhang, 2012). In 2001, the State Council released the *Outline for the Development of Children in China* (2001-2010), in which the central government called for the *Parent School* should help parents to establish right concepts of education and mastering scientific knowledge and methods of parental influence on their children by providing parenting training programs (State Council, 2001b). In 2004, the CCCPC and the State Council reiterated in *Opinions of the CCCPC and the State Council on Further Strengthening and Improving the* 

*Ideological and Moral Education of Juveniles*, that *Parent Schools* should make efforts to popularize parenting knowledge, disseminate successful experience in parenting practice and improve the ability of parents to educate their children (CCCPC and State Council, 2004). In the *Guiding Principles of the Ministry of Education on Strengthening Parental Education* released in 2015, the MOE required all primary and secondary schools to plan and organize the programs of the *Parent School* as a part of school necessary work, and the inputs of the school leader in charge of student moral education, the director of the Office for Moral Education and the form teachers' into the *Parent School* program would be recorded as school's workload (MOE, 2015b). For most schools, the main work for the *Parent School*, at present, includes two aspects. One is to build up a human resource network composed by the school leader in charge of student moral education, the director of the Office for Moral Education, the form teachers, the parents with distinguished talent in parental education, and parenting educators and other volunteers from outsider. And the other is to develop the training programs and organize workshops for parents (Yin, 2006, pp.417-420; Yu, 2014). In some districts, the district education bureaus work with local communities to establish the human resource pool at district level, so as to keep balanced development of all *Parent Schools* across the district school system (Diao and Jiang, 2016). Generally speaking, *Parent School*s have been widely established in China's schools, and the information drawn from *CSSLM2017-principals* also shows that majority of *Parent School*s, at the moment, are able to provide regular training activities for parents (see Appendix A). Nevertheless, not all schools can ensure the quality of the training program of the *Parent School* since the resources allocated for *Parent School*s (funds, professional force, management maturity, and so on) is different from urban areas to rural areas in China (Xie and Wang, 2012; Xu and Li, 2018).

# **Table 8.1 The proportion of juveniles' parents with different educational attainments in China**


Source: Zhang, H. (2012).

#### *8.2.3 Local Studies* [XIANG-TU-JIAO-YU]

*Local Studies* [XIANG-TU-JIAO-YU] refers to the school-developed and local community-focused learning program for students, which usually falls into the category of school curriculum in China's three-level curricular system (national, local, and school). The *Local Studies* is the comprehensive and project-based learning program, through which students learn to use the integrated knowledge from multiple fields (e.g. history, geography, political science, economics, statistics, etc.) to understand the historical events, the social and economic status quo, the natural landscape and features of local geography, and identify the most challenging issues confronting the local community today. The aim of the *Local Studies* is not only to intensify students' knowledge about local community, but also to foster students' affection for local community and the sense of social responsibility (Pei, 2010; Huang, 2012). Moreover, schools can draw on the practice of *Local Studies* as an opportunity to establish or maintain close connection to local community, so as to improve their external environment. Since the frequently adopted learning approaches in *Local Studies* are the field visitation and the study accompanied with literature review, interview and questionnaire survey which are seldom used in teaching and learning of conventional subjects, the students' experience of *Local Studies* seems to be helpful in developing their higher-order thinking skills, such as critical thinking and problem solving skills. Although remarkable progress has been made in practice of *Local Studies* in China in the past two decades, there are still some challenges for its further development. These challenges encompass the issues of the sufficient fund to assure the implementation of the *Local Studies*, the development of quality teaching materials for the *Local Studies*, preparation of more teachers who are qualified both for conventional subjects and *Local Studies* (Pei, 2010; Li and Shi, 2016; Mao and Zheng, 2017; He and Wang, 2017).

#### *8.2.4 Social Practice Base* [SHE-HUI-SHI-JIAN-JI-DI]

As noted in Chapter 6, the latest curriculum reform launched in 2001 has led a range of significant changes regarding curriculum system and teaching and learning approach in primary and secondary schools in China. As one of policy initiatives in the curriculum reform, a new type of curriculum, so-called *integrated hands-on curriculum* [ZONG-HE-SHI-JIAN-HUO-DONG-KE-CHENG] was set out by the MOE and included in the curriculum system of primary and secondary schools in 2001(MOE, 2001). This cross-subjects new type of curriculum aims at developing student capacity to solve comprehensive problems by using of the knowledge integrated from various conventional subjects (e.g. Mathematics, Science, History) and cultivating student sense of creativity and hands-on skills. For this end, the role of teachers in the *integrated hands-on curriculum* needs to change from "instructor" to "organizer", "guider", and "facilitator", and the appropriate learning approach of students in the *integrated hands-on curriculum* will be "learning by doing" (MOE, 2017). Moreover, the *integrated hands-on curriculum* is usually conducted as a series of theme-specific learning programs, and often needs to be done in the learning environment with some special facilities in terms of different themes. It is difficult, too often times, for the *integrated hands-on curriculum* to be conducted in regular classrooms and conventional science laboratories in schools. Consequently, the *Social Practice Base* [SHE-HUI-SHI-JIAN-JI-DI] emerged in the early years of the 21st century as the times require.

The *Social Practice Base* refers to a kind of off-campus learning platforms for primary and secondary school students, in which the *integrated hands-on curriculum* or moral and citizenship education activities for school students can be exercised (Gu, 2009; Yin, 2011). Initially, most of the learning activities in *Social Practice Bases* were jointly created by schools and local public institutions (e.g. museums), industrial enterprises and farms. A *Social Practice Base* in this context is like a public institution (e.g. museum)-based program. In this pattern, the institution provide the ad hoc learning venue with the facilities to meet the needs of student learning activities, and the professionals of the institution act as consultants in student learning when necessary. The State Council, the MOE and the cultural and science administrations of central government have issued a couple of RHDs recent years to require public institutions and industrial enterprises to work with schools in construction of *Social Practice Bases* (MOE, 2011; NCHA and MOE, 2015; State Council, 2016). However, the resources provided by different communities for the construction of *Social Practice Bases* are unbalanced. To address the challenges caused by resource unbalance in different communities, some local governments have recently raised funds and allocated land to set up large-sized *Social Practice Bases*. In Jiangsu Province, for instance, nine large-sized *Social Practice Bases* were completed during 2013 to 2014, which costed over RMB 700 million (about USD 105 million) (Dai, 2015). A second instance is that the city government of Fuzhou invested RMB 470 million (about USD 70.5 million) in 2016 to build a large-sized *Social Practice Base*  (Wang, 2016). These newly established large-sized *Social Practice Bases* are designed as a simulated social environment with industrial workshops, farms, shops, banks, post offices, courts, hotel, business center, emerging science and technology laboratories and creative workshops, in which the full-time teachers paly the roles of guide, coach, advisor, consultant, facilitator for student learning activities. Compared with the *bases* jointly created by schools and public institutions, such large-sized *Social Practice Bases* have more diverse functions to meet the needs of various programs of *integrated hands-on curriculum* or moral and citizenship education activities, and they are usually shared by schools in various communities.

#### *8.2.5 Opening of School Resource* [XIAO-YUAN-ZI-YUAN-KAI-FANG]

*Opening of School Resource* [XIAO-YUAN-ZI-YUAN-KAI-FANG] refers to primary and secondary schools to provide local community residents with the opportunity to share campus resources after school on weekdays as well as on weekends and school holidays. The "campus resources" here mainly include school libraries, sports ground and facilities, and human resource as on-site coaches or guardians. Historically, the public libraries and the infrastructures for public sports in China were, on the whole, insufficient and unevenly distributed. Most public libraries were located in urban centers, and so were public sports facilities. The residents of suburban and rural communities hardly used the public libraries and sports facilities because the communities in which they were living were too far away from these public resources (Wang, 2005). The utilization rate of school libraries and sports facilities, in the meantime, was pretty low. For instance, it is estimated in 2001 that the utilization rate of books in school libraries is about 20% (Liu, 2001). This reality was obviously not in line with the goal of building a learning society proclaimed by the 16th National Congress of the CPC in 2002 (Jiang, 2002). On the other hand, the data drawn from a nation-wide survey on sports facilities revealed that of the 850,080 existing public sports infrastructures (stadiums and gymnasiums), more than 50% belong to primary and secondary schools, and the utilization rate of the sports infrastructures in schools was not high (Tu, 2016). Chinese central government has issued a series of policies and initiatives to address the challenge of shortage and uneven distribution of public libraries and sports facilities since the beginning of the 21st century. The examples include the *Regulations for Primary and Secondary School Libraries (Revised Edition)* issued in 2003 and the *National Fitness Ordinance* promulgated in 2009. The former encourages primary and secondary school libraries to open to local community residents (MOE, 2003), while the latter clearly demand that public schools should proactively make the thing of "opening sports facilities to the public" happen (State Council, 2009). These policies are generally referred to as the requirement for *Opening of School Resource*. The libraries and sports facilities in most schools have opened to community residents from then on. In practice, some schools not only open libraries and sports facilities to community residents, but also organize theme-specific reading activities and sports events, through which the relationship between schools and communities has been strengthened and the reputation of schools in the local communities has been enhanced. Moreover, the school students can also reap the benefits by *Opening of School Resource* because of the opening of school libraries and sports facilities during long and boring summer and winter vacations (Wang, 2005; Li, 2011; Li and Liu, 2011; Xia and Li, 2014). However, the *Opening of School Resource* has also created pressure on school management. Research conducted in Beijing, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Hubei, and Sichuan provinces showed that the foremost pressure created by the *Opening of School Resource* to school management is about campus peacefulness and safety. In fact, the campus tranquility has been largely lost and school staff and parents has been, more or less, assailed by emotional insecurity since the *Opening of School Resource* was carried out. Secondly, the *Opening of School Resource* increases the workload of school management. Although schools management can often be assisted by the volunteers from local community during the time that school libraries and sports facilities open to community residents, the final responsibility of school safety management can never be taken by community volunteers (Lu, 2007; Li and Liu, 2011; Li, 2011; Xia and Li, 2014; Mu, et al., 2015; Tu, 2016; Li, 2018).

#### *8.2.6 School Open Day* [XUE-XIAO-KAI-FANG-RI]

*School Open Day* [XUE-XIAO-KAI-FANG-RI] as a term is almost synonymous in China and in Western countries (such as the United Kingdom). In China, a typical *School Open Day* is that the school organizes, on a scheduled day, a variety of open events to provide children (some of them could be future students of the school) and their parents as well as community members who are concerned about the school's status quo and future development with an opportunity to see what a typical school day is like there by taking a tour around the campus, watching the classroom instruction and student learning process in science laboratories, and experiencing sports and extra-curricular activities (Sun, 1999; Zhang, 2013). *School Open Day* was first used as a term by school leadership practitioners in the late 1980s, when schools were encouraged to establish closer relationships with parents and local communities than ever before. *School Open Day* was a new thing at the time in leadership practice in China, and only a small number of schools tried to do it (Du, 1996). Thirty years later, however, the *School Open Day* has become one of routine communication channels between schools and their external stakeholders. According to *CSSLM2017-principals*, 54.1 percent of the respondents STRONGLY AGREED with "*school open day* is an important way for schools to communicate with parents and local community." while 30.5 percent of respondents AGREED with the item. Furthermore, the *School Open Day* in some cases has been used as one of the leadership strategies to accommodate and optimize school external environment (BMSE, 2017; SMEC, 2019).

The *School Open Day* in China can be roughly grouped into the following four types in terms of its specific intentions:

It aims, by holding *School Open Day*, to show the achievements of school education in a school district or even in a city to the society. For example, the educational authority of a city once organized a city-wide *School Open Day*. All primary and secondary schools in the city's school system held a variety of open events on the same day, and it was said that one million parents participated in it (Sun, 1999). Nevertheless, such a huge and unified *School Open Day* with strong administrative will and propaganda intentions has been rarely seen in China nowadays.

The intention of the *School Open Day* focuses exclusively on one of specific themes of school education. A primary school in Guangdong Province, for instance, invited parents and professionals from local community to participate in a theme-specific *School Open Day* titled "Light Burden, High Quality, Vivid Teaching and Learning". During the *School Open Day*, every participant had chance to watch (observe) two classes and each teacher in various subjects delivered one lesson openly. The intention of the *School Open Day* was to introduce the school's dedicated educational ideal and innovative methods in teaching and learning, and collect feedback from parents and community professionals as well (Liu,1991).

The intention of the *School Open Day* is to provide parents with first-hand picture about the school life in order that parents can understand what and how their children are doing at school. This type of *School Open Day* is usually used by newly established schools because one of priorities for them is to gain parents' trust (The Journalist, 1999).

4) The intention of the *School Open Day* is to introduce to potential students and parents the school's philosophy and spirit, regular curriculum and featured programs, teacher quality, student achievements and routine management system by a variety of open events and the interaction between the visitors and school staff and students. This type of *School Open Day* is somewhat similar to school marketing, and mainly serves for enrollment (SMEC, 2019).

#### *8.2.7 University-School Collaboration* [DA-XUE-YU-ZHONG-XIAO-XUE-HE-ZUO]

*University-School Collaboration* [DA-XUE-YU-ZHONG-XIAO-XUE-HE-ZUO] refers to a kind of project-based collaborative mechanism between a university and a primary or secondary school with an end that both sides can benefit from it. However, the specific objectives of the *University-School Collaboration* depend on the themes of the collaborative project, which are usually different from case to case (Yang, 2009; Li and Li, 2017). As a term used in China, *University-School Collaboration* seems to be almost synonymously with the term *school-university partnership* used by Western scholars (cf. Goodlad, 1988, or Fullan et al., 1995), but there are still some differences between the two terms since the practices of *University-School Collaboration* and *school-university partnership* are brought about in different political and socioeconomic contexts. Historically, the practice of collaboration between universities and primary or secondary schools was rare in China because of different visions, missions and aims of higher education sector and basic education sector. However, the initial need for *University-School*  *Collaboration* gradually emerged after Chinese government initiated educational reform in 1985. The researchers of normal universities, for instance, would like to understand, by field investigation, what practitioner knowledge and skills matter for student teachers in order to conduct appropriate reform in teacher preparation. The second wave of momentum to make the needs of *University-School Collaboration* rapidly increasing is the China's curriculum reform of basic education launched in 2001. With the progress of the curriculum reform, the school leaders and teachers recognized that the societal expectation for the role of a school teacher changed greatly, that is, the role of the teacher has been intensified from an educator (the traditional expectation) to the educator-plus, such as the learner (e.g. to learn how to develop school curriculum), the explorer (e.g. to explore constructivism teaching methods to change the chalk and talk pattern in their classroom instruction) and the researcher (to engage with unprecedented subject-based scientific research) (Feng, 2003). On the other hand, the traditional leadership style and approach in schools were challenged dramatically when the *school development planning* was regarded as one of school leadership priorities in late 1990s, and the curriculum leadership was become one of most important parts of school leadership capacity in the early years of the 21st century (see 3.2.1 and 5.2.9). Hence, school principals seek to draw on research-based knowledge, evidence-informed leadership strategies, and even the latest findings from cutting-edge research to improve leadership and classroom teaching practice in their schools by collaboration with university researchers. Concomitantly, the universities with teacher education or teacher training programs would like to introduce the practitioner knowledge and skills into their teacher preparation programs by inviting and appointing talented subject teachers from primary and secondary schools to work in universities as part-time lecturers or adjunct graduate student advisors, and by jointly developing student teachers' practicum courses with school teachers. Consequently, *University-School Collaboration* has become a common phenomenon in China's education sector over past two decades, through which the public schooling renewal and teacher education improvement have occurred simultaneously (Kong and Bin, 2014; Yuan, et al., 2015; Qi, et al., 2018; Wu, 2018). The *University-School Collaboration* in China takes a variety of forms, ranging from a single research team headed by a professor collaborating with one school or a school system of a school district to a department/college of a university collaborating with a school system of a district, a county or a city and so on. Nevertheless, no matter what form of the

*University-School Collaboration*, one of the pivotal prerequisites is that the schools or the local education authorities are able to allocate the sufficient extra funds to support the collaborative project. Hence, in terms of *University-School Collaboration* projects, economically developed parts of China obviously have more advantages than economically underdeveloped parts of the country, despite the central government, now and then, grant special funds to support the *University-School Collaboration* projects in the underdeveloped parts. This is regarded as one of the most challenging issues confronting the practice of *University-School Collaboration* today (Sun and Wang, 2016). Another identified challenge in the practice of *University-School Collaboration* is that how the different cultures held by university researchers and school educators can get along harmony with each other, given that, for instance, university researchers tend to seek the "publications"(e.g. the journal articles, research reports) while school leaders and teachers tend to seek "products"(e.g. the visible and invisible change and improvement in student learning) as the key outcome of a *University-School Collaboration* project (Kong and Bin, 2014; Yuan, et al., 2015; Sun and Wang, 2016). These challenges are still remained to be addressed in the practice of *University-School Collaboration* in the future.

#### **8.3 Summary and Discussion**

In this chapter, seven highest frequency terms used in China's school leadership practice of "accommodating the external environment" were selected to explore and interpret. By exploring these terms, the evolution of the relationship between schools and communities in China is presented. The ever-closer connection between schools and communities in China over the past three decades is the result of carrying out the *Quality-Oriented Education* advocated by the Chinese government and one of the outcomes of China's rapid urbanization process. Among the seven terms, some seem vaguely familiar to educators in other countries, such as *Parent Committee*, *School Open Day* and *University-School Collaboration*, but there are a lot of differences in detail. For example, the term *University-School Collaboration* used in China seems to be similar to the term *School-University Partnership* used in Western countries, yet the areas and themes encompassed by *University-School Collaboration* may be broader than those encompassed by *School-University Partnership*. In the practice of *University-School Collaboration,* apart from the collaboration in teacher preparation and development, the researchers from universities often play a critical role in developing school strategic plan, framing school-based curriculum, building teachers' capacity for school-based scientific research, and improving student assessment scheme (Kong and Bin, 2014; Yuan, et al., 2015; Qi, et al., 2018). The *University-School Collaboration* has really made university researchers deeply involved in school education reform and amplified their impact on the practice of school education as well. For example, the book, *For the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the development of every student*˖*Interpretation of the* "*Compendium for curriculum reform of basic education (for trial implementation)*" authored by Qiquan Zhong, professor of education at East China Normal University and his colleagues was first published in August 2001 (Zhong, et al.,2001). By March 2002, the book had been reprinted seven times and got a circulation of 135,000 copies with a very much high citation rate. If Professor Zhong's name is mentioned, it is no exaggeration to say that more than 80% of Chinese educators from regular primary and secondary schools know him. Given the number of the educators in regular primary and secondary schools in China is about 12 million according to China's educational statistics in 2017(MOE, 2018), one can imagine what an influence this professor has on primary and secondary education. Some other terms explored in this chapter may seem to be unfamiliar to international educators, such as *Local Studies*, *Social Practice Base*, etc. Nevertheless, that's not exactly the case. For instance, some of the themes and methods of *local study* in China seem to be borrowed from the "Social Studies" program of the schools in the United States. Similarly, a part of the activities carried out in China's *Social Practice Base* may be the almost same as the training activities of Boy Scouts of America. Finally, one issue should be received attention in this chapter is unbalanced opportunities for school to obtain the resources from local communities and wider society. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, it is easier for the local education authorities in economically developed parts of China to raised extra funds in construction of *Social Practice Base* and supporting *University-School* 

*Collaboration* projects than those in economically underdeveloped parts of the country. In fact, the word "unbalanced" has been turned up lots of times in this book. As noted in Chapter 2, for instance, one of the MOE's RHDs regarding principal training, *Opinions of the MOE on further strengthening the training work for principals of primary and secondary schools* was especially concerned with the reality of unbalanced professional development of principals in different parts of China. A second instance is that *Commissioned Management* initially emerged as a government strategy to close the quality gap between city schools and the schools in rural areas (see 5.2.5 in Chapter 5). A third instance is that "unbalanced" development of curriculum leadership practices between coastal cities and inland of China (see 6.2.9 in Chapter 6). It suggests that the condition of "unbalanced development" is and will be one of key characteristics of China's school education and leadership, though Chinese government has made great efforts to address the challenges resulting from the reality of "unbalanced" development in the last decades.

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## **Epilogue**

In the chapters of this book, fifty-eight high-frequency used terms in China's school leadership practice are explored and interpreted, through which a holistic picture with ample information about current status of China's school leadership is presented. It seems necessary, in this last section of the book, to examine the epoch-making event for China and China's education taking place in the late 1970s, and the general characteristics of macroenvironment of China's school leadership although they have been noted explicitly or suggested implicitly in previous parts of the book. At a time when researchers analyze some research findings or a specific case concerning China's school leadership, it's beneficial for them to do it with the knowledge about these epoch-making event and general characteristics.

The epoch-making event for China and China's education here refers, of course, to the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CCCPC held in December 1978, in which the *reform and opening-up* [GAI-GE-KAI-FANG] as the State's cardinal policy was set out, and ushered China into a new era centered on economic construction (Xue, 2018; Shen, 2019). As Deng Xiaoping, the chief designer of China's *reform and opening-up* policy asserted at the time, "the purpose of the reform is to lay a solid foundation for sustained development over the next decade and throughout the first half of the next century. So,we should think not in terms of just three to five years, but in terms of the last 20 years of this century and the first 50 of the next" (Deng, 1993, p.131). The goal of China's economic development proposed by Deng at the time was that China's GDP would maintain an average annual growth rate of 7.2% over the ensuing 20 years. "But now we see that the average annual growth rate of our GDP is not 7.2%, but 9.4%, not 20 years of sustained development, but 40 years." (Gao, 2019) said Justin Yifu Lin, the Professor of Economics at the Peking University and the former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. The sustained growth of China's GDP over last 40 years has provided robust support for the reform and development of China's education. It is clear that almost all educational reform policies and projects in the last decades which impact on China's school leadership practice would have been hardly included in Chinese government agenda without sufficient funds. Following the State's cardinal policy of *reform and opening-up*, the *Decision of the CCCPC on the Reform of the Educational System* was released in 1985. The publication of this *Decision* is regarded as a significant milestone in the history of education in China in the 20th century, because almost all policies of education reform in China released over the ensuing 40 years has been developed based on the values, beliefs and notions of the *Decision*. For example, the decentralized orientation for education governance reform and the *principal responsibility system* were initially set out by the *Decision* (CCCPC, 1985). For this reason, the *Decision* is also known as the grand blueprint of China's educational reform and development (Wu, 2018).

Compared with the epoch-making event for China's education, the general characteristics of macroenvironment of China's school leadership have more direct and specific influence on leadership practice. First, the CPC's leadership tenets, principals and traditions have been deeply woven into the government's educational governance practice and principal management policy, and has irreplaceable influence on the day-to-day leadership practice in China (Zhang, 2004; He, 2018). Hence, the Confucianism does not seem to be the foremost source of influence on China's leadership practice today. Second, the government policy document, known as Red-Head-Document (RHD) is one of the most important means of education governance in China. Given the government's initiatives, provisions, measures and mandatory requirements in the RHD are usually formulated in terms of the actual needs of governance for a specific theme in a period of time, its impact on leadership practice is immediate, strong and substantial (Wang, 2005; Shi, 2006; Zhao, 2011). This perhaps help explain why Chinese researchers often attach importance to the RHD reviewing in their leadership studies. In this book, for instance, a total of 101 RHDs concerning school leadership are cited or quoted since the author recognizes that it is hard to fully understand China's school leadership practice without being concerned with relevant RHDs. Third, one of the most challenging issues confronting China's education today is unbalanced development of school education between urban and rural areas, coastal and inland areas, and economically developed provinces and underdeveloped provinces, though progress has been made in closing the gap between different parts of China in recent years. The most recent published national education inspection report revealed that there were still 257 counties in this country lacking 28,000 teachers in the subjects of Music, Physical Education, Fine Arts, Science, ICT and Foreign Languages, and the utilization rate of equipment and facilities for instruction in parts of rural area schools was pretty low because the teachers in those schools are unwilling or unable to use the equipment and facilities (ONEI, 2019). It's almost unimaginable in Beijing, Shanghai and any other metropolises in China today. A second instance is that the Chinese students' performance in the Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA). The students from Shanghai participated in the PISA in 2009 and 2012, and their scores ranked the first in the world (OECD, 2010, 2014). But the Chinese students' scores dropped down sharply in PISA 2015 when the students from Shanghai, Beijing, Jiangsu and Guangdong together participated in it (OECD, 2018). It suggests that even among the most developed provinces and municipalities in China, there is still a considerable imbalance in the level of education development. By the same token, the leadership capacity of the school leaders in different parts of China is likely to be not the same. As noted earlier in this book, almost all innovative leadership strategies and approaches, such as *commissioned management, running schools by group, neighboring schools networking, university-school collaboration,* are all created by the leadership practitioners in the cities in the economically developed parts of China (cf. Chapter 5 and Chapter 8). With this regard, one should be very cautious when he/she uses individual research findings based on the data collected from a couple of districts in the same province to infer the overall situation of school leadership in China.

As the book is nearing completion, a line of verse written by ancient Chinese poet Du Fu pops up in my mind, "It may take a long time for the value of a piece of work to be really recognized. But its commitments and expectations are known already in the author's heart at the moment" [WEN-ZHANG-QIAN-GU-SHI, DE-SHI-CUN-XIN-ZHI] (Wu, 2019). This saying reflects the author's mood at this moment.

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Shi, Y. Q. (2006). Baozheng hongtouwenjian fadingquanwei yu xiaoli de sikao. [Consideration on guaranteeing the legal authority and effectiveness of red head documents].*Mishu Zhiyou [Secretary's Companion].4*, 4-5. (in Chinese)

Wang, Q. S. (2005). Hongtou wenjian gainianxi[An analysis of the term "red head documents"].*Dang'an Shikong [File Space and Time].10,* 41-42. (in Chinese)

Wu, D.G. (2018). Zhongguo jiaoyu de weida biange[On the great changes in China's education]. *Jiaoyu Yanjiu [Educational Research].2,* 4-16. (in Chinese)

Wu, H. D. (2019). Dufu "Ou Ti" wenzhang qiangushi deshi cunxinzhi shizheng[Interpretation of

Du Fu's poem "Ou Ti"]*Jilindaxue Shehuikexue Xuebao [Jilin University Journal Social Sciences Edition]. 59(1),* 156-167. (in Chinese)

Xue, L.G. (2018). Xingzheng guanli tizhigaige sishinian: Chengjiu yu zhanwang. [Forty years of administrative system reform: Achievements and prospects]. *Zhongguo Fazhan Guancha [China Development Observation].15,* 5-8. (in Chinese)

Zhang, M. Q. (2004). Mao Zedong zhuzuo zhongde lingdao kexue. [The scientific principles of leadership in Mao Zedong's works]. *Maozedong Sixiang Yanjiu.[Maozedong Thought Study].21(3),* 87-90. (in Chinese)

Zhao, A. J. (2011). Hongtou wenjian de neihan ji jiexian. [Red head document: Connotation and definition].*Taishan Xiangzhen Qiye Zhigong Daxue Xuebao. [Journal of Taishan Township Enterprise Worker's College].18(2),*13-15. (in Chinese)

# **Glossary of Chinese Terms**

# **Chapter 1**


# **Chapter 2**


# **Chapter 3**


# <sup>z</sup> **Chapter 4**


© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 D. Feng, *Understanding China's School Leadership*, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0749-6


# **Chapter 5**


# **Chapter 6**


# **Chapter 7**

z Management standards for compulsory education schools [YI-WU-JIAO-YU-XUE-XIAO-GUAN-LI-BIAO-ZHUN] ѹᮉ㛢ᆖ ṑ㇑⨶ḷ߶

#### Glossary of Chinese Terms 265


# **Chapter 8**


# **Epilogue**

Reform and opening-up [GAI-GE-KAI-FANG] ᭩䶙ᔰ᭮

#### **Appendices**

#### **Appendix A. Questionnaire surveys**

*Current Status of School Leadership and Management: A Survey of Principals (CSSLM2017-principals)* 

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for taking your time to fill out this questionnaire.

The purpose of this questionnaire is to obtain information about current status of leadership and management in primary and secondary schools. It is only used for scholarly research and does not involve government intentions. Filling out this questionnaire shouldn't take much more than minutes of your time. Your response to the questionnaire will be anonymous and will be combined with those of others.

Please be assured that your answer will be treated with utmost confidentiality.

Thank you very much again for your support!

#### 3DUW\$%DFNJURXQGLQIRUPDWLRQ˄SOHDVHWLFNDVDSSURSULDWH˅

1ǃGender˖ƑPDOH ƑIHPDOH

2ǃSchool˖ ƑSULPDU\ ƑMXQLRUKLJK ƑQLQH\HDUVFKRRO ƑKLJKVFKRRO ƑVHQLRUKLJK

3ǃPosition˖ƑSULQFLSDO ƑSDUW\VHFUHWDU\ ƑGHSXW\SULQFLSDO ƑGHSXW\SDUW\VHFUHWDU\ƑRWKHU ˄please indicate specific position˅

4ǃSchool location˖ƑXUEDQDUHD ƑUXUDOXUEDQFRQWLQXXPDUHD ƑFRXQW\VHDW ƑVPDOOWRZQRU village

5ǃSchool size˖number of classes number of students

6ǃSchool category˖ƑJRYHUQPHQWVFKRRO ƑQRQJRYHUQPHQWVFKRRO

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 D. Feng, *Understanding China's School Leadership*, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0749-6

**Part B. Please tick as appropriate.** 


#### Appendices 269



#### **Part C. Please tick as appropriate.**


Appendices 271


# *Current Status of Teachers' Work Condition and Environment: A Survey of Teachers (CSTWCE2017-teachers)*

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for taking your time to fill out this questionnaire.

The purpose of this questionnaire is to obtain information about current status of leadership and management in primary and secondary schools. It is only used for scholarly research and does not involve government intentions. Filling out this questionnaire shouldn't take much more than minutes of your time. Your response to the questionnaire will be anonymous and will be combined with those of others.

Please be assured that your answer will be treated with utmost confidentiality.

Thank you very much again for your support!

#### 3DUW\$%DFNJURXQGLQIRUPDWLRQ˄SOHDVHWLFNDVDSSURSULDWH˅

Gender˖ƑPDOH ƑIHPDOH

School˖ ƑSULPDU\ ƑMXQLRUKLJK ƑQLQH\HDUVFKRRO ƑKLJKVFKRRO ƑVHQLRUKLJK

 School location˖ƑXUEDQDUHD ƑUXUDOXUEDQFRQWLQXXPDUHD ƑFRXQW\VHDW ƑVPDOOWRZQRU village

School size˖number of classes number of students

School category˖ƑJRYHUQPHQWVFKRRO Ƒ ≁ non-government school

 Position ˖ Ƒ RUGLQDU\ WHDFKHU ƑKHDG RI JUDGH XQLWVXEMHFW GHSDUWPHQW ƑPLGGOH PDQDJHUGLUHFWRU ƑRWKHU˄please indicate specific position˅

 <HDUVRIWHDFKLQJH[SHULHQFHƑ/HVVWKDQ\HDUVƑ\HDUVƑ\HDUVƑ0RUHWKDQ years

8.Teaching workload: classes per week

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### **Part B. Please tick as appropriate.**




#### **Data Source**

The target population for this study was teachers and principals attending training programs in East China Normal University. No incentive was offered to take part in the study. Data collection for this study occurred between August and December 2017. Principal data came from 21 Chinese provinces (18 provinces, Shanghai municipality, Tibet Autonomous Region, and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region). The questionnaire was submitted to 897 principals from whom we obtained 665 valid questionnaires representing an effective response rate of almost 74.1%. Teacher data were collected from 5 provinces (4 provinces and Shanghai municipality). The questionnaire was submitted to 3311 teachers from whom we obtained 2035 valid questionnaires representing a response rate of almost 61.5%. Teacher demographic information was collected on gender, school types, location, teaching experience, and education background. Principal demographic information was collected on gender, school types, location, and position. According to all ethical standards, each participant received a survey packet including the questionnaire, a cover letter explaining the study's purposes, and a consent form stressing that participation was confidential and voluntary. No questions that could identify the teachers' or principals' identity were included in the survey. The sample included 51.4% male teachers and 48.6% female teachers. 8.3% of teachers came from urban schools, 16.0% came from Rural-urban-continuum schools, and 75.7% came from rural schools. Most teachers (85.4%) are ordinary teachers, 5.3% teachers are heads of grade unit/subject department, and 7.0% are middle-level leaders. In principal sample, 85.3% of them were men. Respondents primarily came from public schools (95.9%). Most of participants believed that supervisors valued most about teaching quality in their schools (79.2%).

#### **Survey instrument**

The survey instruments were developed based on an extensive review of research into teachers' work environment and principals' work in China. Also, we adopt school autonomy scale from Coghlan & Desurmont (2007). The instruments contained questions with specific focus on (a) background and demographic characteristics of teachers and principals; (b) teachers' attitude toward current status of work condition and environment; (c) school autonomy; and (d) current status of leadership and management in primary and secondary schools. The items were measured on a five-point Likert scale (1= strongly disagree to 5 =strongly agree).

#### **Validity and Reliability of the Instrument**

Content validity was established by using a panel of expert in education field. The panel of expert was given a copy of the instrument and asked to comment on its contents. Experts' comments and suggestions were incorporated into the final instrument. The drafts of the questionnaires were purposively given to teachers and principals for validation.

#### **Data analysis**

The data was analyzed by SPSS 22.0 software using descriptive statistics and independent t-test. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the following: the background and demographic characteristics of respondents; teachers' attitude toward current status of work condition and environment; school autonomy; and current status of leadership and management in primary and secondary schools. An independent sample t-test was used to determine if a significant difference existed between variables.

#### **Reference**

Coghlan, M., & Desurmont, A. (2007). *School autonomy in Europe policies and measures*. Brussels: Eurydice.

#### **Appendix B**

Qualitative data were collected in February and May 2018. Semi-structured interviews for education bureau officials (Intrview2018-EBO) and principals (Intrview2018-Principal) were used to collect the data. The interviewees of Intrview2018-EBO are composed by four directors/ vice directors of district/county education bureau from four districts/counties in Anhui, Shandong, Guizhou Province and Shanghai metropolis, and eleven section head/associate head of district/county education bureau from five districts/counties in Guangdong, Guizhou, Jiangsu, Anhui Province and Shanghai metropolis. The interviewees of Intrview2018-Principal are composed by seventeen primary and secondary school principals/vice-principals from five districts/counties in Anhui, Shandong, Guizhou, Jiangsu Province and Shanghai metropolis. Each interview lasted at least one hour. Methods were adopted to ensure the trustworthiness of the data analysis and research ethics of the present study. When the transcription of interviews had been completed, all transcriptions were sent back to the relevant informant for confirmation of their accuracy. Revisions were made when the informants did not agree with the transcription. During the data analysis, all the data were guaranteed anonymity to avoid possible negative influence on them. All interviews were transcribed and analyzed inductively. The primary purposes of the interviews are to confirm frequently used terms selected in school leadership practice and to further explain some information drawn from some parts of the results of the *CSSLM2017-principals* and *CSTWCE2017-teachers*. Nvivo 10 software was used to classify and cluster the data. Coding the transcriptions with NVivo enabled researchers to analyze the data more effectively.

#### *Education Bureau Official Interview Protocol*

1. What do you usually focus on in principal management at the moment?

2. Do you think is it necessary for prospective principals/vice principals to gain the experience of a *reserve principal* before they are promoted to principals or vice principals? Is it one of rigid rules for leadership promotion in your district/county education system?

3. In your opinion, have the school teachers' educational ideas, teaching approaches and their own professionalism changed since the curriculum reform launched in 2001?

4. In your opinion, has any substantive progress made in solving the high-profile problems in school education (e.g. excessive schoolwork burden for students, too intense competition in 278 Appendices

high-stakes examinations) in recent years?

5. What are the present priorities in your administrative agenda about school internal management improvement in your district/county education system?

6. What leadership terms are frequently used in your leadership practice (e.g. in your official speech at district/county wide events, in your official speech to school leaders, in official documents developed by you or your colleagues, in annual appraisal for school leadership, in your school visits, in your conversation with school leaders, etc.)? Can you give me a couple of examples?

#### *Principal Interview Protocol*

1. What have been the priorities in your school leadership practice recently?

2. Before you were appointed as a principal, had you got the experience of *reserve principal*?

3. We learned from the result of a questionnaire survey that different school may get different degrees of autonomy (from full autonomy to limited or no autonomy) on "selection for teaching vacancies". What are the possible reasons, based on your experience, for this result?

4. When you encounter difficulties in leadership practice and need a timely support from the director of district/county education bureau, can you have the opportunity to communicate with the director directly and timely? If you can, what kind of communication means do you usually use? If cannot, what will you do next?

5. Do you value the role of *emotional management* in your leadership practice? In the practice of *emotional management*, have you ever used the methods of *heart-to-heart talk* and *home visitation*?

6. What leadership terms are frequently used in your leadership practice (e.g. in your school development plan, in your annual performance report, in your school regulations and rules, in your leadership team meeting minutes, in your speech at a leadership conference, in your presentation at a leadership workshop, in your job diary, in your conversation with middle managers, etc.)? Can you give me a couple of examples?