Chengdu.cn:

The CPC at its 20th National Congress set a clear goal for accelerating high-quality, balanced development and urban-rural integration in compulsory education. How will the MOE promote the achievement of this goal? Thank you.

Liu Zicheng:

I am glad to answer this question. Compulsory education concerns tens of thousands of families and garners widespread interest. In 2021, all counties across China passed the national assessment of balanced development in compulsory education. This represents a new milestone in the history of China's education development, signifying that China's compulsory education has entered a new stage of development. According to our planned objective, the majority of the country's counties will achieve the high-quality and balanced development in compulsory education by 2035. There's still considerable work ahead to attain this goal, and we will focus on five aspects to advance this work.

First, we will strengthen areas of weakness by promoting the standardization of school development. We will initiate a project to standardize the development of compulsory education schools, promoting the basic conditions of compulsory education schools, including campus and dormitories, teaching instruments, class size adjustments, and more, to meet the required standards. This approach aims to create an optimal teaching, cultural and living environment.

Second, we will help the disadvantaged by promoting the integration of urban and rural education. We will lay out urban and rural schools reasonably in line with population changes. We will also strengthen the construction of boarding schools and small rural schools, fully leveraging the leading role of urban schools to elevate the quality of education in rural areas.

Third, we will promote the balanced allocation of teachers and education resources. We will carry out exchange and rotation of teachers and headteachers in an orderly manner, advance the reform of "County Management and School Recruitment" in teacher management. We will improve the support and incentive mechanism for teacher exchanges and rotations. For instance, teaching in rural schools should be specified as a requirement for seeking senior professional titles and a priority in selection and appointment of primary and secondary school principals. We will provide incentives and support for schools that train and provide outstanding teachers. At the same time, more training shall be given to teachers to elevate the level of teaching and education.

Fourth, we will leverage digital means to foster smart resource sharing. We will improve and fully utilize the national smart education platform for primary and secondary schools, build a digital education platform system featuring connectivity, joint contribution and shared benefits, and broaden the coverage of high-quality education resources.

Fifth, we will promote equity and institutionalized educational care. We will fully implement the policies that children can receive compulsory education at schools close to where they live without having to take entrance exams, and public and private schools can start recruitment simultaneously. We will guarantee equal access to compulsory education for children living with their migrant worker parents in cities. Financial assistance and support will be offered to care for and help students from economically disadvantaged families, left-behind children, and those with disabilities, ensuring that hundreds of millions of children have access to quality education together.

Recently, the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council General Office jointly issued Opinions on Constructing a High-Quality and Balanced Basic Public Education Service System, which further improved the policy guarantee system around the above five priorities. We will take multiple measures to promote the implementation and effectiveness of these tasks, actively carry out the establishment of high-quality and balanced compulsory education in counties, and steadily advance the national assessment to ensure that the high-quality and balanced development of compulsory education is achieved by 2035 as scheduled. Thank you.