Professionalization of primary-school teachers in China-----

CHAPTER-ONE
Introduction

 Introduction
Since the implement of reform and opening-up policy in 1980s, Primary Education in China has been making great progress in every respect. One of them, professionalization of primary-school teachers, will be examined in terms of local level in this study, with the purpose of exploring the actors and factors that promote or inhibit the development of this occupational group. My hometown, Jiangyin, which is in Jiangsu Province will be studied.

 Background of the study
1.2.1 An overview to the Primary Education in China
The development of primary education in so vast a country as China has been a formidable accomplishment. In contrast to the 20 percent enrollment rate before 1949, in 1998 about 98.9% of primary school age children were enrolled in approximately 609,600 primary schools(Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, 2004).
Under the Law on Nine-Year Compulsory Education, primary schools are tuition-free and 本站提供代写Essay，代写Assignment，请联系QQ：949925041 reasonably located for the convenience of children attending them; students would attend primary schools in their neighborhoods or villages. Parents pay a small fee per term for books and other expenses such as transportation, food, and heating.
Children usually entered primary school at seven years of age for six days a week, which after regulatory changes in 1995 and 1997 were changed to five and a half and five days, respectively. The two-semester school year consists of 9.5 months, and begins on September 1st and March 1st, with a summer vacation in July and August and a winter vacation in January and February. Primary schools usually divide the

school week into twenty-four to twenty-seven classes of forty-five minutes each. Most primary schools have a six-year course.

1.2.2 An introduction to the primary-school teachers in China

In Chinese traditional culture, education is always in the first place of activities of families and society. Teachers are respected by the entire society because people think that what teachers do critically affect the lives and prospects of a nation’s future generation, as well as the general welfare of a country. Accordingly, September 10th was designated Teachers’ Day in 1985, the first festival day for any profession and indicative of government efforts to raise the social status and living standards of teachers.

Primary education lays the foundation for people’s pursuit of further learning and fulfillment of their potential. So the primary-school teachers in China are expected to be more and more professional to be capable of dealing with the daily educational activities and also enormous changes that have been taking place in the present knowledge and information society.

To achieve that, China’s government did a lot of work. For instance, to improve the quality of teaching, the government has started the Nationwide Program of Network for Education of Teachers. Its aims are: to modernize teachers' education through educational information, providing support and services for lifelong learning through the teachers' education network, TV satellite network, and the Internet; to greatly improve the teaching quality of elementary and high school faculty through large-scale, high-quality and high-efficiency training and continuous education.