Teacher Development Policy in China: Multiple Dimensions (Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices) 9819910145, 9789819910144

Table of contents :
Preface
Acknowledgments
Contents
About the Authors
1 The Leading Value of “Four Good Teachers” in China
1.1 Literature Review of Relevant Research on the Concept of “Four Things” Good Teachers
1.1.1 Research on the Historical Inheritance of Good Teachers in the “Four Have”
1.1.2 The Interpretation of the Specific Connotation of the “Four Have” Good Teacher
1.1.3 “Four Haves” Good Teachers and the Construction of Teachers
1.1.4 Relevant Suggestions of Practicing the “Four Haves” Good Teacher Concept
1.2 Teacher Ethics Construction Policy Under the Guidance of the Concept of “Four Good Teachers”
1.2.1 Overview of the Implementation of the Policy on Teacher Contingent Construction in the New Era
1.3 Problems and Challenges in Practicing the Concept of “Four Good Teachers”
1.3.1 Frequent Problems of Teacher Ethics and Teacher Style Assessment Mechanisms Are not Sound
1.3.2 Teachers’ Ideals and Beliefs Are Weak, and Ideological Problems Are Prominent
1.3.3 Ideological and Political Curriculum and Ideological and Political Education Quality Are not High
1.3.4 Promoting Curriculum Ideological and Political Construction and Implementing the Task of Moral Education
References
2 The Teacher Salary Management Policy in China
2.1 Literature Review and Theoretical Tools
2.1.1 Existing Research
2.1.2 Theoretical Tools
2.2 Policy Text and Implementation Data
2.2.1 The Average Salary of Teachers Shall not Be Lower Than or Higher Than the Average Salary of National Civil Servants (1993–2018)
2.2.2 The Total Income of Teachers’ Performance Pay Shall not Be Lower Than or Higher Than the Average Salary of National Civil Servants (2018–Present)
2.2.3 The Salary Level of Teachers is Relatively Low
2.2.4 Policy is Closely Linked and Coherent
2.2.5 Some Policies Contradict Each Other
2.3 Policy Suggestions
2.3.1 Unify the Expression of the Salary Income Level of Teachers in Policy Documents at the Same Level
2.3.2 Improving Teachers’ Pay and Working Conditions Can Attract more Highly Qualified Teachers, Which Means that more People will be Willing to Enter the Teaching Profession if Teachers are Paid Better than Other Professions
References
3 The Teacher Evaluation Policy in China
3.1 Policy Analysis of Teacher Evaluation
3.1.1 The Content and Characteristics of China’s University Teacher Evaluation Policy
3.1.2 The Evaluation Standard of University Teachers: The “One Vote Veto System” of Teachers’ Ethics is the Fundamental Principle to Follow
3.1.3 The Evaluation Method of University Teachers: The Combination of Summative and Procedural Evaluation
3.1.4 The Evaluation Subject of University Teachers: Pay Equal Attention to Diversification and Specialization
3.1.5 The Evaluation Content of University Teachers: Considering the Principles of Comprehensive, Key and Classified Evaluation
3.1.6 Evaluation Results of University Teachers: Value Orientation Highlighting the Significance of Feedback and Improvement
3.2 The Main Problems of China's University Teacher Evaluation Policy
3.2.1 The Policy Concept of University Teacher Evaluation: Instrumental Rationality and Efficiency Orientation Dominate
3.2.2 Policy Results of University Teacher Evaluation: Resource Bundling and Allocation Based on Results, Performance, and Benefits
3.3 The Future Trend of China's University Teacher Evaluation Policy
3.3.1 Scientifically Governing Teachers and Practicing the “Teacher-Oriented” Evaluation Concept of University Teachers
3.3.2 To Stimulate the Growth of Teachers, Highlighting the Promotion Role of College Peers and Self-evaluation
3.3.3 Strengthening Teachers’ Participation and Implementing Developmental Evaluation Methods for University Teachers
3.3.4 Pay Attention to Teacher Improvement and Establish an Effective Feedback Mechanism for the Evaluation Results of University Teachers
References
4 Teachers’ Professional Title Appointment Policy in China
4.1 The Overview and Policy Content of Professional Title Appointment
4.1.1 Professional Title Evaluation: Improve the Evaluation Mode
4.1.2 Post Setting: Increasing the Proportion of Senior and Intermediate Professional Titles
4.2 Job Recruitment: Complementary Evaluation and Recruitment
4.2.1 Some Problems Existing in the Appointment of Professional Title
4.2.2 Problems in Title Evaluation: Professional and Technical Titles Shall Be Evaluated for Administrative Positions
4.2.3 Problems in the Setting of Professional Title: There Are Huge Differences in the Proportion of Professional Title Structure
4.2.4 The Employment of the Problem: Post-employment Can Be Up or Down
4.3 Possible Countermeasures for the Reform of Professional Titles
4.3.1 The Professional Title Evaluation of Administrative and Teaching Posts Shall Be Clearly Distinguished
4.3.2 Re-examine the Core Purpose of the Professional Title System for Primary and Secondary School Teachers
4.3.3 Establish a Scientific and Reasonable Salary System
References
5 The Teachers’ Ethics Policy in China’s Education System
5.1 Literature Review and Theoretical Tools
5.1.1 The Literature Review of Teachers’ Ethics
5.1.2 The Necessity and Importance of Ethics to Strengthen Construction
5.1.3 Research on the Problems and Implementation Paths in the Process of Teacher Ethics Construction
5.2 Challenges and Problems
5.2.1 In Terms of the Proportion of Policy Tools Used, Command Tools and Incentive Tools Occupy an Absolute Advantage, Which Means that they Undertake the Most Important Work in the Construction of Teachers’ Ethics
5.2.2 Persuasion Tools Occupy Second Place and Adopt a Variety of Forms of Publicity and Guidance, Which Plays an Irreplaceable Role in Promoting the Construction of Teacher Ethics
5.3 Coping Strategies and Prospects
5.3.1 Form a More Comprehensive Teacher Evaluation System
5.3.2 To Promote the Cultivation of Teachers’ Moral Character and Their Attention to Teaching and Educating
References
6 The “County Management and School Recruitment” Policy in Teacher Management in China
6.1 Literature Review and Theoretical Tools
6.1.1 Overview of Teacher Management Policy Development
6.1.2 Review of Policy Research on “County Administrator School Recruitment”
6.2 Policy Text and Implementation Data
6.2.1 Review of the National Policy of “Hiring County Administrators and Schools”
6.2.2 Pilot Reform of “County Management and School Recruitment”
6.2.3 The Overall Situation of the Adoption of the Policy of “Hiring County Administrators and Schools” in Each City
6.3 The Effect and Problems of the “County Management School Recruitment” Policy
6.3.1 Achievements Achieved in Practice of “County Management and School Recruitment” Policy
6.3.2 Problems Faced by the Policy of “Hiring County Administrators and Schools” in Practice
References
7 The Teachers’ Honor Recognition Policy in China
7.1 Literature Review and Theoretical Tools
7.1.1 Literature Review
7.1.2 Theoretical Tools
7.1.3 Normative Research: Speculative Analysis
7.2 Policy Text and Implementation Data
7.2.1 National Teaching Achievement Award
7.2.2 Honor System for Rural Teachers
7.3 Challenges and Problems in Practice
7.3.1 State-Level Teaching Achievements
7.3.2 Honor System for Rural Teachers
7.4 Countermeasures and Suggestions
7.4.1 Allocate the Quota of the National Teaching Achievement Award Reasonably
7.4.2 The Awards of Each Academic Section Are Tilted Toward the Central and Western Regions and Rural Areas
7.4.3 Front-Line Teachers Are Given Priority to Participate in the Evaluation and Award
7.4.4 Encourage Collaborative Innovation in Education and Teaching Outcomes
7.4.5 Establish an Open and Democratic Evaluation Mechanism
References
8 Teachers’ Qualification Management and Policy in China
8.1 Literature Review and Theoretical Tools
8.1.1 Literature Review of Teacher Qualification Management
8.1.2 The Status of Teachers’ Education and the Quality of Teachers
8.2 Policy Text and Implementation Data
8.2.1 Pilot and Promote the National Unified Primary and Secondary School Teacher Qualification Examination System and Regular Registration System
8.2.2 Reform of Teachers’ Qualification Certification for Normal University Students Without Examination
8.3 Challenges and Problems in Practice
8.3.1 Teacher Qualification Standards Do not Adapt to the Development of the Times
8.3.2 The Enthusiasm of Normal University Students to Be Exempted from Examinations Needs to Be Improved
8.3.3 Teacher Qualification Examination Shapes the Teaching Ability of Sham Education
8.3.4 Regular Registration of Teachers’ Qualifications Has not Been Effective
8.3.5 A Single Administrative Body for Teacher Qualifications
8.3.6 Policy Objectives Need to Be Further Clarified
8.3.7 Institutional Support Needs to Be Further Improved
8.4 Countermeasures and Suggestions for Challenges and Problems
8.4.1 Redesign Teacher Qualification Standards to Respond to the Development of the Times
8.4.2 Improve the Examination Exemption Mechanism for Normal University Students and Mobilize the Enthusiasm of Colleges and Universities
8.4.3 Standardize the Teacher Qualification Examination and Respond to the Professional Characteristics of Teachers
8.4.4 Improve the Regular Registration System and Make It Effective
8.4.5 Encouraging Third-Party Institutions to Participate in the Management of Teacher Qualifications
References

Citation preview

Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices

Jian Li Eryong Xue

Teacher Development Policy in China Multiple Dimensions

Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices Series Editors Eryong Xue, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China Simon Marginson, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Jian Li, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

This book series explores education policy on Pre-K, K-12, post-secondary education, and vocational education, informing multiple experts from academia to practitioner, and specifically pays focuses on new frontiers and cutting-edge knowledge that transforms future education policy development. It has been initiated by a global group of education policy research centers and institutions, whose faculty and staff includes internationally recognized researchers in comparative education policy studies. The series’ mission is to advance the modernization of the education and social construction. This series provides policymakers and researchers with an in-depth understanding of international education policy from diverse perspectives. Topics include cuttingedge and multidisciplinary studies on identifying, analyzing and uncovering education policy reform and practice among the fields in education policy and pedagogy. It addresses how education policy shapes the development of education systems in different regions and seeks to explain how specific education policies concentrate on accelerating the development of quality education and social progress. More importantly, this book series offers policymakers and educational stakeholders, government, and private sectors a comprehensive lens to investigate the trends, rationales of education policy development internationally.

Jian Li · Eryong Xue

Teacher Development Policy in China Multiple Dimensions

Jian Li China Institute of Education Policy Beijing Normal University Beijing, China

Eryong Xue Beijing Normal University Beijing, China

This research was funded by National Social Science Foundation Youth Project in Education “Study on Process Tracking and Effect Evaluation of Policy Implementation of Excellent Teacher Plan in Ministry-affiliated Normal Universities” (Project No.: CIA220282) ISSN 2730-6356 ISSN 2730-6364 (electronic) Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices ISBN 978-981-99-1014-4 ISBN 978-981-99-1015-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1015-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Preface

This book comprehensively explores teacher development policy in China from multiple dimensions. It involves investigating the leading value of “Four Good Teachers”, the teacher salary management policy, the teacher evaluation policy, the teachers’ professional title appointment policy, the teachers’ ethics policy in China’s education system, the “County management and school recruitment” policy in teacher management, the teachers’ honor recognition policy, and the teachers’ qualification management and policy in China. It also brings in-depth understanding to epitomize the teacher development policy in China contextually. In addition, this book also offers specific suggestions to address various challenges of teacher development policies nationally and locally. Chapter 1 explores the leading value of “Four Good Teachers” in China. Since the eighteenth congress, the party central committee with comrades as the core, in the inheritance of the Communist Party of China the teacher team construction based on experience, based on realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, has carried out the construction of teachers in the education reform and development of the prominent position, focused on the teacher’s ethics strengthen construction of the main fulcrum, and put forward a series of new thoughts new ideas. The general secretary’s remarks on “four good teachers” point out the fundamental direction for the construction of teachers in the new era. In this paper, using the method of literature research, the concept of “four haves” good teachers classifies the types of related research and systems combining ethics to strengthen construction, such as policy text interpretation of the concept of “four haves” good teachers and implementation, in combination with the execution data teacher’s ethics strengthening policy, thus to improve teachers’ “morality” and discuss the “ideal and faith” path, which aims to better promote the implementation of the concept of “four have” good teachers. Chapter 2 examines the teacher salary management policy in China. The salary income of teachers is related to the construction of high-quality teachers but also related to the construction of high-quality education. Through research on policies related to teacher salary income from 2011 to 2020, it is found that the development of policies related to teacher salary income can be divided into two periods. In the first period (1993–2018), the average salary of teachers should not be lower or higher v

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than that of civil servants; in the second period (2018–present), the sum of teachers’ average salary and performance should not be lower or higher than the actual income of civil servants. From the perspective of policy tools, the policies of the two stages are mainly mandatory policy tools with strong execution. From the perspective of policy implementation, the salary of teachers from 2011 to 2020 was no lower or higher than that of civil servants, basically realizing the policy goal. However, in real life, there are still some inconsistent policies and regulations which make a large gap between provincial and regional teachers’ salary income and the lower relative ranking of teachers’ salary income. Therefore, two policy suggestions are put forward to unify the expression of teachers’ salary income level in the same policy document and explore multiple modes of teachers’ salary management. Chapter 3 concentrates on the teacher evaluation policy in China. Evaluation is the key link between quality construction and the guarantee of higher education. In the era when high-quality development is the core logic of higher education development, we must exert the substantial effects of evaluation on higher education, such as “promoting reform”, “promoting construction”, “improving quality”, and “enhancing efficiency”. The university teacher evaluation policy, as a general outline of formal system about the evaluation concept, standard, content, subject, way, and result, guides and regulates the whole process and link of the university teacher evaluation practice. Through a systematic review of the relevant university teacher evaluation policies issued by the Ministry of Education since 2012, it is found that the characteristics of the contents are mainly reflected in the following aspects: the evaluation concept is centered on moral cultivation; the evaluation standard is based on the “one vote veto system” of teachers’ morality; and the evaluation method pays attention to the combination of summative and procedural evaluation. Chapter 4 examines the teachers’ professional title appointment policy in China. The professional title appointment system of primary and secondary school teachers is the core problem of teacher management. This chapter analyzes the progress of the reform of China’s professional title system from three aspects, namely professional title evaluation, post setting, and post-employment. The evaluation mode of professional title evaluation is constantly improving, the number of middle and senior professional title posts should be appropriately increased in the post setting, and the post-employment should be combined with the evaluation of professional title and post evaluation. Based on the two-factor theory, this chapter analyzes the problems existing in the current professional title employment system, such as the large difference in the proportion of professional title and title structure of administrative posts and whether the positions can be employed above or below. This study puts forward some suggestions for improvement, such as distinguishing the professional title evaluation of administrative and teaching posts clearly, reexamining the core purpose of the professional title system of primary and secondary school teachers, and establishing a scientific and reasonable salary system. Chapter 5 concentrates on teachers’ ethics policy in China’s education system. Against the background of the new era, China is paying more attention to the construction of teachers’ ethics in higher education. The country has introduced a series of important policies to strengthen the construction of teachers’ ethics in colleges

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and universities, establish high-quality teachers, and promote the development of national higher education. From the perspective of policy tools theory, this chapter will analyze the existing policy documents, determine the challenges and difficulties in the process of policy practice, and try to give corresponding solutions. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the party and the country have paid increasing attention to the construction of teachers’ ethics in colleges and universities. As the main body of moral education, college teachers undertake the important task of improving the quality of higher education, cultivating high-quality talent, and promoting social development. Teachers’ morality is the primary factor in constructing high-quality teachers. General Secretary Xi Jinping has given many speeches on this issue in colleges and universities and proposed that college teachers should strengthen the construction of teachers’ ethics, “combine teaching and cultivation with self-cultivation, and strive to establish themselves, learn and teach by virtue”. Under the guidance of the general secretary, colleges and universities should carry out in-depth construction of teachers’ ethics and conduct the evaluation of teachers’ ethics throughout the whole process of education and teaching. Chapter 6 investigates the “County management and school recruitment” policy in teacher management in China. The development goal of compulsory education in China has changed from basic balance to high-quality balance, and teachers play a key role in realizing this goal. In October 2020, “the review of the fifth plenary session of the party’s 19th through the establishment of the central committee of the communist party of China about the national economy and social development of 14 five-year plan and 2035 vision”, the resolution clearly stressed that “difference” education career should adhere to the principle of education public welfare, deepen education reform. To promote education fairs, we will promote the balanced development of compulsory education and the integration of urban and rural areas. Teachers play a key role in the fair and high-quality development of basic education and play a decisive role in the quality of compulsory education in urban and rural areas. However, under the macro background of China’s urban–rural dual economic structure, there are obvious differences in the distribution of teacher resources between urban and rural areas. The long-term one-way flow leads to a serious imbalance between urban and rural teachers, and the number of teachers in the rural region is difficult to guarantee. At the same time, there are some problems in the allocation of teachers in compulsory education in China, such as the inter-school barriers of teacher resources in cities and towns, the loss of rural teachers, and the structural imbalance of rural teachers. How to ensure the adequate number and reasonable structure of compulsory education teachers and ensure the balanced allocation of urban and rural teachers has become the core policy issue of education administrative departments at all levels, and the traditional teacher management system needs to be reformed. In this context, “county management and school recruitment” has become one of the important means to promote the balanced allocation of teachers by educational administrative departments at all levels. The “county administrator school recruitment” policy has been deeply studied by China’s scholars from many aspects. Chapter 7 determines the teachers’ honor recognition policy in China. Teachers are the engineers of the human soul, the inheritors of human civilization, carrying

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the responsibility of spreading knowledge, spreading ideas, spreading truth, shaping the soul, shaping life, and shaping new people. Over the years, teachers have trained many outstanding talents and made important contributions to China’s economic and social development. On September 9, 2014, General Secretary Xi Jinping quoted Xunzi in his speech to the representatives of teachers and students at Beijing Normal University. “If you are a good teacher, the country will prosper and the law will survive”. The key to national rejuvenation lies in talent, education, and teachers. The degree of social respect for teachers determines the status of education and the future of the country. Attaching importance to the recognition of teachers’ honor can improve the attraction and sense of honor of the teaching profession, further promote the social trend of respecting teachers and valuing education in society as a whole and make teachers the most respected and enviable profession in society. Teacher honor recognition is an important part of education, which plays an important role in motivating teachers and guiding the construction of high-quality teachers. The establishment of a system of honoring teachers who have made outstanding contributions to education is a concrete manifestation of respect for knowledge and talent, a practical measure to revitalize the country through science and education and give priority to the development of education. It has a significant encouraging and guiding effect on teachers and even society as a whole. So that most teachers do not forget the original aspiration of moral education, keep in mind the mission of educating people for the Party and the country, feel at ease in teaching, enthusiastic in teaching, comfortable in teaching, and therefore constantly make new contributions to the development of the country. Chapter 8 focuses on teachers’ qualification management in China. Obtaining a teacher’s qualification is the bottom-line requirement of being a teacher. Teacher qualification management is of great significance to guarantee the quality of teachers. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China’s teacher qualification management policy has experienced two stages: the pilot and promotion of the national unified primary and secondary school teacher qualification examination system and the regular registration system and the reform of teachers’ qualifications without examination for normal university students. There are some problems in the management of teacher qualification, such as the design of teacher standards does not adapt to the development of the times, the teacher qualification examination shapes the teaching ability of pseudo-education, the regular registration of teacher qualification is not effective, and the management organization of teacher qualification is single. Thus, we should respond to these problems and improve the design and implementation of teacher qualification systems. Beijing, China

Jian Li Eryong Xue

Acknowledgments

In the realization of this book, our contributors have been supportive and willing to share their opinions and perspectives on how to explore the overall Chinese education policy landscape from a concept-added policy chain perspective. We are grateful for the generosity and positive spirit of collegiality. We are also appreciated the contributions that our graduate student Yunshu He made to the proofreading work. Authors and Affiliations, Eryong, Xue, and Jian Li share co-first authorship and contribute equally to this book.

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1 The Leading Value of “Four Good Teachers” in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Literature Review of Relevant Research on the Concept of “Four Things” Good Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.1 Research on the Historical Inheritance of Good Teachers in the “Four Have” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.2 The Interpretation of the Specific Connotation of the “Four Have” Good Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.3 “Four Haves” Good Teachers and the Construction of Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.4 Relevant Suggestions of Practicing the “Four Haves” Good Teacher Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Teacher Ethics Construction Policy Under the Guidance of the Concept of “Four Good Teachers” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.1 Overview of the Implementation of the Policy on Teacher Contingent Construction in the New Era . . . . . . . 1.3 Problems and Challenges in Practicing the Concept of “Four Good Teachers” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.1 Frequent Problems of Teacher Ethics and Teacher Style Assessment Mechanisms Are not Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.2 Teachers’ Ideals and Beliefs Are Weak, and Ideological Problems Are Prominent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.3 Ideological and Political Curriculum and Ideological and Political Education Quality Are not High . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.4 Promoting Curriculum Ideological and Political Construction and Implementing the Task of Moral Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The Teacher Salary Management Policy in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Literature Review and Theoretical Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Existing Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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2.1.2 Theoretical Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Policy Text and Implementation Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 The Average Salary of Teachers Shall not Be Lower Than or Higher Than the Average Salary of National Civil Servants (1993–2018) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2 The Total Income of Teachers’ Performance Pay Shall not Be Lower Than or Higher Than the Average Salary of National Civil Servants (2018–Present) . . . . . . . . . 2.2.3 The Salary Level of Teachers is Relatively Low . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.4 Policy is Closely Linked and Coherent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.5 Some Policies Contradict Each Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Policy Suggestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 Unify the Expression of the Salary Income Level of Teachers in Policy Documents at the Same Level . . . . . . . 2.3.2 Improving Teachers’ Pay and Working Conditions Can Attract more Highly Qualified Teachers, Which Means that more People will be Willing to Enter the Teaching Profession if Teachers are Paid Better than Other Professions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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3 The Teacher Evaluation Policy in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Policy Analysis of Teacher Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.1 The Content and Characteristics of China’s University Teacher Evaluation Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.2 The Evaluation Standard of University Teachers: The “One Vote Veto System” of Teachers’ Ethics is the Fundamental Principle to Follow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.3 The Evaluation Method of University Teachers: The Combination of Summative and Procedural Evaluation . . . . 3.1.4 The Evaluation Subject of University Teachers: Pay Equal Attention to Diversification and Specialization . . . . . . 3.1.5 The Evaluation Content of University Teachers: Considering the Principles of Comprehensive, Key and Classified Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.6 Evaluation Results of University Teachers: Value Orientation Highlighting the Significance of Feedback and Improvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 The Main Problems of China’s University Teacher Evaluation Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 The Policy Concept of University Teacher Evaluation: Instrumental Rationality and Efficiency Orientation Dominate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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3.2.2 Policy Results of University Teacher Evaluation: Resource Bundling and Allocation Based on Results, Performance, and Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 The Future Trend of China’s University Teacher Evaluation Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.1 Scientifically Governing Teachers and Practicing the “Teacher-Oriented” Evaluation Concept of University Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.2 To Stimulate the Growth of Teachers, Highlighting the Promotion Role of College Peers and Self-evaluation . . 3.3.3 Strengthening Teachers’ Participation and Implementing Developmental Evaluation Methods for University Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.4 Pay Attention to Teacher Improvement and Establish an Effective Feedback Mechanism for the Evaluation Results of University Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Teachers’ Professional Title Appointment Policy in China . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 The Overview and Policy Content of Professional Title Appointment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.1 Professional Title Evaluation: Improve the Evaluation Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.2 Post Setting: Increasing the Proportion of Senior and Intermediate Professional Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Job Recruitment: Complementary Evaluation and Recruitment . . . . 4.2.1 Some Problems Existing in the Appointment of Professional Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.2 Problems in Title Evaluation: Professional and Technical Titles Shall Be Evaluated for Administrative Positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.3 Problems in the Setting of Professional Title: There Are Huge Differences in the Proportion of Professional Title Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.4 The Employment of the Problem: Post-employment Can Be Up or Down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Possible Countermeasures for the Reform of Professional Titles . . . 4.3.1 The Professional Title Evaluation of Administrative and Teaching Posts Shall Be Clearly Distinguished . . . . . . . 4.3.2 Re-examine the Core Purpose of the Professional Title System for Primary and Secondary School Teachers . . 4.3.3 Establish a Scientific and Reasonable Salary System . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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5 The Teachers’ Ethics Policy in China’s Education System . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Literature Review and Theoretical Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.1 The Literature Review of Teachers’ Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.2 The Necessity and Importance of Ethics to Strengthen Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.3 Research on the Problems and Implementation Paths in the Process of Teacher Ethics Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Challenges and Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.1 In Terms of the Proportion of Policy Tools Used, Command Tools and Incentive Tools Occupy an Absolute Advantage, Which Means that they Undertake the Most Important Work in the Construction of Teachers’ Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.2 Persuasion Tools Occupy Second Place and Adopt a Variety of Forms of Publicity and Guidance, Which Plays an Irreplaceable Role in Promoting the Construction of Teacher Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Coping Strategies and Prospects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.1 Form a More Comprehensive Teacher Evaluation System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2 To Promote the Cultivation of Teachers’ Moral Character and Their Attention to Teaching and Educating . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 The “County Management and School Recruitment” Policy in Teacher Management in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Literature Review and Theoretical Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.1 Overview of Teacher Management Policy Development . . . 6.1.2 Review of Policy Research on “County Administrator School Recruitment” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Policy Text and Implementation Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.1 Review of the National Policy of “Hiring County Administrators and Schools” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.2 Pilot Reform of “County Management and School Recruitment” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.3 The Overall Situation of the Adoption of the Policy of “Hiring County Administrators and Schools” in Each City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 The Effect and Problems of the “County Management School Recruitment” Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.1 Achievements Achieved in Practice of “County Management and School Recruitment” Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.2 Problems Faced by the Policy of “Hiring County Administrators and Schools” in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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7 The Teachers’ Honor Recognition Policy in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Literature Review and Theoretical Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.1 Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.2 Theoretical Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.3 Normative Research: Speculative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Policy Text and Implementation Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2.1 National Teaching Achievement Award . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2.2 Honor System for Rural Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 Challenges and Problems in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.1 State-Level Teaching Achievements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.2 Honor System for Rural Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Countermeasures and Suggestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4.1 Allocate the Quota of the National Teaching Achievement Award Reasonably . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4.2 The Awards of Each Academic Section Are Tilted Toward the Central and Western Regions and Rural Areas . . 7.4.3 Front-Line Teachers Are Given Priority to Participate in the Evaluation and Award . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4.4 Encourage Collaborative Innovation in Education and Teaching Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4.5 Establish an Open and Democratic Evaluation Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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8 Teachers’ Qualification Management and Policy in China . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 Literature Review and Theoretical Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.1 Literature Review of Teacher Qualification Management . . . 8.1.2 The Status of Teachers’ Education and the Quality of Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 Policy Text and Implementation Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.1 Pilot and Promote the National Unified Primary and Secondary School Teacher Qualification Examination System and Regular Registration System . . . . . 8.2.2 Reform of Teachers’ Qualification Certification for Normal University Students Without Examination . . . . . 8.3 Challenges and Problems in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.1 Teacher Qualification Standards Do not Adapt to the Development of the Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.2 The Enthusiasm of Normal University Students to Be Exempted from Examinations Needs to Be Improved . . . . . . 8.3.3 Teacher Qualification Examination Shapes the Teaching Ability of Sham Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.4 Regular Registration of Teachers’ Qualifications Has not Been Effective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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8.3.5 A Single Administrative Body for Teacher Qualifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.6 Policy Objectives Need to Be Further Clarified . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.7 Institutional Support Needs to Be Further Improved . . . . . . . 8.4 Countermeasures and Suggestions for Challenges and Problems . . . 8.4.1 Redesign Teacher Qualification Standards to Respond to the Development of the Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4.2 Improve the Examination Exemption Mechanism for Normal University Students and Mobilize the Enthusiasm of Colleges and Universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4.3 Standardize the Teacher Qualification Examination and Respond to the Professional Characteristics of Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4.4 Improve the Regular Registration System and Make It Effective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4.5 Encouraging Third-Party Institutions to Participate in the Management of Teacher Qualifications . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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About the Authors

Jian Li is an Associate Professor at the China Institute of Education Policy, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, China. She received her Ph.D. degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (ELPS), School of Education, Indiana University Bloomington. Her research interests focus on Education policy studies, World-class universities, Globalization, and Internationalization of Higher Education. She has published over 80 articles and books regarding China’s education policy and comparative higher education studies. Dr. Li currently also serves as a think tanker at the China Institute of Education and Social Development, Beijing Normal University. Dr. Li’s general area of scholarship is on the assessment of education policy within education institutions. Within this general area, she has pursued four themes: education policy studies, globalization of higher education, higher education policy and management, undergraduate students’ global learning performance assessment, faculty academic innovation perspective within higher education, and comparative higher education development as a framework for institutional research. Dr. Li has published over 60 articles, 30 monographs and book chapters, delivered over 60 workshops and seminars, and offered more than 20 keynote, peer-reviewed, and invited presentations throughout the U.S. and in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

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Eryong Xue is a Professor at the China Institute of Education Policy, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, China. He received the Changjiang scholars (young scholars) award from the Ministry of Education in China. Prof. Xue is a Research Fellow of the Center for Science and Technology and Education Development Strategy at Tsinghua University, and also a Postdoctoral Fellow in the public administration at Tsinghua University. He has published more than 100 Chinese and English papers in the field of educational research, and over 100 CSSCI and SSCI articles. He won the seventh award for outstanding achievements in scientific research in institutions of higher learning, the fifth national award for outstanding achievements in educational scientific research, and the award for outstanding achievements in political participation and discussion by the central committee of the China Association for Promoting Democracy (CAPD) more than 60 times. More than 60 independent or co-authored consulting reports were adopted by decision-making departments or approved by national leaders. He has presided over more than 10 national or provincial projects, such as the National Social Science Fund, Natural Science Fund, Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Science Fund, Beijing Philosophy and Social Science Project, and participated in 9 national or provincial key projects, such as the Ministry of Education Philosophy and Social Science Project, and 2 international cooperation projects. The project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China was awarded excellent. He has been honored as the advanced worker of summer social practice for students at the capital college and technical secondary school, the outstanding talent of Beijing division, the young talent of Beijing social science federation, the outstanding talent of Beijing universities and colleges, and the outstanding talent of Beijing. Main social part-time jobs: member of the 14th committee of the communist youth league of Beijing, deputy director of the working committee of college students and young teachers, special expert of China education association, China education development strategy society, national academic level office, and director of Beijing postdoctoral fellowship (the 20th session).

Chapter 1

The Leading Value of “Four Good Teachers” in China

This chapter explores the leading value of “Four Good Teachers” in China. Since the eighteenth congress, the party central committee with comrades as the core, in the inheritance of the Communist Party of China the teacher team construction based on experience, based on realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, has carried out the construction of teachers in the education reform and development of the prominent position, focus on that the teacher’s ethics strengthen construction is the main fulcrum, and put forward a series of new thoughts new ideas. The general secretary’s remarks on “four good teachers” point out the fundamental direction for the construction of teachers in the new era. In this paper, using the method of literature research, the concept of “four haves” good teachers classifies the types of related research and systems combining ethics to strengthen construction, such as policy text interpretation of the concept of “four haves” good teachers and implementation, in combination with the execution data of teacher’s ethics strengthening policy, thus to improve teachers’ “morality” and discuss the “ideal and faith” path, which aims to better promote the implementation of the concept of “four have” good teachers.

1.1 Literature Review of Relevant Research on the Concept of “Four Things” Good Teachers On the eve of the 30th Teachers’ Day in September 2014, General Secretary Xi Jinping visited Beijing Normal University, had a discussion with teachers and students, and delivered an important speech. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized the important role of talent in today’s world’s international competition to enhance comprehensive national strength and affirmed the fundamental position of education. Considering the strategic overarching situation of profound changes unseen in the world in a century and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, the general secretary clearly pointed out that “education is of great importance to the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Li and E. Xue, Teacher Development Policy in China, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1015-1_1

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country, and teachers are the foundation and source of education development. We need to vigorously cultivate a team of high-quality professional teachers with noble ethics, professional skills, reasonable structure and vitality, and more good teachers need to emerge”. The general secretary creatively put forward the concept of a good teacher with “five qualities”—ideals, beliefs, moral sentiments, solid knowledge, and benevolence. The important issues of having a good teacher reveal the inner law of teacher development and put forward new expectations and requirements for teachers to keep pace with the times. Strengthening the research on the concept of “four good teachers” is conducive to promoting the construction of teacher ethics in the new era and has important theoretical and practical significance (Gu, 2021; Li & Liu, 2014; Song & Shu, 2021; Wang, 2010, 2019; Xi & Kang, 2020; Xia, 2019; Yang, 2018; Zhou, 2021).

1.1.1 Research on the Historical Inheritance of Good Teachers in the “Four Have” Although there are differences in educational development at different times, all regard virtue, knowledge, and benevolence as the most essential requirements of the “teacher’s way”. Since the general secretary put forward the concept of “Four good teachers”, the standards of ancient and modern teachers and Taoism have attracted the attention of the academic circle again, and there are abundant research results on the historical and cultural inheritance of “Four good teachers”. Kindness is the source of virtue. Chinese educators in all dynasties have started from Confucius’s highest moral principle, moral standard, and moral realm of “benevolence” and regard caring for students or love of teachers as the primary factor of teachers’ morality. Without love, there is no education. Teacher’s love is a teacher’s emotion, is a teacher’s virtue, and is also a teacher’s dedication. Teachers’ love is the subject of teachers, and teachers should be messengers of love. Teachers’ love places in the school, and the school should be the cradle of love. The object of teachers’ love is students, and students should grow up under teachers’ care. General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important discussion on strengthening the construction of professional ethics is based on a profound summary of the experience of the construction of professional ethics of the Communist Party of China. The general secretary strengthens the teacher’s ethics, strengthens construction in an important face-to-face manner in responding to the good teachers’ needs that people concerned, focuses on the people reflecting ethics anomie problems, always grasps the people’s most concerned interests of the most direct and realistic problems, puts forward the general teachers to do satisfactory work for the party and people with the ideal faith, moral sentiment, solid knowledge, and goodness of heart, which fully demonstrates General Secretary Xi Jinping’s persistent and firm stand on the people (Song & Shu, 2021; Wang, 2019; Zhou, 2021).

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1.1.2 The Interpretation of the Specific Connotation of the “Four Have” Good Teacher A good teacher must have ideals and beliefs. Xi Jinping said, “Teachers shoulder the important responsibility of training the next generation. Correct ideals and beliefs are the guiding light for educating people and sowing the future”. “What the Party and the people need to train are builders and successors to the cause of socialism. The ideal and belief of a good teacher should be based on this requirement”. Teachers should put “preaching” in the first place and take the initiative to implement the Party’s educational policy into teaching management. Teachers should conscientiously study the theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics, deepen their ideological, theoretical, and emotional identification with socialism with Chinese characteristics, and constantly enhance their confidence in the path, theory, system, and culture. Teachers should help students build, pursue, and realize their dreams and become active disseminators of the common ideal of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. A good teacher must have moral sentiments. The moral sentiments of a good teacher should ultimately be reflected in their loyalty and love for their profession. A good teacher should be persistent in teaching and educating people, be able to stand loneliness and keep his mind steady, have a quiet heart and indifferent mind, not waver for temporary benefits, not impatient for temporary fame, devote himself to research and learning, focus on teaching and educating people, and do his own work conscientiously. These are reflected in three aspects: the nature of knowledge sharpens the sharpness of the teacher’s spirit, the type of knowledge expands the breadth of the teacher’s thought, and the structure of knowledge constructs the thickness of the teacher’s life. Solid knowledge can help teachers gain valuable life freedom, and life freedom in turn opens a wider door to knowledge for teachers. Knowledge and freedom are a virtuous circle of interaction and mutual promotion. To be a good teacher, you must have a kind heart. The spirit of benevolence is one of the most valuable values of traditional Chinese culture. Training student is different from the factory worker making the machine because the teacher faces life individuals who have the soul and the thought. This determines that the teacher must use the soul to awaken another soul; with a life ideal enlightenment of another life ideal, teachers must be full of love (Gu, 2021; Li & Liu, 2014; Song & Shu, 2021; Wang, 2010, 2019; Xi & Kang, 2020; Xia, 2019; Yang, 2018; Zhou, 2021).

1.1.3 “Four Haves” Good Teachers and the Construction of Teachers In our education, we should train excellent builders and successors of socialism. First, we should train a group of teachers who are patriotic, knowledgeable, ethical, generous, and compassionate. The “four haves” good teacher points out the direction

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for the new era of teachers’ ethics but also endowing teachers with a new connotation of professional ethics, which is an important theoretical innovation and also has strong practical significance. Strengthening the construction of teachers’ ethics in colleges and universities should be based on the important discussion of General Secretary Xi Jinping as the fundamental follow and action guide, based on the basic policy of the Party and the state to strengthen the construction of teachers’ ethics in colleges and universities, deeply understand the meaning of strengthening good teachers’ ethics in colleges and universities in the new era, and improve the initiative of teachers’ ethics construction. We should follow the basic principles of ethics and master scientific construction methods. Every university teacher should meet the standards proposed by General Secretary Xi Jinping, learn from the example of “people’s educationist”, be a “university teacher”, and be a good teacher in the eyes of General Secretary Xi Jinping with “great love”, striving to cultivate talent for the Party and the country in the new era. To strengthen the construction of teachers’ morality and style, we should first implement the standard requirements and formal norms of teachers in the new era issued by the Ministry of Education. The implementation of the teachers’ ethics construction system includes but is not limited to the normality of the table and the standard, the blade is inward, the supervision of the teachers’ ethics problems in schools, the emergence of the problems of the teachers’ ethics, seeing the signs and preventing them from happening. These aspects are worth further consideration by school leaders, administrators, and teachers. Many colleges and universities have set up the party committee teacher work department and the overall planning of the construction of school teachers’ ethics has played a very good role. However, the focus of teacher ethics construction needs to be moved down, and it plays a role in guiding various departments, teaching and research offices, and other organizations to regulate teachers’ moral behavior and criticize and punish teachers’ misconduct (Song & Shu, 2021; Wang, 2019; Zhou, 2021).

1.1.4 Relevant Suggestions of Practicing the “Four Haves” Good Teacher Concept To become a good teacher is President Xi Jinping’s ardent hope for teachers in the new era. In the general secretary’s discussion on the construction of teachers, we can also find the path of practicing the “four have” good teachers. “A good teacher is not born but is trained and grown through teaching management practice and education reform and development”. On the one hand, we should formulate systems and measures according to the laws of education science and the basic principles of ethics; on the other hand, we should follow the basic principles of ethics to master the methods of teacher ethics education and self-cultivation. At the practical level of professional ethics training of college teachers, language education, reward, and punishment, teaching by body, and setting an example are indispensable. Promoting the construction of curriculum ideology and politics is an important way

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to strengthen teachers’ ideals and beliefs. For most teachers, only the combination of discipline and professional construction to cast ideal beliefs can make this project deeply rooted. Teachers should be encouraged and guided to continuously refine the academic value of the Marxist outlook on life and values in the course of teaching and construction, organically combine professional courses with ideological and political theory courses, and silently spread Marxism and socialism theory with Chinese characteristics in the teaching of professional courses. In this regard, teachers can make ideal faith and professional abilities double harvest (Gu, 2021; Li & Liu, 2014; Song & Shu, 2021; Wang, 2010, 2019; Xi & Kang, 2020; Xia, 2019; Yang, 2018; Zhou, 2021).

1.2 Teacher Ethics Construction Policy Under the Guidance of the Concept of “Four Good Teachers” The Evolution of Policies Related to Teacher Team Construction in the New Era To fully implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speech at the Forum of teachers and students’ representatives of Beijing Normal University, we actively guide most university teachers to be good teachers who are satisfied by the Party and the people with ideals, beliefs, moral sentiments, solid knowledge, and caring heart and vigorously strengthen and improve the construction of teachers’ ethics. Efforts should be made to cultivate a team of high-quality and professional college teachers with noble ethics, professional skills, a reasonable structure, and full vitality. In September 2014, the Ministry of Education issued the Opinions on Establishing and Improving the Long-term Mechanism for The Construction of Teachers’ Ethics in Colleges and Universities, aiming to lead the construction of teachers in the new era with the concept of “Four Good Teachers”. In August 2016, the Guiding Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Assessment and Evaluation System for University Teachers were released, which further stimulated the vitality of university teachers in teaching, scientific research, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Focusing on the reform of the professional title system, the Opinions revised the evaluation criteria, paid attention to teachers’ ethics, real achievements, and practical experience, and established a professional title evaluation system oriented by teachers’ ethics, ability, education, and teaching results. In January 2018, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the Opinions on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of Teacher Construction in the New Era. To rejuvenate the country, teachers must be strengthened first. The Opinions reiterated the importance of teacher team construction and proposed to improve the long-term mechanism of teacher ethics construction, promote the regular long-term construction of teacher ethics, innovate teacher ethics education, improve the norms of teacher ethics, and guide the majority of teachers to establish themselves by virtue, to establish learning by virtue, to teach by virtue. Adhere to the unity of teaching and educating people, the unity of words and deeds, the unity of dedication to ask questions and concern

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about society, the unity of academic freedom and academic norms, strive to be a “four have” good teacher, wholeheartedly train students to temper their character, solid knowledge, innovative thinking, and dedication to the motherland. In March 2018, the Action Plan for the Revitalization of Teacher Education (2018–2022) was issued. The plan regards learning and implementing the ardent hopes and requirements of General Secretary Xi Jinping for teachers as the primary task and key content of teacher ethics education. Teachers’ moral education should be strengthened to guide the growth and development of teachers with the standards of “four good teachers”, “four guides”, “four unity”, and “four services”, and the detailed implementation of teacher education curriculum to guide teachers to establish themselves, learn, teach, and moral education by virtue. In November 2018, “the 10 new era college teachers’ occupational behavior guidelines and the processing of university teachers’ ethics anomie behavior guidance” issued at the same time, two files have elaborated on the new era college teachers’ professional norms, and aiming at main problems, outstanding problems defined the basic bottom line, to prevent the ethics anomie behavior provides the system guarantee. In December 2019, the Ministry of Education and seven other departments jointly issued the Opinions on Strengthening and Improving the Construction of Teacher Ethics in the New Era, marking the beginning of a systematic strategic plan to comprehensively improve the ideological and political quality and professional ethics of teachers in the new era. “Opinions” emphasize the basic standard inspection of all schoolwork. To strengthen the moral standards of the first standard for evaluating the quality of teachers, socialist core values through ethics strengthen the construction process, the strict system of rules strengthens daily education supervision, intensifies the protection of the rights and interests of teachers, and thus initiates respect from the entire society. We will encourage teachers to strive to become good teachers with the four qualities and focus on cultivating socialist builders and successors who are well-developed morally, intellectually, physically, aesthetically, and artistically. At this stage, teachers’ moral sentiments were given more attention in the concept of “Four good teachers”, and various policies mainly centered on the construction of teachers’ ethics, based on the requirements of “four good teachers” standard, “four guides”, “four unity”, and “four services” to promote the development of teacher team construction. In April 2020, the Ministry of Education and eight other departments issued the Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of ideological and Political Work Systems in Colleges and Universities. The Opinions emphasized the implementation of political theory study, training rotation, and practical training in accordance with the requirements of good teachers. We will improve the evaluation methods for teachers and make teachers’ ethics the primary criterion for evaluating the quality of teachers. Implementing a special training plan for ideological and political teachers, We will give full play to the exemplary and leading roles of academicians, leading talents in philosophy and social sciences under the National “Ten Thousand Talents Program”, famous cultural scholars, and the “Four First-batch Talents”, “Changjiang Scholars”, “Outstanding Young Scholars”, and national Outstanding Teaching Teachers. In June of the same year, the Guiding Outline for Ideological and Political Construction of Courses in

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Colleges and Universities was issued, aiming to put ideological and political education through the talent training system, comprehensively promote the ideological and political construction of courses in colleges and universities, give full play to the role of education of each course, and improve the quality of talent training in colleges and universities. The outline of the concept of “four haves” good teachers and education combining ideological construction, specialized courses for pedagogy curriculum teaching should pay attention to strengthening the ethics to strengthen education, moral education class, typical rules, cultivate patriotic law-abiding, standardize teaching ethics, feelings to cultivate students to preach, knowledge background, ability, the home of love, love education, love for students, consciously live morally, good learning, good for teaching, be ideal faith, moral sentiment, solid knowledge, love the heart of the “four haves” good teacher, unswervingly take the education of socialism with Chinese characteristics development road. In January 2021, the Guiding Opinions on Strengthening the Reform of The Construction of College Teachers in the New Era was issued, and teachers’ ideological and political quality was placed in the same position as teachers’ moral quality. “Opinions” pointed out that to guide, most teachers adhere to the “four unity”, and strive to be a “four have” good teacher, when the “four guide”, enhance the “four consciousness”, firm “four confidence”, do “two maintenance”. Strengthen the Party’s political leadership over colleges and universities, strengthen the political function of party organizations in colleges and universities, strengthen the education management and supervision of party members, and give play to the role of community-level Party organizations and party members and teachers. In August 2021, the Ministry of Education and eight other departments formulated the Directional Training Plan for Outstanding Teachers in Less-developed Areas in central and western China. The Program for Outstanding Teachers is implemented by colleges and universities to set up a series of characteristic courses for students of the Program, focusing on the cultivation of good teachers with four qualities, to adhere to the correct political direction and strengthen ideals, beliefs, and ideological and political education. To guide normal university students to thoroughly study and understand General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important discourse on education, carry out the “four history” education, vigorously promote socialist core values, guide normal university students to establish correct views on history, nationality, country, and culture, and cultivate the professional feelings of long-term and lifelong teaching. “Four have” good teachers for “special excellent teachers” point out the connotation of the Times (Song & Shu, 2021; Wang, 2019; Xia, 2019; Zhou, 2021).

1.2.1 Overview of the Implementation of the Policy on Teacher Contingent Construction in the New Era A year after the release of the Opinions on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of Teacher Team Construction in the New Era, the Ministry of Education held a

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meeting to summarize the implementation of the opinions. By February 2019, 30 Chinese provinces had issued their opinions, and the other two provinces would soon publish them. We have built an entire system under the guidance of the central government and with the support of local governments, thus opening the “first mile” of teacher reform in the new era. From the point of view of the situation introduced around the country, the general station is high, distinctive, and strong but also hard to, operate effectively. In accordance with the spirit of the CPC Central Committee, local governments have increased the construction of teachers’ ethics. For example, Shanghai has explored and established a teacher’s ethics honor rating system and a reasonable punishment method for students’ misconduct. Guangxi launched the year of construction of teachers’ ethics with the theme of “Learning the Ten Principles of Teachers’ Professional Behavior in the New Era, striving to be a Good Teacher in four Aspects”. Jiangxi has institutionalized the regular visits of 10,000 teachers to 10,000 families. Guiding Outline for Ideological and Political Construction of Courses in Colleges and Universities defines the content system and curriculum system of ideological and political construction of courses, deeply excavates ideological and political education resources contained in professional courses of various disciplines in colleges and universities, and makes all courses and ideological and political courses go in the same direction and form synergistic effects. The Ministry of Education has set up a coordination group for curriculum ideological and political construction to guide, plan, and implement. In the past five years, thanks to the unremitting efforts of colleges and universities across the country, the number of ideological and political teachers has increased significantly, and the comprehensive teacher–student ratio has met the requirements of the central government. By the end of November this year, more than 127,000 full-time and part-time teachers of ideological and political science courses had been registered in the library, including more than 91,000 full-time teachers. Compared with 2016, the total number of ideological and political teachers increased by 60,000, including 45,000 full-time teachers. The structure and quality of ideological and political teachers are obviously optimized. Among the 90,000 full-time ideological and political teachers, 77.7% are under the age of 49, 72.9% have a master’s degree or above, and 35% have senior professional titles. Highly educated and younger teachers have become a new feature in the construction of ideological and political teachers. In addition, the course resources and demonstration center construction also achieved good results. The Ministry of Education has launched 699 ideological and political demonstration courses, 699 ideological and political teaching masters and teams, and 30 ideological and political teachingresearch demonstration centers. Starting from the “point”, the “point” promotes the “line”, and the “line” leads to the “surface”. It has built 10 ideological and political resource databases and digitized high-quality resources. It has built more than 1,400 excellent courses of ideological and political education and more than 3,700 excellent cases of ideological and political education. From April 2019 to December 2021, the Ministry of Education announced 58 typical cases of moral violations by teachers in multiple batches. In 2019, it announced 18 cases in April, July, and December. In 2020, 16 cases were announced twice; in 2021, there were 24 cases

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in 3 batches. Among the eight cases reported at the end of November 2021, they include central South University teacher Surnamed Chen sexually harassed female students, Northwest A&F University teacher Surnamed Xie’s academic misconduct, and China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing) teacher surnamed Xie’s improper relationship with students. Nanjing University and Fuzhou University were also listed in a previous report (Gu, 2021; Li & Liu, 2014; Song & Shu, 2021; Wang, 2010, 2019; Xi & Kang, 2020; Xia, 2019; Yang, 2018; Zhou, 2021).

1.3 Problems and Challenges in Practicing the Concept of “Four Good Teachers” 1.3.1 Frequent Problems of Teacher Ethics and Teacher Style Assessment Mechanisms Are not Sound Xi Jinping, with particular emphasis on the general secretary, “If someone’s body in the school, but hearts at the mall or in officialdom, weaving in the fight between personality and money, material, fame and wealth, then the person cannot be a good teacher”, to “Must remove those black sheep who are teachers of bad morals, venal, and give them punishment in accordance with the law, must be zero tolerance for the students’ violation behavior”. At present, there are some shortcomings in the construction of teachers in colleges and universities in China, which are mainly reflected in teachers’ ethics and manners. At present, the teachers’ ethics in colleges and universities in China present the following problems: in the academic atmosphere, some teachers are eager for quick success and instant profits, impetuous and grandiose, and some plagiarize, falsify, and tamper with papers; in terms of teaching, some teachers have weak awareness of teaching and education and are permissive in teaching. In classes, forums, lectures, the Internet, and other channels, they publish and forward wrong views, spread false and bad information, or even randomly distribute statements that violate public order, good customs, and laws to mislead students. In moral cultivation, some teachers have the behavior of moral corruption and sexual harassment of students, and accept gifts from students to provide them with illegal convenience to join the Party and school. These phenomena have seriously damaged the image of university teachers, induced the crisis of trust in China’s higher education, affected the healthy development of China’s higher education, and hindered the pace of national economic and social development. Therefore, in this important historical period, it is urgent to strengthen the construction of teachers’ ethics in colleges and universities. This is not only related to the development of the national cause and national rejuvenation but also related to the healthy development and vital interests of millions of students, and each of us is closely related. Although many colleges and universities have set up leading groups for the construction of teachers’ morality and ethics and have issued relevant construction opinions, the content of these rules and regulations is vague, and operability is not

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high. Colleges and universities pay more attention to teachers’ teaching and scientific research ability than to moral quality and moral cultivation. The imperfect assessment mechanism and ineffective implementation lead to the deviation of teachers’ moral cultivation and serious deterioration of moral cultivation, which further affects talent cultivation and national progress.

1.3.2 Teachers’ Ideals and Beliefs Are Weak, and Ideological Problems Are Prominent Ideological work is an extremely important one for the Party. Whether we can do our ideological work well bears on the future and destiny of the Party, the long-term peace and stability of the country, and the cohesion and cohesiveness of the nation. General Secretary in the national work conference on party school work symposium, philosophy, and social sciences, and the national conference on ideological and political work in colleges and universities, many times stressed that the teacher should ensure the teaching direction correctly, handle the academic research and theory of publicity, the relationship between freedom of speech and political discipline, and confirmed the teacher important mark of the “four to” speech, That is, “to express views and opinions on major political and theoretical issues must be conducive to maintaining the prestige of the Party, the authority of the Central committee, the dignity of the Party school, and the image of the teachers and researchers in the Party School”. College teachers are generally highly educated, and many of them have experience studying abroad. They are active in thinking, sensitive to new things and ideas, and vulnerable to the impact and influence of bad ideas. However, at present, the ideological and political education of teachers in colleges and universities lacks effective methods, the ideological and political education is not strong, and the effect is not good, resulting in a small part of the ideal belief wavering, fuzzy values, and other undesirable phenomena. In September 2021, the 19th CPC Central Committee completed its seventh round of inspections of the Party organizations of the Ministry of Education and 31 centrally administered universities. First, there is a gap between the implementation of the Party’s education policy and the decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee on education and the accurate and comprehensive implementation of the new development philosophy. Second, the implementation of the fundamental task of moral education is inadequate, ideological and political education is relatively weak. Third, doing a good job in the new era of ideological work is inadequate, and there are risks and hidden dangers to varying degrees (Song & Shu, 2021; Wang, 2019; Zhou, 2021).

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1.3.3 Ideological and Political Curriculum and Ideological and Political Education Quality Are not High Curriculum ideological and political, borrowing from the “ideological and political curriculum” in the curriculum system of higher education, means that all courses should have the role of moral education, is the whole curriculum education, so its meaning should be understood from the curriculum value education function. Colleges and universities are the cradles of teacher training. To educate people for the country and the Party, colleges and universities need to carry out the fundamental task of moral education and cultivate students’ ideals and beliefs of loving the party and patriotism to cultivate more and more good teachers with firm ideals and beliefs. However, in the present educational system of colleges and universities, ideological and political education still has different degrees of problems. Taking the inspection opinions of the central government on 31 universities under the supervision of the central government as an example, the relatively prominent problems existing in these universities are the low ideological and political quality of ideological and political courses, the lack of coordination and innovation, and the lack of effective cohesion and joint force. At present, there is still a deviation in the understanding of curriculum ideological and political construction in colleges and universities. The educational subjects lack an in-depth understanding of the relationship between “curriculum ideological and political curriculum” and “curriculum ideological and political”, lack of recognition of “curriculum ideological and political”, and lack of practical consciousness of curriculum ideological and political construction. In the process of promoting the ideological and political construction of the curriculum, on the one hand, some colleges and universities habitually adopt the administrative practices of “command”, “mobilization”, and “shortcut”, requiring each course to achieve the “implantation” of the ideological and political construction of the curriculum in a short period of time to gain the initiative in the publicity and “beautiful” in the data; as part of the professional class teacher, on the other hand, of course, the essential connotation of ideological understanding is not deep, to the professional curriculum of educational resource inventory is not enough, of course, and inadequate education course content design, into the process of ideological elements, in the course “simple splicing content”, “derivative way of ideological and political education”, “content and target uncoordinated”, and so on and so forth have appeared (Gu, 2021; Li & Liu, 2014; Song & Shu, 2021; Wang, 2010, 2019; Xi & Kang, 2020; Xia, 2019; Yang, 2018; Zhou, 2021). The report of the 19th CPC National Congress stressed: “Strengthen the construction of teachers’ ethics, train high-quality teachers, and advocate the whole society to respect teachers and attach importance to education”. Colleges and universities around the country, especially normal colleges, should combine with the requirements of the new era, learn from the experience of Beijing Normal University, and make more efforts to improve the moral cultivation of teachers. First, we should firmly grasp the party’s leadership of the construction of teachers and clarify the main responsibility of the construction of teachers’ morality and ethics. Party committees

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in colleges and universities should play the role of commanding the overall situation and coordinating all sections, incorporating teachers’ moral education into the ideological and political work of schools, conducting regular research, arranging special topics and supervising special issues, and ensuring that the correct political direction of teacher team construction will not be waived. Second, party organizations at all levels should fully give play to the role of leadership and control and improve teachers’ ideological and political quality, professional theoretical level, and professional ethics to guide teachers in establishing the correct occupational ideal, efforts to build a “four haves” good teacher team with ideal faith, moral sentiment, solid knowledge, and goodness of heart (Li et al., 2020b). To strengthen the ideological construction of colleges and universities, the first thing to do is to firmly carry out the party’s educational policy. We should strengthen our awareness of the “Four Principles”, earnestly implement the guiding principles of the 19th CPC National Congress and the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth plenary sessions of the 19th Central Committee, strengthen our confidence in the “Four Principles”, thoroughly study and implement the guiding principles of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speeches, and implement the guiding principles of the National Conference on Ideological and Political Work in Universities in light of actual conditions. Implement the “four perseverance” requirements in the direction of running a clear flag and firm position. We should intensify ideological work to ensure the security and consolidation of ideological positions. We will conscientiously implement democratic centralism and the principal responsibility system under the leadership of the Party Committee. The party and government cadres and the Communist Youth League cadres are the management force of the ideological construction of colleges and universities, not only the implementor of the party’s line, principles, and policies but also the maintainer of consolidating the party’s ruling position. The quality, style, and party spirit of management cadres in colleges and universities directly affect the effect of ideological construction in colleges and universities. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the new situation in the field of ideology has put forward new requirements and challenges for university management cadres. “We are engaged in a great struggle with many new historical features, and the challenges and difficulties we face are unprecedented”, Xi said. On the one hand, the ranks of cadres should be firm in their ideals and beliefs. Ideals and beliefs are the “calcium” of human spirit, and it is easy to get “rickets” if you lose them. “If a cadre is not firm in his ideals and convictions, does not believe in Marxism, does not believe in socialism with Chinese characteristics, is politically unqualified and cannot stand up to wind and waves, no matter how capable he is, he is not a good cadre that our Party needs”. Therefore, we should regard the firmness of ideals and beliefs as the primary standard to measure the quality of cadres. On the other hand, the ranks of cadres must have the courage to take on their responsibilities. “The amount of responsibility an official takes on reflects his mind, courage and style. Dare to bear, is to dare to pay, do not pass the buck. Facing all kinds of risks and challenges in the field of ideology, management cadres should dare to shine a sword, dare to face difficulties and dare to fight resolutely” (Li et al., 2020b).

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1.3.4 Promoting Curriculum Ideological and Political Construction and Implementing the Task of Moral Education As a strategic measure to carry out the fundamental task of moral cultivation, curriculum ideological and political thinking has the functions of cultural guidance, spiritual maintenance, and value orientation and is the basis for improving teachers’ cultural literacy. To strengthen the construction of ideological and political courses in colleges and universities, we should first strengthen teachers’ understanding of ideological and political courses and improve their ability to practice them. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that “to adhere to the unity of explicit education and implicit education, explore the ideological and political education resources contained in other courses and teaching methods, and realize the full and all-round education”, which should become the consensus of today’s teachers. Secondly, we should follow the logic of “knowledge education and values education” in curriculum planning. Cultivate good teachers with solid knowledge and moral cultivation through knowledge education and value education. “Education-oriented” is the ultimate destination of teacher education curriculum planning. Curriculum construction should respond to the basic demands of the state for teacher professional development, scientifically design the ideological and political education content of the curriculum, and practice knowledge education and value education. The selection of curriculum content should pay attention to the development needs of students and comprehensively reflect the basic and expanding nature of curriculum content. In order to realize the educational function of the curriculum, the selected content should fully carry out the basic task of moral education, embody the frontier problems of the curriculum, and penetrate the ideological system of the subject (Gu, 2021; Li & Liu, 2014; Li et al., 2020a; Song & Shu, 2021; Wang, 2010, 2019; Xi & Kang, 2020; Xia, 2019; Yang, 2018; Zhou, 2021).

References Gu, M. (2021). The education values of the communist party of China in one hundred years. Journal of Beijing Normal University (social Science Edition), 20(05), 29–34. Li, J., & Liu, X. (2014). On the Development of teachers’ “Preaching” thought in the New Era— Guided by General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important exposition of “Four Good teachers” and “Four Guides.” Educational Theory and Practice, 41(01), 36–40. Li, J., Shi, Z., & Xue, E. (2020a). The problems, needs and strategies of rural teacher development at deep poverty areas in China: Rural schooling stakeholder perspectives. International Journal of Educational Research, 99, 101496. Li, J., Yongzhi, Z., Eryong, X., & Zhou, N. (2020b). Faculty ethics in China: From a historical perspective. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 52(2), 126–136. Song, Z., & Shu, D. (2021). Problems and path optimization of ideological and political construction in college curriculum. School Party Construction and Ideological Education, 20(10), 58–60.

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Wang, Z. (2010). From “The Doctrine of Cultivating Taoism” to “the Doctrine of Preaching”— On the reform of Chinese Confucianism and its implication of modern education. Educational Research, 42(11), 72–85. Wang, X. (2019). From “good teacher” to “Big Sir”: The basic path of teachers’ Ethics construction in Colleges and Universities. China Higher Education Research, 20(9), 31–37. Xi, H., & Kang, X. (2020). On the generation logic of general secretary Xi Jinping’s important discourse on strengthening the construction of teachers’ morality and ethics. Research on Ideological and Political Education, 37(4), 52–57. Xia, W. (2019). Guiding teachers to be good teachers with “Four Qualities.” China Higher Education, 20(3), 76–78. Yang, X. (2018). The philosophical implications of general secretary Xi Jinping’s “Four Possessions” good teachers in education. Chinese Education Journal, 20(7), 75–80. Zhou, H. (2021). Multidimensional interpretation of Xi Jinping’s important discourse on ideological construction in Universities. Journal of Hunan University of Science and Technology (social Science Edition), 24(05), 100–108.

Chapter 2

The Teacher Salary Management Policy in China

This chapter examines the teacher salary management policy in China. The salary income of teachers is related to the construction of high-quality teachers but also related to the construction of high-quality education. Through research on policies related to teacher salary income from 2011 to 2020, it is found that the development of policies related to teacher salary income can be divided into two periods. In the first period (1993–2018), the average salary of teachers should not be lower or higher than that of civil servants; in the second period (2018–present), the sum of teachers’ average salary and performance should not be lower or higher than the actual income of civil servants. From the perspective of policy tools, the policies of the two stages mainly use the mandatory policy tools with strong execution. From the perspective of policy implementation, the salary of teachers from 2011 to 2020 was no lower or higher than that of civil servants, basically realizing the policy goal. However, in real life, there are still some inconsistent policies and regulations, which make a large gap between provincial and regional teachers’ salary income, and the relative ranking of teachers’ salary income is not high. Therefore, two policy suggestions are put forward to unify the expression of teachers’ salary income level in the same policy document and explore multiple modes of teachers’ salary management.

2.1 Literature Review and Theoretical Tools Education is the foundation of a century-long project. Among them, teachers are important builders of education, and building a team of high-level teachers is an important part of deepening the comprehensive reform of education. According to the statistical Bulletin on the Development of National Education in 2020, the total number of full-time teachers in schools at all levels reached 17.929,700 in 2020, including 2.913,400 full-time teachers in preschool education, 10.294,900 full-time teachers in compulsory education, and 66,200 full-time teachers in special education. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Li and E. Xue, Teacher Development Policy in China, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1015-1_2

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There were 1.9332 million full-time teachers in senior high schools and 1.833 million full-time teachers in higher education. The number of teachers increased by 609,400 over the previous year, an increase of 3.52%. The number of teachers in compulsory education, in particular, accounts for 57.42% of the total number of full-time teachers in all stages, making them the main force of the teachers. Teachers’ salary income has always been a hot topic of research and discussion. Article 25 of the Teachers’ Law of the People’s Republic of China, which was adopted in 1993 and revised in 2009, stipulates that the average salary level of teachers should not be lower than or higher than the average salary level of state civil servants and gradually increases. This policy was referred to as the “no less than” policy in its subsequent development. “Constantly improve the status and treatment, truly make teachers into an enviable profession” has become an important direction and goal of the construction of teachers. It is of great significance to the construction of teachers in our country to study teachers’ salary and income policy and determine the challenges and difficulties in policy formulation and implementation (Cai & Xue, 2018; Du, 2014; Fu, 2019; Tian & Du, 2021; Xue, 2014; Yang & Wang, 2008; Yu, 2020; Yun, 2003).

2.1.1 Existing Research Since the founding of New China, there have been four major reforms in the teacher salary policy. We divided the teacher salary policy into the monetized position grade salary system in 1956, the structured salary system in 1985, the position grade salary system in 1993, and the post-performance salary system in 2006. After the implementation of the policy of “no less than”, scholars conducted many empirical studies on the effectiveness of the policy, and the basic result was that the salary level of teachers increased rapidly, but it still failed to reach the policy goal of equal to or higher than the salary income of local civil servants. As early as 2003, Chen Yun conducted a study on teacher salary and found that the absolute salary of teachers increased significantly. Moreover, the level of teacher salary was affected by the political system, economic development level, and education policy of the country, so the supply and demand market of the teacher labor force should be established. In 2007, based on the income survey data of compulsory education teachers and civil servants in 83 counties (cities and districts) of 28 provinces, we found that the basic salary gap between teachers and civil servants in each province was not large, but the gap between subsidies and the gap between total income was large. In 2014, in 2018, based on the salary survey data of national primary and secondary school teachers from 2014 to 2016, the authors concluded that the salary level of most compulsory education teachers was lower than the average social level and the average salary level of civil servants. The reason for the poor implementation effect of the policy of “no less than” is that the policy did not truly achieve its policy goal because it did not take into account benefits other than salary in the subsequent implementation process. On the contrary, the salary of teachers in many provinces was lower than that of civil servants for a long time. However, in 2018, the “Opinions of the CPC Central

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Committee and The State Council on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of Teacher Team Construction in the New Era” filled this loophole, pointing out that “the actual income level of local civil servants should be taken into consideration when assessing the total amount of performance pay”. Nevertheless, in 2019, the salary of county compulsory education teachers had increased significantly since the 18th CPC National Congress, but their actual income was still lower than that of local civil servants. He also suggested that a “provincial-based” financial body should be established to ensure that their salaries were paid on time and in full. The salary income of preschool teachers also mainly refers to that of civil servants. The above studies have carried out empirical studies on the salary level of teachers in different periods, but the interpretation of the policy itself is less involved, and policy effectiveness is studied more from the perspective of policy implementation. Therefore, this study mainly adopts the perspective of policymaking, analyzes the relevant policies on teacher salary income since 1994, identifies the relationship and characteristics between policies at different stages, and provides a reference for the formulation and implementation of teacher salary income-related policies.

2.1.2 Theoretical Tools Educational policy is the action basis and criterion stipulated by the government in a certain historical period for realizing certain goals and tasks and coordinating internal and external relations. Policy tools are mechanisms, means, methods, measures, and bridges developed or adopted by the government to achieve policy objectives. Educational policy tools are guided by educational policy objectives and standardized to achieve educational policy effects. Specifically, reflected in the combination of law, administration, cutting, and other mandatory, incentive various measures. Policy tools can be divided into mandatory policy tools, guiding policy tools, capacity constructive policy tools, and organizational constructive policy tools. The theoretical tool adopted in this study is the public policy analysis model. We believe that a complete public policy operation system includes a set of elements, including policy goal formulation, policy content design, policy implementation, implementation effect, and adjustment direction (Cai & Xue, 2018; Du, 2014; Fu, 2019; Tian & Du, 2021; Xue, 2014; Yang & Wang, 2008; Yu, 2020; Yun, 2003).

2.2 Policy Text and Implementation Data The policy on teachers’ salaries can be roughly divided into two stages. The first stage, from 1993 to 2017, is mainly characterized by the average salary level of teachers not lower than or higher than the average salary of national civil servants. At this stage, the average salary level of teachers only refers to basic salary, including post salary and performance salary. The second stage is from 2018 to the present,

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and the main feature is that the total income or salary income level of teachers’ performance pay should not be lower than the actual income level of national civil servants. At this stage, teachers’ salary includes not only basic salary but also welfare allowance.

2.2.1 The Average Salary of Teachers Shall not Be Lower Than or Higher Than the Average Salary of National Civil Servants (1993–2018) Teachers’ Law of the People’s Republic of China was promulgated in 1994. Article 25 of Chap. 6 stipulates that the average salary level of teachers shall be no lower than or higher than the average salary level of state civil servants and shall be gradually increased. To establish a regular promotion and salary increase system, specific measures should be formulated by the State Council. Article 26 stipulates that primary and secondary school teachers and vocational school teachers should enjoy seniority allowances and other allowances, the specific measures of which should be formulated by the education administration department of the State Council in conjunction with relevant departments. Article 34 of the Education Law of the People’s Republic of China of 1995 stipulates that the state protects the legitimate rights and interests of teachers, improves their working and living conditions, and enhances their social status. The salaries, remuneration, and welfare benefits of teachers should be dealt in accordance with laws and regulations (Yang & Wang, 2008; Yun, 2003). In 2008, the Guiding Opinions on the Implementation of Performance-based Pay in Compulsory Education Schools stipulated that a system of allowances for rural teachers should be implemented. Starting from January 1, 2009, the policy of performancebased pay for positions in public institutions shall be implemented for regular staff of compulsory education schools in accordance with state regulations. According to the policy document, teacher performance salary of job salary, salary pay, merit pay, and allowances of four parts, including performance-based pay mainly staff performance and contribution, divided into two parts, basic and awarding fundamental performance salary mainly influenced by regional economic development level, price level, responsibility, and other factors. The specific items and standards are determined by the personnel, finance, and education departments of the people’s governments at or above the county level and are generally paid on a monthly basis. Incentive performance pay accounts for 30% of the total performance pay. Article 54 of the Outline of the National Plan for Medium- and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010–2020) in 2010 proposes to improve the treatment of teachers and ensure that the average salary level of teachers is no lower or higher than the average level of state civil servants in accordance with the law and gradually increase. We will implement performance-based pay for teachers. In 2012, the State Council “Opinions on strengthening the construction of teachers” clearly put forward to strengthen the teacher salary guarantee mechanism, in accordance with the law to

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ensure teachers’ wage level is not lower than the average wage or higher than the national average wage standard of the civil service, and gradually improve, guarantee teachers’ salaries on time full specified amount, improve the teachers’ professional characteristics, reflect the post-performance salary allocation of incentive constraint mechanisms. In 2015, the Rural Teacher Support Plan (2015–2020) required the implementation of the rural teacher living allowance system, which provides differentiated subsidies to rural teachers in schools below the township level according to the geographical location and hardship of the school. Article 31 of the Compulsory Education Law of the People’s Republic of China revised in 2018 stipulates that people’s governments at all levels guarantee teachers’ salaries, welfare, and social insurance benefits and improve their working and living conditions. We will improve the mechanism for guaranteeing teachers’ salaries in rural areas. The average salary level of teachers should not be lower than that of local civil servants. Teachers of special education are entitled to special post subsidies. Teachers working in ethnic minority areas and remote poverty-stricken areas enjoy subsidies and allowances for poverty-stricken areas (Cai & Xue, 2018; Du, 2014; Fu, 2019; Tian & Du, 2021; Xue, 2014; Yang & Wang, 2008; Yu, 2020; Yun, 2003).

2.2.2 The Total Income of Teachers’ Performance Pay Shall not Be Lower Than or Higher Than the Average Salary of National Civil Servants (2018–Present) In the policy of the first stage, teachers’ labor income was equated with salary, resulting in the salary level of teachers being far lower than that of civil servants for a long time, failing to achieve the set policy goal. To solve this dilemma, in 2018, the central committee of the communist party of China, the State Council on deepening the reform of the new age teachers team construction comprehensive opinions put forward perfect primary and secondary school teachers’ salaries long-acting linkage mechanism, check and ratify performance-related pay total overall consideration of local civil servants’ actual income level, to ensure that primary and secondary school teachers income level is not lower than the average wage level or higher than the local civil servants of average wage income. In the same year, the Opinions of The General Office of the State Council on Further Adjusting and Optimizing the Structure and Improving the Efficiency of the Use of Educational Funds stipulated that all localities should strictly regulate the management of teacher staffing, speed up the recruitment of qualified non-enrolled teachers, and implement equal pay for equal work. Improve the primary and secondary school teachers’ salaries longacting linkage mechanism, check and ratify performance-related pay total overall consideration local civil servant wage income level, realize the synchronous with the local civil servants’ wages adjustment, ensure that primary and secondary school teachers average wage income level is not lower than or higher than the average

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wage income level. Local governments should strengthen coordination at the provincial level, strengthen government responsibility, adjust and optimize the structure of spending, and prioritize the implementation of salary and income policies for teachers in compulsory education. We will strive to solve the problem of teachers’ salaries in compulsory education within three years. Areas that fail to meet the requirements will be required to rectify the problems within a time limit, and provinces with strong financial resources will speed up the progress (Du, 2014; Xue, 2014; Yang & Wang, 2008; Yun, 2003). According to the Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Deepening Education and Teaching Reform and Comprehensively Improving the Quality of Compulsory Education issued in 2019, the measures for assessing the total amount of performance-based pay for compulsory education should be improved, and a linkage growth mechanism should be established to ensure that the average salary of teachers in compulsory education is no lower than that of local civil servants. In 2021, the Ministry of Education of the pedagogic law of the People’s Republic of China (revised draft) (draft) stated “the announcement of public comment Chap. 6 protection and treatment article 38 (salary) regulation of primary and secondary schools, kindergarten teachers’ average salary income shall not be less than or higher than the average salary for local civil servants’ income level, and gradually increase”. The distribution of performance-based pay should adhere to the principle of “earn more for more work” and “pay for excellent performance” and reflect the incentive to excellent teachers, head teachers, and other specific positions. In 2022, the Office of the Education Steering Committee of The State Council issued a reminder letter requiring local governments to continuously implement the Policy of “No less than” salary income for Teachers in Compulsory Education, which proposed three clear provisions. It is about opening channels of public opinion. Third, we strengthened supervision and inspection. In particular, the first article strengthened provincial pooling, and the guaranteed mechanism of compulsory education teachers’ remuneration and the linkage mechanism of salary adjustment with local civil servants’ remuneration were implemented, and “no lower than” was continuously implemented. It can be seen from the introduction of a continuous teacher salary income policy that the state attaches great importance to the construction of teacher teams. The policy has strong continuity and strength and has achieved great success in policy implementation. In 2021, at the 31st Meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress, The State Council’s report on the construction of the teaching team and the implementation of the Teachers Law mentioned that efforts should be made to improve the status and treatment of teachers, and the attraction of teachers’ careers has been continuously enhanced with 283 words in total. In the report, “the country’s 2846 counties according to the budget arrangements to achieve all ‘not below’ the target”. Basically, the salary level of teachers should be no lower or higher than that of civil servants. In 2018, before the new policy was issued, a large number of scholars conducted an empirical study on teachers’ wages. This study of 2011–2020-decade town unit employment staff average wages (yuan) and education unit employment staff average wages in cities and towns (RMB) was analyzed and found basic implementation policy goals, consistent with the results

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reported in the Ministry of Education (Cai & Xue, 2018; Du, 2014; Fu, 2019; Tian & Du, 2021; Xue, 2014; Yang & Wang, 2008; Yu, 2020; Yun, 2003). There are great differences in teachers’ salary levels between provinces and regions. Through the panel data analysis of the wage level of the employed persons in urban units and the employed persons in educational units in 31 provincial administrative regions of China from 2011 to 2020, it is found that there are significant differences in the income of teachers and civil servants among provinces. This is consistent with the results of previous studies. The income level of teachers in the middle and central regions of China is low, resulting in the phenomenon of “central collapse” and “inverted U-shaped structure” in scholars’ studies. The reason is that the eastern region has strong economic strength and local governments are self-sufficient, the western region has generous preferential policies, and the central region has the lowest wage level. Through policy analysis, it is found that there is no great difference in the policies of each region, and the basic salaries of teachers are almost the same. The greatest difference in teachers’ salaries between different regions lies in other benefits and allowances. The increase in teachers’ salaries basically exceeded the average salary of urban employees. The average wage increases of the employees employed in urban units of education in 31 provincial administrative regions of China basically exceed that of the employees employed in local urban units, and Ningxia takes first place with 68.67%. However, teachers’ salaries in eight provinces, including Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian, Hainan, Shaanxi, and Qinghai, rose less than the average wage of local urban employees.

2.2.3 The Salary Level of Teachers is Relatively Low According to the National Bureau of Statistics, from 2011 to 2020, the education industry ranked 9th, 10th, 11th, 10th, 8th, 7th, 8th, 7th, 8th, and 9th among 19 industries in terms of average wage income. In 2020, the average salary of the education industry was approximately 3,000 yuan higher than the average salary of all industries, ranking ninth in the average salary of all industries. It can be seen that although the salary income of teachers has increased considerably, it is still not a high-paying industry compared with other industries. Teachers’ Law of the People’s Republic of China issued in 1994 set the threshold for teachers’ average salary to be no lower or higher than that of state civil servants, and all subsequent policy documents have continued or adjusted on this basis. The primary policy guarantee of “no less than” policy is related laws and regulations, which comprehensively guarantee the legal status of teachers in the form of legislation. In addition to relevant laws, general policy documents such as The Opinions of The State Council on Strengthening the Construction of Teachers are formulated by departments with high administrative levels and strong execution power (Li et al., 2020a, 2020b).

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2.2.4 Policy is Closely Linked and Coherent From the perspective of policy background, the relevant policies on teacher salary income are in line with the needs of the historical background and are consistent with the main social contradictions at that time. In the first stage, the main contradiction of teachers’ salary income in the twentieth century is to solve the problem of teachers’ basic income. At that time, the social contradiction was “the contradiction between the people’s growing material and cultural needs and backward social production”. The contradiction that the teacher salary income policy had to solve was that the teacher salary level was much lower than that of other industries. The term “the salary level of teachers shall not be lower or higher than that of civil servants” originated from Jacques, the former UNESCO National Institute of Education Planning, in 1993. Harak proposed that “teachers should be paid a reasonable amount similar to that of other staff members of the civil service”. In 2001, UNESCO also proposed at the seventh Session of the International Conference on Public Education that “teachers should receive salaries commensurate with the importance of their roles, and the salary level should be sufficient to make them equal to corresponding officials or employees, taking into account the financial situation of the country”. The policy formulation of teacher salary income after 1993 is closely related to the background of the demand for high-quality teachers in the new era. The second stage is mainly to improve the social treatment of teachers so that teachers become the envy of other professions. In 2017, the report to the 19th CPC National Congress said that as socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, the principal contradiction facing Chinese society has evolved into that between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life. As one of the stages, education into the comprehensively deepened reform of the “deep”, improving the teaching quality of education requires a large number of highquality teachers. Therefore, in 2018, “the central committee of the Communist Party of China, the State Council on deepening the reform of the new age teachers team construction comprehensive opinion” formally introduced “the verification performance of total payroll to plan as a whole to consider local civil servant wage income level, We will ensure that the average salary of primary and secondary school teachers is no lower or higher than the average salary of local civil servants”. The term changed from “average salary” to “total performance salary and average salary income level”, which also symbolized that the improvement of the treatment of teachers was implemented and only stayed at the stage of solving the problem of teachers’ food and clothing. From the perspective of policy objectives, all policy objectives present a strong coherence and consistency. Teachers’ Law of the People’s Republic of China is the main basis for the salary and income policy for teachers, which has formed a relatively complete legal network in coordination with general policy documents such as the Compulsory Education Law of the People’s Republic of China and Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and The State Council on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of Teacher Team Construction in the New Era. In addition, the expression of each policy document shows consistency, and there are more detailed and clear

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provisions for their respective fields. From the perspective of the policy implementation process, adjustment, and effect evaluation, the implementation of the policy has achieved a better effect. The Measures for The Accountability of Education Supervision issued in 2021 and the Requirement for local governments to continuously implement the policy of “No less than” salary of Teachers in Compulsory Education in 2022 have greatly strengthened the implementation of these policies. The Teacher Law of the People’s Republic of China revised in 2018 shows that the policy adjustment has been well implemented. According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, the policy objectives of the relevant policies on teachers’ salary income have been basically achieved (Fu, 2019; Tian & Du, 2021).

2.2.5 Some Policies Contradict Each Other The Compulsory Education Law of the People’s Republic of China revised in 2018 still states that “the average salary level of teachers shall not be lower than the average salary level of local civil servants”. This is different from what has been stated in various policies since 2018, especially the teachers’ Law of the People’s Republic of China, which was revised in 2018. These two laws belong to the same level and have the same legally binding force. The inconsistent expression of teachers’ salary income between them easily causes misunderstanding in the implementation process.

2.3 Policy Suggestions According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, the level of teachers’ salaries has significantly increased from 2011 to 2020 and has reached the policy requirements of “no lower than”. However, there are still problems of relatively low rankings of teachers’ salaries and great differences between provinces and regions. Based on the analysis of policy texts and realistic data, the following suggestions are put forward.

2.3.1 Unify the Expression of the Salary Income Level of Teachers in Policy Documents at the Same Level Due to the “Compulsory Education Law of the People’s Republic of China” and “Teachers of the People’s Republic of China” in the two provisions on the income level of teachers, it is easy to cause misunderstanding and implementation of obstacles. To ensure the implementation effect of laws and regulations, the relevant expressions between the two should be unified to achieve the maximum implementation

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effect of policies. Many studies have shown that a steady increase in teachers’ salaries plays an important role in ensuring the supply of teachers and that external differences in teachers’ salaries affect the attraction and retention of high-quality teachers.

2.3.2 Improving Teachers’ Pay and Working Conditions Can Attract more Highly Qualified Teachers, Which Means that more People will be Willing to Enter the Teaching Profession if Teachers are Paid Better than Other Professions As the income policy of teachers in our country has clearly stipulated that “strengthening provincial overall planning”, teachers will soon be transformed from “local educators” to “education system personnel”. However, in the face of the large differences in teachers’ salary income between provinces and regions, it is still difficult to achieve balance even with the overall management of provincial governments. Therefore, it is necessary to explore many kinds of teachers’ salary income models. Based on the original “reference-based pricing”, we explore various models, such as the project system, agreement system, and annual salary system. Through a variety of modes, the relative salary income of teachers is in a relatively advanced position in all industries, and the policy goal of making teachers as the envy of everyone is truly realized (Yun, 2003; Yang & Wang, 2008; Du, 2014; Xue, 2014; Cai & Xue, 2018; Yu, 2020; Fu, 2019; Tian & Du, 2021; Li et al., 2020a, 2020b).

References Cai, X., & Xue, H. (2018). Does wage reform raise the salary level of compulsory education teachers in China? Educational Science Research, 20(09), 26. Du, X. (2014). Empirical analysis and policy suggestions on teachers’ salary level in China. Education theory and practice, 4(34), 20–24. Fu, W. D. (2019). Unbalanced and inadequate salary treatment of compulsory education teachers in county: A problem and solution—Based on the survey of more than 160 primary and secondary schools in 16 counties (districts) of 6 provinces in central and western China. Journal of Hebei Normal University (Education Sciences), 21(4), 5–12. Li, J., Shi, Z., & Xue, E. (2020a). The problems, needs and strategies of rural teacher development at deep poverty areas in China: Rural schooling stakeholder perspectives. International Journal of Educational Research, 99, 101496. Li, J., Yongzhi, Z., Eryong, X., & Zhou, N. (2020b). Faculty ethics in China: From a historical perspective. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 52(2), 126–136. Tian, J., Du, X. L. (2021). Comparison and analysis of average teacher salary cost and its influencing factors in China. Chinese Education Journal, 20(03), 77–81. Xue, E. (2014). Policy analysis on improving the treatment of Teachers in China. Journal of Beijing Normal University (Social Sciences edition), 20(04), 11–22.

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Yang, J., & Wang, R. (2008). Income comparison between compulsory education teachers and civil servants. Education and Economy, 20(04), 11–19. Yu, Y. (2020). Salary pricing and multi-level supply design for primary and secondary school teachers. Education and Economy, 36(05), 45–51. Yun, C. (2003). Research on teachers’ salary in 1990s. Education Research of Tsinghua University, 20(01), 92–96.

Chapter 3

The Teacher Evaluation Policy in China

This chapter concentrates on teacher evaluation policies in China. Evaluation is the key link between quality construction and the guarantee of higher education. In the era when high-quality development is the core logic of higher education development, we must exert the substantial effects of evaluation on higher education, such as “promoting reform”, “promoting construction”, “improving quality”, and “enhancing efficiency”. The university teacher evaluation policy, as a general outline of formal system about the evaluation concept, standard, content, subject, way, and result, guides and regulates the whole process and link of the university teacher evaluation practice. Through a systematic review of the relevant university teacher evaluation policies issued by the Ministry of Education since 2012, it is found that the characteristics of the contents are mainly reflected in the following aspects: the evaluation concept is centered on moral cultivation; and the evaluation standard is based on the “one vote veto system” of teachers’ morality. The evaluation method pays attention to the combination of summative and procedural evaluation.

3.1 Policy Analysis of Teacher Evaluation The evaluation subjects emphasize both diversification and specialization. The evaluation content considers comprehensive, key, and classified evaluation principles. Evaluation results value orientation highlighting the significance of feedback and improvement. However, these university teacher evaluation policies still have a series of problems to be improved and optimized, including policy ideas: instrumental rationality and efficiency orientation; policy content: excessive indexation under the control of materialized logic; policy implementation: top-down mandatory path dependence; policy results: resource bundling and allocation based on results, performance, and benefits. In order to give full play to the positive guiding function of evaluation policy in the practice of university teacher evaluation, the design of future © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Li and E. Xue, Teacher Development Policy in China, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1015-1_3

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policy should be reformed and optimized based on the following key points: scientific management of teachers, practice of “teacher-oriented” teacher evaluation concept; stimulate the growth of teachers, highlight the promotion effect of peer and selfevaluation; strengthen teachers’ participation and implement developmental teacher evaluation method; pay attention to teacher improvement; and establish effective feedback mechanism of teacher evaluation results. Stepping into the era of universalization of higher education, quality construction, and high-quality development have become the core logic and fundamental value of higher education. As the basis of the connotation construction and sustainable development of higher education, the quality of university teachers determines the overall quality of education and teaching level and talent training to a certain extent. Evaluation is the effective means and key link of quality assurance of higher education and the baton of practice action of higher education. It guides and decides teachers’ complicated activities, such as teaching, scientific research, and social service. Teacher evaluation policy is the primary part of university teachers’ development and management system construction and an important incentive means, affecting the degree of teachers’ professional development, the teacher’s behavior choice dimension, indicating the direction of the teachers’ hard work, common in about university teachers’ professional development of hiring, promotion, appraisal, reward, and punishment, and other important management activities. In terms of the qualitative stipulation, policy belongs to a kind of system general outline and public discourse, which is a textual and institutionalized action rule, discourse system, and practice criterion. It is not only the expression of official intention but also the behavior and result of government. For university teachers’ evaluation policy, the form, with the help of education policy and public system of university teachers’ teaching, scientific research and social services, and other activities, based on factual provisions, then a quantitative comparison with the result of teachers’ behavior and value judgment, to control the quality of university education and promoting the development of teachers, and students, and improve the capacity for multiple purposes. Proven as a path to the direction of the new era of university teachers, to promote teachers’ quality improvement projects, it is necessary for university teachers’ evaluation policies, the value of text content requirements, characteristics, and current policy systems to address the main problems of university teachers’ carding, analysis, and reflection. The thought of university teachers’ evaluation system design and improvement of the subsequent optimization provide a reference and inspiration (Cao, 2012; Hu & Zhang, 2015; Huang, 2006; Sun, 2007; Sun & Fan, 2013; Tu, 2007; Zhou, 2013). Policy documents and policy-related texts are the reflection of government policy behavior and the objective evidence for describing policy intention and policy process. This study takes the relevant policies on university teacher evaluation issued by the Ministry of Education since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China as the research object. In terms of specific policy text selection and data source analysis, all official normative documents, such as policies, systems, opinions, and methods issued by the Ministry of Education from 2012 until now, are searched. On this basis, this study browses and filters all the collected documents. Finally, the documents and contents irrelevant to the evaluation of university teachers

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are removed, and 25 policy research samples are selected for in-depth content interpretation and value analysis. The preliminary study of the 25 university teacher evaluation policy texts shows that the texts mainly appear in the form of “opinions” and “methods”. In terms of policy promulgation periods, four policies were issued in 2013, one in 2014, one in 2016, three in 2017, five in 2018, three in 2019, five in 2020, and two in 2021. Overall, 2018–2020 was a relatively frequent threeyear period in which university faculty evaluation policy documents were issued. This is directly related to the abnormal behavior of college teachers and the “five only” evaluation problems that restrict the healthy and innovative development of education and scientific research that have been exposed in recent years. A survey of the sample policy-issuing institutions shows that the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the Ministry of Finance, and the National Development and Reform Commission are the main promulgation agencies. Among them, the Ministry of Education, as the leading department, participated in the design and formulation of all policies. The Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, and the National Development and Reform Commission participated in the formulation of policies 6, 5, and 4, respectively. In addition, the Ministry of Science and Technology, Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, Academic Degrees Committee of The State Council, Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the CPC Central Committee, Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, and Ministry of Culture and Tourism, although not frequently involved in policy initiation, also participate in policy decision-making and formulation. To a certain extent, this reflects the characteristics of China’s university teacher evaluation policy (Cao, 2012; Sun & Fan, 2013).

3.1.1 The Content and Characteristics of China’s University Teacher Evaluation Policy The content of education policy refers to the policy norms set by the text of education policy to solve the problems of education policy. To explore the historical evolution, core, and existing problems of China’s university teacher evaluation policy and explore the possible trend of the future reform of university teacher evaluation, it is necessary to carry out content and value analysis on the text of university teacher evaluation. Teachers play a leading role in the quality level of the whole education system and the growth and development of students. From the perspective of the policy discourse text of research and analysis, the Ministry of Education of teachers’ evaluation of internal guidance idea by a simple belonging to that teacher is a “tool” to realize the education mission, which controls the education work effect of various indexes and the efficiency of real-time performance appraisal management logic,

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to face up to the teachers’ identity of “natural person” and “social person”. Therefore, the governance logic of moral cultivation and comprehensive development should be changed, which generally reflects the quality-oriented evaluation concept of promoting teachers’ professional development and improving the quality of education and teaching. The reasons are as follows: First, the enhancement of teachers’ professional knowledge and skills requires a longer period than the improvement of moral level, and the improvement effect is more negative. Therefore, some teachers attach importance to the overt aspect of teacher professional development but ignore the construction of teacher ethics, which is difficult to quantify and assess in teacher evaluation factors. At the same time, virtue is the primary foundation and political bottom line of teachers’ preaching. Only when teachers have a good moral style can they provide positive guidance for students’ healthy physical and mental growth. It is an important way to encourage teachers to practice excellent moral cultivation in China and to realize the goal of educating intellectuals by insisting on the principle of moral cultivation for teachers. Secondly, with the deepening of people’s understanding of evaluation theory, it is gradually clear that the most important intention of evaluation is not to prove but to improve. Different from the “measurement era”, “description era”, and “judgment era”, which focus on controlling the evaluation of teacher education and teaching, scientific research, and social service work, today’s education and teacher evaluation have moved into the “fourth-generation” evaluation era, in which teachers jointly participate in constructing a grand picture of education quality. It coexisted with the value orientation of the former three generations of evaluation models, such as attaching importance to the evaluation of quantitative indicators and putting efficiency first and ignoring the subjective status of individual teachers in the evaluation process. Therefore, we can say that the evaluation of university teachers in China is in the era of quality control and construction guided by moral cultivation.

3.1.2 The Evaluation Standard of University Teachers: The “One Vote Veto System” of Teachers’ Ethics is the Fundamental Principle to Follow For a long time, college teachers in China have made outstanding contributions to teaching, enhancing scientific research, and serving social progress, and their good professional ethics have been recognized and respected by society. However, in recent years, the news media has exposed more and more frequent unethical behaviors of teachers in colleges and universities, which to a great extent has damaged the overall image of college teachers and hampered the healthy growth of students’ bodies and minds. To solve the problem that some teachers do not work in a standard way and do not have high moral quality and strengthen the construction of teachers’ moral level, the government has issued several documents to strengthen teachers’ ideological and political quality, reaffirming and emphasizing the importance of strengthening

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the moral level of teachers in colleges and universities. For example, several policy documents, such as Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of ideological and Political Work System in Colleges and Universities, clearly state that teachers’ ethics are taken as the first standard for evaluating the quality of teachers. In the new era, college teachers conduct ten guidelines for the standard. The ethics strengthen as the first standard for introduction, the recruitment of the teacher’s professional titles, job employment, mentor selection and assessment reward, period of appraisal, the primary request of project application, etc., it’s essential to strictly implement ethics “one ticket is overruled make” and increase the penalties for misconduct teachers, so that to promote the construction of ethics norm long-acting. For example, before selecting new teachers to enter university teaching positions, political quality, and ethics inspection should be given priority, and special training on ethics should also be accepted before entering the job. Only when they reach a certain number of hours and pass the examination can they obtain the qualification of teachers in institutions of higher learning and take up teaching posts. The education authorities will seriously deal with the unethical behavior of teachers who violate the “Ten Standards of Professional Conduct for College Teachers in the New Era”. To warn teachers of possible violations, it is suggested to establish a sound mechanism for reporting violations and exposing violations and link the records of misconduct with teachers’ professional qualifications to effectively deter teachers’ behaviors and improve the ideological and moral level of teachers (Cao, 2012; Hu & Zhang, 2015; Huang, 2006; Sun, 2007; Sun & Fan, 2013; Tu, 2007; Zhou, 2013).

3.1.3 The Evaluation Method of University Teachers: The Combination of Summative and Procedural Evaluation Since the 1980s, teacher evaluation in many developed countries has changed from “reward and punishment teacher evaluation”, emphasizing the screening function, to “developmental teacher evaluation”, emphasizing the professional development of teachers, and then to “performance management teacher evaluation”, emphasizing work efficiency. No institution relies on just one source of information to evaluate faculty. To explore the effectiveness of university teachers’ work, the government designs and selects a combination of summative and procedural evaluation methods to achieve the dual goals of accountability education quality and promoting teachers’ professional development comprehensively and systematically. Different from the results-oriented performance appraisal and the terminative evaluation of rewards and punishments, developmental evaluation belongs to the process evaluation of teachers’ professional growth and development. In fact, the functions of the two types of evaluation are different. The summative evaluation facilitates the accountability of the government, strengthens the awareness of crisis, competition, and responsibility in the process of teacher development, and can provide accurate work data for accountability institutions. Formative evaluation emphasizes the

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stimulation of teachers’ interest and ability in long-term career development, which helps to promote teachers’ professional development and improve their teaching practice. To break the utilitarian, impetuous, and short-term development path of university teachers and encourage teachers to concentrate on improving their own abilities in an orderly manner, many teacher assessment documents suggest that a reasonable evaluation cycle of scientific research and teaching should be established to avoid frequent evaluation. For example, the Guiding Opinions on Deepening the Reform of The Evaluation System of Teachers in Colleges and Universities hold that, in principle, the evaluation cycle of teachers’ scientific research should be no less than 3 years. In principle, the evaluation cycle of the scientific research team should not be less than 5 years. In addition, the evaluation cycle should be appropriately extended according to the types of scientific and technological activities, the characteristics of disciplines, and the requirements of personnel contracts and project processes. Overall planning of annual assessment, employment assessment, promotion assessment, and other forms of assessment. According to the actual performance evaluation situation, the repeated assessment can be reduced or exempted, the assessment cycle can be appropriately extended, and time and space can be given for teachers’ normative growth and creative cultivation. In general, the main function of teacher evaluation in China is changing from simple fact evaluation to promoting the sustainable development of teachers, and increasing attention is being paid to the construction of assessment mechanisms combining developmental evaluation based on teachers’ future and performance evaluation focusing on performance improvement (Cao, 2012; Hu & Zhang, 2015; Huang, 2006; Sun, 2007; Sun & Fan, 2013; Tu, 2007; Zhou, 2013).

3.1.4 The Evaluation Subject of University Teachers: Pay Equal Attention to Diversification and Specialization Since the birth of the teaching profession, teachers’ activities have been evaluated by various stakeholders in society. In other words, the complexity of education and teaching activities directly determines the diversity of teacher evaluation subjects. However, education is a very professional and artistic human activity. Not any subject is qualified to arbitrarily judge the educational effectiveness of teachers. It is more difficult to effectively evaluate highly specialized teaching, research, and social service activities of universities that are committed to imparting and innovating advanced knowledge. Therefore, the government has basically delegated the evaluation power of university teachers to universities. The interim Measures for the Evaluation and Supervision of college teachers’ professional titles stipulate that the evaluation power of college teachers’ professional titles is directly granted to colleges and universities. Colleges and universities that do not have the ability for independent evaluation can independently and flexibly adopt the method of joint evaluation and entrusted evaluation. At the same time, colleges and universities are the main

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body to bear the possible related responsibilities. To guarantee the comprehensiveness, authenticity, objectivity, and fairness of the evaluation of university teachers, the Ministry of Education still actively advocates the implementation of multiple methods of concurrent evaluation. There are not only external teachers’ evaluation subjects, such as education authorities and experts and scholars but also the evaluation and assessment of teachers’ teaching performance and scientific research achievements by students and teachers. At present, the evaluation of university teachers in China has formed a multi-subject and multi-dimensional evaluation system with the participation of education administrative departments, schools, teachers, and students. However, in the practice of educational evaluation, different subjects play different roles. For example, the academic committee composed of academic and behavioral subjects has a higher say on teachers’ academic research level and ability, and students’ teaching evaluation has become an important measure of teaching quality evaluation of university teachers, even the only dimension. The competent departments of colleges and universities are responsible for verifying the audit results of the assessment of teachers’ professional titles submitted by colleges and universities every year, and the competent departments of education will regularly carry out random checks on the whole level of the country. This assessment mechanism of multi-subject participation in the evaluation of university teachers can be seen from the evaluation criteria of postgraduate tutors in the Opinions on the Comprehensive Implementation of the Responsibilities of Postgraduate Tutors. According to the opinion, the assessment of postgraduate tutors should be based on annual assessment, adhere to the combination of postgraduate training unit evaluation, teaching supervision evaluation, postgraduate evaluation, and tutor self-evaluation, establish a scientific, fair, just, and open comprehensive assessment and evaluation network, and promote the integration and unity of discourse world of different subjects (Cao, 2012; Huang, 2006; Sun & Fan, 2013; Zhou, 2013).

3.1.5 The Evaluation Content of University Teachers: Considering the Principles of Comprehensive, Key and Classified Evaluation The university teacher’s evaluation is not limited to subject knowledge and the contribution rate of production, but for teachers in university teaching, scientific research, and social services such as multi-dimensional systemic evaluation, the task of basic teaching, number of published monograph achievements, status of the service to participate in social practice, etc. In essence, this kind of assessment content highlights the education authorities’ emphasis on the dual identity of teachers as academics and social citizens. In addition to a systematic and comprehensive survey of university teachers’ behaviors, the opinions also designed and innovated a representative evaluation system for teachers as professional scientific research workers. For example, the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Science and Technology

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jointly issued “the several opinions on standard SCI papers related indicators used for institutions of higher learning correct evaluation” expressly provide a masterpiece, simplify optimization filing materials, require complete SCI papers related index no longer, but then elaborated the representative results submitted by the applicant’s innovative and meaning. In addition, for teachers of different disciplines with specific attributes, as well as teaching-oriented teachers, teaching-research teachers, research-teaching teachers, and research-research teachers, the teacher evaluation path of classification, characteristics, and different emphases are also carried out. For example, the emphasis on the original innovation and scientific value of basic research and the emphasis on the actual contribution to applied research and technological innovation. Thus far, it has changed the historical habit of taking papers as a single evaluation basis and a direct judgment basis and improved the classification evaluation and assessment mechanism in multiple forms, such as contributions to academic achievements and practical application. In addition, the Ministry of Education has issued several documents aimed at improving the level of university education and teaching to overcome the long-standing problem that university teaching has fallen into a serious “quality decline” due to the excessive focus of university teachers on scientific research while ignoring the investment in teaching and the improvement of teaching ability. Such as “about strengthening the construction of new era college teachers” guidance on the reform of use of teacher evaluation of the “baton”, advocated to strengthen the education of colleges and universities teaching management, perfecting the existing teaching quality evaluation system, set up based on multi-dimensional evaluate teachers’ teaching, teaching work, the effect of classroom teaching, teaching reform and research and teaching awards and other achievements in teaching work. The proportion of teaching performance and teaching effectiveness in teachers’ performance distribution, professional title appraisal and appointment, and post-promotion assessment should be strengthened, and it is stipulated that the undertaking of a certain amount of science and teaching work in colleges and universities should be regarded as a necessary condition for teachers’ title promotion. Guided by the spirit of such documents, most universities now have explicit programs for professors to teach undergraduates. In the event of any violation of this rule, disciplinary action will be taken accordingly (Cao, 2012; Sun & Fan, 2013; Zhou, 2013).

3.1.6 Evaluation Results of University Teachers: Value Orientation Highlighting the Significance of Feedback and Improvement As a matter of fact, teacher evaluation is a means of motivation, its original emphasis is on the continuous promotion of teacher professional development. On this basis, the basic way to guarantee the policy goal of promoting teaching through evaluation

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is to truthfully feedback on the results of teacher evaluation to the hands of the evaluated teachers and then provide improvement ideas and directions for their follow-up development. To compensate for the lack of transparency and effectiveness of the previous assessment results of university teachers, the Guidance on Deepening the Reform of the Assessment and Evaluation System of University teachers suggests establishing a hierarchical feedback mechanism for the assessment and evaluation results. To realize the effective correlation between the evaluated teachers and the evaluation results, colleges, and universities should establish a hierarchical management system for the evaluation of teachers. To maintain teachers’ right to know the evaluation results, the evaluation results should be notified to teachers themselves. To promote teachers’ sustainable development, the grass-roots management units of schools and departments should communicate with teachers in a timely manner, give feedback, scientifically analyze the advantages and disadvantages of teachers’ levels, and provide necessary help for their career development. In addition, the document stipulates that universities should make reasonable use of teachers’ evaluation results as an important basis for professional title (position) evaluation, performance allocation, excellence evaluation, and continuous training. The most important thing is to pay attention to the appraisal, guidance, incentive, education, and other comprehensive functions of assessment and evaluation.

3.2 The Main Problems of China’s University Teacher Evaluation Policy The evaluation policy of university teachers in China is systematic in the design of the guiding ideology of evaluation, qualified subjects participated in the evaluation, the mechanism and procedure of implementing the evaluation, and the quality assurance of the evaluation process, however, there are still many procedural and institutional problems to be solved in the practical policy operation process.

3.2.1 The Policy Concept of University Teacher Evaluation: Instrumental Rationality and Efficiency Orientation Dominate The concept of evaluation runs through and affects the whole process, link, and element of evaluation and is the logical basis and value guide of all evaluation activities. As a means of quality monitoring, control, and guarantee, evaluation aims at diagnosis, improvement, construction, and reform. However, influenced by the “catch-up” mode of backwardness and exogenous management mode of “engineering”, “performance”, and “scientific” in the development of higher education in China, the evaluation policy of university teachers pursues the concept of

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instrumental rationality and practices a value and logic view that is goal-driven, efficiency-oriented, and technicism as the core pursuit. It is mainly reflected in the high efficiency, accurate measurement, and visualization of results, ranking, and resource allocation. For example, the comprehensive performance evaluation of teachers attaches great importance to standardization construction, overemphasizes the unified management and quantitative evaluation of teaching output, scientific research output, and social service output of teacher evaluation, and regards teacher performance evaluation as an evaluation benchmark and tool basis for deciding teacher appointment, salary increase, promotion, reward, and punishment. Or it is the label or confirmation of the specific, explicit, and visual results of school-running quality, talent cultivation quality, and scientific research quality, while relatively ignoring the multiple functions of evaluation in promoting the professional development of individual teachers, the improvement of students’ learning quality, and the connotative construction of colleges and universities. The characterization of instrumental rationality and the efficiency orientation features of university teachers’ evaluation theory and policy obviously deviates from the teachers’ evaluation of promoting the connotative development of talent fostering and the nature and purpose of the construction of high-quality, making it easy for teachers to become a tool for organizational goals, while ignoring teachers’ self-reflective growth and sustainable development. This results in the lack of value rationality of teacher development, the “superficial” of education and teaching, and the “low efficiency” of talent training quality (Cao, 2012; Huang, 2006; Sun & Fan, 2013; Zhou, 2013).

3.2.2 Policy Results of University Teacher Evaluation: Resource Bundling and Allocation Based on Results, Performance, and Benefits The application of evaluation results is the last link of evaluation, which determines the effectiveness of evaluation. In essence, evaluation is an indispensable means and approach to the quality construction of higher education. The essential function and significance of the evaluation of university teachers lie in making objective, comprehensive, and scientific value and fact judgments for teaching, scientific research, and social service of university teachers. From the perspective of relevant university teacher evaluation policies, the results of teacher evaluation show an obvious tendency of resource bundling and allocation based on results, performance, and benefits. At the macro level, teacher evaluation is an important component of the evaluation of the quality and effectiveness of university education. The quality of university education and teaching can be further evaluated by investigating and evaluating the teachers’ ethics, teaching, scientific research, social services, and professional development. According to this, the macro-control of school-running rights and resources, such as funding input, enrollment quota, degree setting, etc. At the medium level, make a comprehensive diagnosis and identification to the quality and

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performance of the college teachers’ curriculum construction, teaching reform, scientific research, social services and cultural inheritance and innovation, internationalization, talent cultivation, such as system evaluation, the university’s teaching, discipline construction, professional construction, personnel training, scientific research, and social services, and take the results as the reference basis for the quality of teacher team construction and the supervision, accountability, and management of education and teaching quality. At the micro level, by investigating the ideological and political quality of university teachers, the teacher’s ethics, strengthening teaching achievements, research papers and project awards, etc., carry out the comprehensive evaluation to the teacher’s basic business ability, the quality of their achievements in academic innovation and talent training, social contribution, and so on. And the teachers’ material and spiritual honorary titles of technology of incentives and rewards and punishment, evaluation, promotion, etc. are directly related to the interests and bounds. This kind of evaluation result and quality performance accountability and teacher development interests, such as policy orientation and implementation mechanism of bundling, in the short term, are beneficial to promote quality assurance and comprehensive quality improvement and professional development for teachers, but for a long time, they will also be subject to external utilitarian motivation and quality of construction and development of sustainable and endogenous risks and hidden trouble of lack of autonomy. The continuous improvement of the quality of running a university and the effective improvement of the ability of governance and the quality of teachers form the contributions.

3.3 The Future Trend of China’s University Teacher Evaluation Policy University teacher evaluation policy is a system, and its elements include evaluation ideas, main body rules and means carriers, and other multi-dimensional content. To strengthen the theoretical research and practical construction of teacher evaluation policy, it is necessary to innovate the program design and system design from the perspectives of concept leading, subject promoting, mode path, and two-way feedback exchange.

3.3.1 Scientifically Governing Teachers and Practicing the “Teacher-Oriented” Evaluation Concept of University Teachers As an important governance tool to guarantee, improve, and enhance the quality of education and teaching, teacher evaluation has been proven by many studies. “Promoting construction and reform through evaluation”, “improving quality through

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evaluation”, and “enhancing efficiency through evaluation” have become the basic consensus and pursuit of governance value. In essence, educational evaluation reform reflects the deep and systematic reform of educational concepts and educational thinking modes and the transformation of educational systems and mechanisms and educational governance. To a certain extent, educational evaluation is an activity of quality construction and governance that should follow the combination of educational logic and governance logic. As mentioned above, China’s university teacher evaluation policy follows the concepts of moral cultivation, efficiency first, quality orientation, index logic, and so on. Overall, it is compatible with the development mode and evaluation mode of higher education and becomes the basic orientation of university teacher evaluation practice. However, compared with the main body of teachers, these ideas are externally driven, from outside to inside and from top to bottom, which tends to make teachers passive evaluators and one-dimensional tool people. With the popularization of higher education and the deepening of the quality construction movement, according to the development and construction of fourthgeneration evaluation theory, the professional development of university teachers will become an important value belonging to teacher evaluation. Therefore, the subsequent reform of university teacher evaluation policy should highlight the “teacheroriented” concept. The evaluation focus is no longer limited to the external view of quality, performance, and indicators, and the deterministic indicators such as teacher performance which are taken as the absolute scale and main results and should take into account the basic logic of teacher orientation. The quality excellence standards of teachers, such as teaching reform and innovative development, academic and professional development and value-added contribution, and individual lifelong sustainable development, should be anchored to inspire teachers’ endogenous enthusiasm and consciousness and ensure the efficient use of the basic guiding function of evaluation in quality dynamic improvement and teacher professional development (Cao, 2012; Sun & Fan, 2013).

3.3.2 To Stimulate the Growth of Teachers, Highlighting the Promotion Role of College Peers and Self-evaluation In view of the current teacher evaluation mainly dominated by teaching supervision or teaching management personnel, lack of peer evaluation, students’ evaluation of validity is not high and the present situation of inadequate teachers’ individual participation, teacher evaluation policy should insist on the integration of different value standards and judgments of multiple evaluation subject at the same time, further emphasizing the evaluation of teachers and fellow professional and the reflection of evaluators as practioners. It provides professional yardsticks for evaluating teachers to identify educational problems and improve their own abilities. This is because

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teachers, as professional designers, implementors, and in-depth participants in educational and teaching activities, are the most familiar with their teaching and research activities. The process of self-evaluation can make them consciously enhance their reflection on teaching and research, help to stimulate their internal enthusiasm, and continuously carry out professional growth. The method of peer evaluation is determined by the inherent complexity of educational and scientific research activities. This kind of high complexity and creativity requires that teacher evaluators have the professional ability in order to provide reliable and effective guidance experience for teachers. However, in reality, peer evaluation and teacher self-evaluation have not been implemented into the comprehensive evaluation of teachers as an important method of teacher evaluation. In the future, teacher evaluation policies need to further coordinate the relationship between different evaluation subjects, and the proportion of teacher evaluation should be more inclined to the evaluation of teachers’ value-added and procedural development in the process of self-growth to provide a reference index system for colleges and universities to implement academic peer evaluation. At the same time, measures should be taken to ensure the credibility of other evaluation methods, such as students’ evaluation of teaching results, to reduce the external errors in the process of teacher evaluation.

3.3.3 Strengthening Teachers’ Participation and Implementing Developmental Evaluation Methods for University Teachers The real basis of an institution is institutional practice, not the concept of an institution. The practice of communication between people not only produces the demand of institutions but is also the main channel of institutional supply and the basic way for institutions to realize the value, obtain modification and gradually become reasonable. For the field of teacher evaluation, teacher evaluation policies and systems are the practical results of continuous communication between teachers and evaluators. The practice has proven that developmental evaluation aimed at helping teachers improve their teaching is relatively effective for teachers’ professional development. As a new future-oriented teacher evaluation system, developmental teacher evaluation is an evaluation method aimed at diagnosing and improving problems existing in teacher teaching, rather than simply making reward and punishment mechanisms. The implementation of developmental evaluation can enable teachers, as teaching subjects, to truly participate in the monitoring and guarantee link of education quality, timely adjust and improve personal development goal planning, and enable schools to provide training and development opportunities for teachers to improve their work competence on the premise of knowing their professional expectations. However, the developmental evaluation will also bring about the potential harm of lowering teachers’ competitive consciousness and lowering their own requirements. Therefore, the successful teacher evaluation system is built based on certain pressures on

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teachers’ performance and maintaining teachers’ internal motivation. This requires teacher evaluation to seek a balance between “reward and punishment” and “development”, adhering to the combination of performance objective assessment and developmental value-added measurement. Teachers’ evaluation, construction, and generation accelerate the development of teachers. Teachers’ professional attitudes, professional awareness, professional knowledge, and professional ability form a comprehensive evaluation system for teachers, making teachers participate in the evaluation process and strengthening the tracking of the education teaching process evaluation, in order to form the future teachers’ development of incentive evaluation mechanisms (Cao, 2012; Huang, 2006; Sun & Fan, 2013; Zhou, 2013).

3.3.4 Pay Attention to Teacher Improvement and Establish an Effective Feedback Mechanism for the Evaluation Results of University Teachers The content system of teacher evaluation policy in China is not only the dynamic process of policy implementation from the vertical perspective but also related to horizontal factors such as evaluation methods, evaluators, evaluation standards, evaluation procedures, feedback, and utilization of evaluation results. Studies have proven that results feedback can play a positive role in the regulation of teachers, facilitating them to reflect on teaching according to the evaluation results and timely adjust their own education and teaching behavior. As the final core part of teacher evaluation, the evaluation results should not be confined to the publication of the manager’s assessment and decision-making, such as promotion, title evaluation, and salary distribution management program. The more important is the teacher has the right to know evaluation results and the audit results, thus they can take measures to adjust action according to the assessment results. In this way, we can ensure the function of teacher evaluation to motivate, improve, and audit. This requires that the setup should be perfect from teachers’ self-evaluation, reviews, appeals to the recognition of the evaluation results or the whole chain of evaluation feedback mechanisms with upward channels. In asymmetric information situations, many teachers cannot fully participate in the evaluation system design, implementation, and feedback of information and their enthusiasm is not high, so it’s necessary to endow teachers with greater enthusiasm, initiative, and action space in the process of teacher evaluation. In addition, we should attach importance to the timeliness of evaluation feedback. If necessary, humanized feedback approaches can be selected according to the psychological personality qualities and evaluation results of different interviewees (Cao, 2012; Hu & Zhang, 2015; Huang, 2006; Sun, 2007; Sun & Fan, 2013; Tu, 2007; Zhou, 2013).

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References Cao, R. (2012). Problems and improvement of teacher evaluation system in colleges and universities. Journal of National School of Education Administration, 20(03), 73–77. Hu, W., & Zhang, M. (2015). Evaluation based on improving school performance—Also on OECD teacher evaluation policy. China Higher Education Research, 20(04), 80–85. Huang, C. (2006). Research and enlightenment on the development of foreign teachers’ teaching quality evaluation. Education Research of Tsinghua University, 20(06), 101–105. Sun, M. (2007). Discussion on the content analysis of education policy—Taking the analysis of the content of education system reform after 1978 as an example. Education Research and Experiment, 27(03), 39–45. Sun, C., & Fan, G. (2013). Teacher evaluation policy: American experience and enlightenment—A case study of teacher evaluation policy in the Midwest of the United States. Global Education Outlook, 42(03), 57–65. Tu, D. (2007). On the classification of theoretically oriented education policy. Modern University Education, 20(5), 22–28. Zhou, H. (2013). Some thoughts and suggestions on top-level design of teacher education system (Part 2). Teacher Education Forum, 20(8), 5–16.

Chapter 4

Teachers’ Professional Title Appointment Policy in China

This chapter examines teachers’ professional title appointment policies in China. The professional title appointment system of primary and secondary school teachers is the core problem of teacher management. This chapter analyzes the progress of the reform of China’s professional title system from the three aspects of professional title evaluation, post setting, and post-employment. The evaluation mode of professional title evaluation is constantly improving, the number of middle and senior professional title posts should be appropriately increased in the post setting, and the post-employment should be combined with the evaluation of professional title and post evaluation. Based on the two-factor theory, this chapter analyzes the problems existing in the current professional title employment system, such as the large difference in the proportion of professional title and title structure of administrative posts and whether the positions can be employed above or below. This study puts forward some suggestions for improvement, such as distinguishing the professional title evaluation of administrative and teaching posts clearly, reexamining the core purpose of the professional title system of primary and secondary school teachers and establishing a scientific and reasonable salary system.

4.1 The Overview and Policy Content of Professional Title Appointment The appointment of professional titles is one of the core problems in the management of primary and secondary school teachers. The professional title system for primary and secondary school teachers, established in 1986 with the job appointment system as its main content, has played a positive role in arousing the enthusiasm of primary and secondary school teachers, improving their overall quality, and promoting the development of basic education. At the beginning of the establishment of the professional title system for teachers, the professional title system was not perfect, and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Li and E. Xue, Teacher Development Policy in China, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1015-1_4

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there were two sets of parallel professional title systems in primary school and middle school, resulting in unequal treatment of teachers in the professional title of primary school and middle school. In 2015, the State Council decided to deepen the reform of the professional title system for primary and secondary school teachers. The professional title system for primary and secondary school teachers was combined into one system, and professional title evaluation was combined with job recruitment. The appointment of professional titles is the focus of the reform of professional title systems in primary and secondary schools in China. The professional title level of teachers determines the income level of teachers, so the appointment of teachers’ professional titles directly involves the vital interests of every primary and secondary school teacher. The post salary in the salary structure of ordinary teachers is determined by the rank of teachers’ professional title. Furthermore, the pension income of teachers after retirement also depends on the rank of their professional title. Therefore, reforming the professional title system and perfecting the employment of professional titles play an irreplaceable role in stabilizing and motivating teachers’ work passion. The appointment of professional titles of primary and secondary school teachers involves three links: the evaluation of teachers’ professional titles, the setting of school posts, and the appointment of school teachers. The key to dealing with the appointment of professional titles is to adjust the relationship among the three links. The relationship between “evaluation” and “employment” has always been the key point of contradiction. In 2015, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the Ministry of Education issued the Guiding Opinions on Deepening the Reform of The Professional Title System for Primary and Secondary School Teachers, which clearly proposed the connection between evaluation and employment. In 2017, the Opinions on Deepening the Reform of The Professional Title System proposed that for public institutions, that fully implement post management, professional title evaluation should generally be carried out within the proportion of post structure, and for units that do not implement post management, evaluation and employment can be separated. There is no compulsory provision of “unification of evaluation and employment” or “separation of evaluation and employment” in the current policy, which leads to the ambiguous relationship between professional title evaluation and post-employment, resulting in the accumulation of contradictions. In view of the above problems, domestic scholars are also deeply studying and discussing how to adjust the relationship between the various links of professional title appointment (Gao, 2016; Hu & Zhou, 2017; Ma, 2017; Ou, 2018; Zhang, 2018, 2020). In the evaluation process of teachers’ professional titles, some scholars pointed out that the evaluation process of professional titles in some places did not help to improve teachers’ work enthusiasm but played a negative role. In the process of determining sharp ends and means of inversion problem, the academic and technical titles of primary and secondary school teachers have been considered as the ultimate purpose of the teachers’ struggle, rather than a means of lead teachers grow, mature, and enjoy a good reputation, the spread of ideas in groups of teachers and even management will deteriorate the school education environment. It makes teachers think that the purpose of doing projects, writing papers, and doing scientific research is to evaluate professional titles, and even the reason why they fight for professional

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titles is just to get higher salaries with higher professional titles, which brings wrong value orientation to teachers. It can be seen from the above research that the evaluation of professional titles is still the core of the reform of professional title systems, and there are still many difficulties and challenges. There are also many studies on the post setting of primary and secondary school teachers. The unreasonable setting of senior, intermediate, and primary professional titles in the post setting structure of primary and secondary schools, especially the serious problem of the unreasonable setting of posts in primary and secondary schools, proposed that the proportion of professional titles at all levels in the post setting of primary and secondary schools should be reasonably determined based on the actual situation. The lack of adequate understanding of internal control in primary and secondary schools often leads to unclear job responsibilities, mismatching of powers and responsibilities, and other problems. To save costs, one person is required to undertake multiple functions, which makes internal control unable to play a supervisory role. Similarly, when setting up posts in primary and secondary schools, different posts should design and make different job descriptions so that such a post setting can provide guarantees and support for primary and secondary school teachers to achieve their teaching tasks smoothly. Post settings should not be carried out in accordance with the period, and should be positioned according to the school. The implementation of primary and secondary school teachers from the “school” to the “system” is beneficial to teachers’ inter-regional exchanges, but should distinguish the city and township schools in the operation, increase the proportion of the villages and towns school positioned, implement piecewise positioned, classification of post-employment. The setting of professional title and post determines the total control and is the basis of professional title appointment. Domestic scholars have also conducted abundant research on the employment of primary and secondary school teachers. The establishment of post withdrawal mechanism can avoid job burnout after the employment of teachers, and the incentive effect of the post-employment system can be better played only when teachers can improve their teaching level. Raising the salary level of teachers and establishing a salary standard corresponding to the employment position are guarantees to improve the enthusiasm of teachers and are also important factors for primary and secondary schools to attract and retain teaching talent. A scientific, reasonable, and diversified post assessment and evaluation system should be established to help urge teachers to complete teaching tasks and objectives in a better and more efficient manner. The above research focuses on the supporting salary mechanism, entry and exit mechanism, assessment, and evaluation mechanism and tries to motivate teachers to teach better by constantly improving the employment mode of primary and secondary school teachers. Based on fully absorbing the research results of domestic scholars, this study attempts to use two-factor theory to analyze and discuss the professional title appointment policies of primary and secondary school teachers in China. The two-factor theory, also known as “incentive-health theory”, was proposed by The American psychologist Hertzberg. He believed that internal factors are related to job satisfaction and motivation, while external factors are related to job dissatisfaction. What makes employees satisfied are the incentive factors of work itself or work content. The health care factors that make workers

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feel dissatisfied belong to the working environment or working relations. When the health factor deteriorates are below the level that people can accept, there will be dissatisfaction with work. When the health factor is good, it only eliminates dissatisfaction but does not lead to a positive attitude toward work. Those factors that can bring motivation are to meet the needs of personal fulfillment, and these factors will directly encourage people to work more motivation. By applying two-factor theory, this study attempts to reveal the characteristics of incentive factors and health care factors reflected in the professional title appointment system in the policy and to respond to some problems in the professional title appointment process of primary and secondary school teachers in China (Gao, 2016; Hu & Zhou, 2017; Ma, 2017; Ou, 2018; Zhang, 2018, 2020). The 2021 Teachers’ Law (Draft for Comments) adds new regulations on teacher employment and evaluation. Article 22 about the post system points out that the state implements the post system for teachers, and the posts of primary and secondary school teachers are divided into junior, intermediate, deputy senior, and senior posts. Primary and intermediate positions of teachers shall not be restricted by the proportion of posts and shall be promoted in accordance with regulations according to the number of years and requirements for teachers to perform their duties. Deputy senior and above posts should be combined with post setting, teachers’ performance in performing their duties should be inspected, corresponding proportion should be set, and they should be obtained competitively through evaluation and other means. Article 23 about post-employment points out that teachers are employed by postemployment system, and teachers are employed in corresponding posts according to their post levels. The administrative departments of education shall, jointly with relevant departments, formulate scientifically and rationally guiding opinions on the establishment of posts in primary and secondary schools. The establishment of deputy senior positions in primary and secondary schools should balance teachers’ ability of subject teaching and moral education. The newly added content of “Teacher Law (Draft for Comments)” has more detailed regulations on the appointment of primary and secondary school teachers’ professional titles. On the one hand, it answers the evaluation and appointment questions of teachers’ professional titles, implements “separation of evaluation and appointment” for primary and intermediate professional titles, and “combination of evaluation and appointment” for senior professional titles. On the other hand, the post setting has increased the consideration of teachers’ ethics and style. In order to have a more comprehensive understanding of the policy connotation of professional title appointment in primary and secondary schools in China, it is necessary to sort out the policy provisions of the three links of professional title appointment (Gao, 2016; Hu & Zhou, 2017; Ma, 2017; Ou, 2018; Zhang, 2018, 2020).

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4.1.1 Professional Title Evaluation: Improve the Evaluation Mode In 2015, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the Ministry of Education jointly issued the Guiding Opinions on Deepening the Reform of Professional Title System for Primary and Secondary School Teachers, requiring further improvement of professional title evaluation standards and innovation of professional title evaluation mechanisms. The evaluation of the professional titles of primary and secondary school teachers is based on the evaluation standards of their professional and technical levels. The evaluation standards for the professional and technical level of primary and secondary school teachers should meet the new requirements of carrying out quality-oriented education and curriculum reform, fully reflect the professional characteristics of primary and secondary school teachers, focus on the long-term development of primary and secondary school teachers, and constantly improve in practice. It is essential to give full consideration to the teaching work of professional, practical, and long-term teaching, insist on education, moral education first, pay attention to the teacher’s ethics accomplishment, pay attention to the education teaching work performance, pay attention to the education teaching method, pay attention to the education teaching frontline practice experience, really change the situation of too much emphasis on paper, degree of orientation, lead teachers positive and enterprising, and constantly improve the implementation of quality education ability and level. The evaluation standards for the professional and technical level of primary and secondary school teachers shall be formulated by the state and stipulate the minimum standards for the evaluation of professional titles of primary and secondary school teachers. All provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps have formulated specific standards and conditions for the evaluation of primary and secondary school teachers in accordance with the development of local education and in combination with the characteristics of various primary and secondary schools and their educational and teaching realities. The specific evaluation criteria should consider the actual conditions of rural primary schools and teaching sites, give appropriate preferences to rural teachers, and stabilize and attract excellent teachers to teach in rural primary schools and teaching sites in remote and poverty-stricken areas. The specific evaluation standard conditions of senior teachers in middle and primary schools should reflect the different characteristics and requirements of middle and primary schools. For a few exceptional teachers, corresponding exceptional evaluation conditions can be formulated. The specific evaluation standard conditions of each province can be appropriately improved on the basis of the national basic standard conditions. In 2017, the CPC Central Committee general office, the office of the State Council, issued “the opinion about deepening the system reform of professional titles”. The title appraisal problem also made specific provisions, also emphasized perfect title evaluation standards, insisted on having both ability and political integrity, good for first, scientific classification and evaluation of professional and technical personnel ability quality, outstanding professional and

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technical personnel evaluation of performance level and the actual contribution. We should innovate the evaluation mechanism of professional titles, enrich the evaluation methods, expand the scope of professional title evaluation personnel, promote the socialization of professional title evaluation, and strengthen the supervision of professional title evaluation. Based on the above two documents, provinces have issued on the implementation scheme of deepening the reform of the system of primary and secondary school teachers titles, primary and secondary school teachers title personnel system reform transition implementation opinions, professional technology level evaluation method for the primary and middle school teachers, primary and secondary school teachers’ professional technology level evaluation standard conditions and other related documents, thus to guide the reform of the system of professional titles in all provinces and cities (Gao, 2016; Hu & Zhou, 2017; Ma, 2017; Ou, 2018; Zhang, 2018, 2020).

4.1.2 Post Setting: Increasing the Proportion of Senior and Intermediate Professional Titles In 2006, the Ministry of Personnel of the People’s Republic of China issued two important documents, Trial Measures for The Management of Post Establishment in Public Institutions and Opinions on the Implementation of Trial Measures for the Management of Post Establishment in Public Institutions, which provided guidance for the management of post establishment in all public institutions, including primary and secondary education institutions. According to the spirit of two files, the personnel department and the Ministry of Education issued three important documents in 2007, which are “on the institutions of higher learning set up management guidance”, “about compulsory education schools post setting management guidance”, and “about secondary vocational schools, ordinary high school, nursery school post setting management guidance”, to guide the rational establishment and allocation of posts in educational institutions nationwide. For example, there are relevant provisions on the proportion of post setting in the Guiding Opinions on post Setting Management of Compulsory Education Schools. Article 7 stipulates the proportion arrangement of different types of posts in primary and secondary schools. According to the social functions, responsibilities and tasks, work nature and personnel structure characteristics of compulsory education schools, the structural proportion of the total number of management posts, professional and technical posts, and working skills posts (hereafter referred to as the three types of posts) are comprehensively determined. The total number of posts in compulsory education schools should be determined according to the standard for the establishment of primary and secondary schools. Post setting should give priority to meeting the actual needs of education and teaching and strictly control non-teaching posts. Boarding schools can increase management positions and work skills. The proportion of teacher posts in ordinary junior middle schools is generally not less than 85%, and management posts,

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other professional and technical posts, and work skills posts are generally not more than 15%. The proportion of ordinary primary school teacher posts is generally not less than 90% of the total number of posts, and management posts, other professional and technical posts, and work skills posts are generally not more than 10%. Article 8 stipulates that the post establishment of compulsory education schools should be controlled by the total number of posts, the structural proportion, and the highest grade. Article 13 stipulates the proportion of posts with professional titles at different levels in primary and secondary schools. According to the requirements of the overall control target of the structural proportion between senior, intermediate, and primary positions of professional and technical personnel in public institutions, according to the current situation of the structural proportion between senior, intermediate, and primary positions of professional and technical teachers in compulsory education schools, combined with the development needs of compulsory education and the outline of the “Eleventh Five-Year plan” for talent development, the structure proportion among senior, intermediate, and primary positions of teachers in compulsory education schools was reasonably determined. The proportion of senior and intermediate post structure of teachers in schools in rural areas should be roughly balanced with similar schools in local cities and towns. In 2015, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the Ministry of Education issued the Guiding Opinions on Deepening the Reform of The Professional Title System for Primary and Secondary School Teachers, which made great adjustments to the professional title system. In particular, the professional title system of middle and primary schools was combined with the professional title system of primary and secondary schools, and senior professional titles were added to the primary and secondary schools. In 2018, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and The State Council issued opinions on comprehensively deepening the Reform of Teacher Team Construction in the New Era, which clearly proposed deepening the reform of the professional title and evaluation system of primary and secondary school teachers. The proportion of intermediate and senior teachers in primary and secondary schools should be appropriately increased, and channels for teachers’ career development should be open, the document said. We will improve the post management system in line with the characteristics of primary and secondary schools and link professional titles with the employment of teachers. Primary and secondary school teachers who have worked in rural schools or weak schools for more than one year will be required to apply for senior teacher titles and special-grade teachers. The reform of the rank system for primary and secondary school principals has been carried out to expand the space for career development and promote the professional construction of principals. We will further improve the evaluation standards for professional titles, establish an evaluation index system that is in line with the characteristics of primary and secondary school teachers’ positions, adhere to the principle of comprehensive evaluation with both political integrity and ability, highlight achievements in education and teaching, guide teachers to devote themselves to teaching and educating people, strengthen post-employment management and stimulate teachers’ working vitality, and improve relevant policies to prevent formalism

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from interfering with normal teaching. Teachers are not evaluated simply by admission rate and students’ examination scores. We will implement a regular registration system, establish and improve the withdrawal mechanism for teachers, and enhance the overall vitality of the teaching staff. We will strengthen the assessment and evaluation of primary and secondary school principals, urge them to improve their quality and abilities, and improve the mechanism for determining those who survive. In the process of reforming the title system, all provinces and cities are actively responding to the national call to adjust the proportion of primary titles in primary, middle, and high schools. The author collected relevant regulations on the proportion of senior, intermediate, and junior titles in senior high schools, junior high schools, and primary schools in 26 provinces and cities. Among them, Beijing, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Anhui, Gansu, and Qinghai provinces have not formulated clear regulations, so they temporarily use the total control standards for the establishment of professional titles in public institutions stipulated by their personnel departments as a reference. In general, provinces and cities across the country show a trend that the proportion of senior and intermediate professional titles increase (Gao, 2016; Hu & Zhou, 2017; Ma, 2017; Ou, 2018; Zhang, 2018, 2020).

4.2 Job Recruitment: Complementary Evaluation and Recruitment In 2015, the Guiding Opinions on Deepening the Reform of The Professional Title System for Primary and Secondary School Teachers required that the employment of primary and secondary schools should be connected with the employment system of public institutions. First, the evaluation of the professional title of primary and secondary school teachers is an important basis and key link of the employment of primary and secondary school teachers, and employment is the main embodiment of the evaluation results of professional titles. Primary and secondary school teachers post vacancies, and teachers can cross-school evaluations. The employment and treatment of teachers in public primary and secondary schools should be managed and standardized in accordance with the post management system and income distribution system of public institutions. Second, the professional title evaluation of primary and secondary school teachers is carried out in terms of the proportion of the approved post structure. Primary and secondary school teachers compete for positions of a professional title level, and the school recommends qualified teachers to participate in professional title evaluation according to a certain proportion of the difference in the post structure. The teachers who pass the professional title evaluation will be employed in the corresponding teaching posts in accordance with relevant regulations. Human resources and social security departments and education administrative departments should cash the salaries of teachers in a timely manner to prevent the phenomenon of “not hiring” in the case of qualified candidates. Third, we must adhere to the employment system for primary and secondary school teachers.

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According to the requirements of deepening the reform of the personnel system in public institutions and primary and secondary schools, the employment system and post management system for primary and secondary school teachers should be implemented comprehensively to give play to the principal role of schools in employment and realize the unification of post-employment and post-employment for primary and secondary school teachers. It is necessary to establish and improve the assessment system, strengthen post-employment management, and realize personnel’s ability to rise and fall in post-employment. Fourthly, the evaluation and employment supervision mechanism of primary and secondary school teachers should be improved, and the supervision role of discipline inspection and supervision departments and teachers should be fully brought into play to ensure that the evaluation and employment procedures are fair and standardized and that the evaluation and employment process is open and transparent. The evaluation and employment shall be carried out in accordance with the basic procedures of individual application, assessment and recommendation, expert evaluation, and school employment. Fifthly, for those who have obtained professional and technical qualifications for primary and secondary school teachers before the reform but have not been employed in corresponding positions, their original qualifications are still valid, and they no longer need to be evaluated by the evaluation committee when they are employed to corresponding positions. All localities should formulate specific measures in light of their actual conditions and give appropriate preference to these personnel when hiring them based on their merits. Sixth, teachers who have taught in rural schools (including teacher exchange and volunteer teaching in urban schools) for more than 3 years and have outstanding performance in the assessment and meet the specific evaluation criteria will be given priority in evaluation and employment under the same conditions. Seventh, the structural proportion among senior, intermediate, and primary posts of primary and secondary school teachers, as well as the structural proportion among senior, intermediate, and primary posts of each level within the new professional title grade system of primary and secondary school teachers, shall be implemented in accordance with the relevant provisions of the State on the post establishment and management of primary and secondary schools. Among them, the number of senior teachers is the national implementation of total control. In 2017, the Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Professional title System also proposed promoting the effective connection between the professional title system and the employment system. Employers should reasonably use professional and technical personnel according to the evaluation results of professional titles and realize the connection between the evaluation results of professional titles and the employment, assessment, and promotion systems of various professional and technical personnel. For public institutions that fully implement post management and the academic and technical level of professional and technical personnel are closely related to post responsibilities, professional title evaluation should generally be carried out within the proportion of post structure. For units that do not implement post management, as

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well as the series of professional titles and emerging professions with strong universality and wide distribution in various social organizations, evaluation, and employment can be separated. Adhering to the use-oriented, in-depth analysis of occupational attributes, the nature of the unit, and the characteristics of the post reasonably determine the link between evaluation and employment, evaluation with application, and promotion of evaluation. Improving the assessment system and strengthening post-employment management in the recruitment of personnel can be up and down. In general, the policy requires the employment of positions to complement the evaluation. On the one hand, the evaluation of professional titles should be carried out within the scope of the post setting to realize the full use of talent; on the other hand, after hiring, the assessment and evaluation should be strengthened to achieve the goal of promoting teacher development (Gao, 2016; Hu & Zhou, 2017; Ma, 2017; Ou, 2018; Zhang, 2018, 2020).

4.2.1 Some Problems Existing in the Appointment of Professional Title Based on the review and combing of the relevant policies of the professional title appointment system in China and the situation the authors have learned from the interviews with front-line teachers, some problems existing in the current professional title appointment system are discussed in this part.

4.2.2 Problems in Title Evaluation: Professional and Technical Titles Shall Be Evaluated for Administrative Positions On May 15, 2017, China Youth Daily published an article titled “Why are senior titles in rural primary schools always owned by principals”. On June 5, 2017, it published “Teachers’ professional title evaluation cannot be said by principals alone”. On August 21, 2017, it published “Professional title evaluation in primary and secondary schools: A bonus point for middle-level cadres is unreasonable to equal ten years of teaching experience”. The problems reflected in this series of articles are precisely the phenomenon that it is difficult for teachers to evaluate professional and technical titles when administrative leaders of primary and secondary schools participate in the evaluation. In the author’s interviews with front-line teachers, many teachers repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with this phenomenon. As the saying goes, not suffering from lack but suffering from inequality, administrative posts occupy the number of professional and technical title evaluation quotas, dampening the enthusiasm of teachers at the front line. In the interview, the author found the following reasons why administrative staff need to occupy the qualification and quota for the

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assessment of professional and technical titles of front-line teachers. On the one hand, many administrative leaders also stand out from front-line teachers and have front-line teaching experience. They also attach great importance to professional title evaluation. In the current policy, teachers in professional and technical positions are given preferential treatment in terms of salary, while those in administrative positions are not subsidized by this amount. As administrative staff from the front line, there is no reason to give up part of the allowance that can only be enjoyed as a teacher’s professional title. This also reflects that many schools allow teachers to hold multiple positions since their positions are more than their numbers, leading to the relocation of staff positions. On the other hand, as administrative staff have great advantages in professional title evaluation, which is reflected not only in a better understanding of the evaluation conditions, preferential treatment, and bonus points in the evaluation but also in interpersonal relations, they can meet the basic conditions required for professional title evaluation more quickly and conveniently by various means. Influenced by the traditional idea of official standards, as school administrators, they naturally need to obtain a higher level first to have the qualification of managing and coordinating subordinate teachers. From the perspective of administrative staff, administrative staff without teaching experience and professional titles cannot communicate well with teachers with more senior titles. Therefore, administrative personnel also urgently need the professional and technical titles of teachers to ensure their status and discourse power. From the perspective of two-factor theory, the qualification of professional title evaluation has become an important health factor, and primary and secondary school teachers will have strong dissatisfaction with the lack of qualification and quota of professional title evaluation. The reason is that the level of professional title will directly affect the salary of teachers. According to researchers in recent years, with the length of service in our country and different titles, the wage gap is increasingly large, with a difference of less than 500 yuan a month, more than the difference of nearly 2000 yuan a month. In Shanxi Province, as an example, the same title of teachers’ income, merit pay, the wages combined monthly income in different positions have differences, but from the point of general situation, the monthly income of second-level teachers is approximately 2,800 yuan, and that of first-level teachers is approximately 3,500 yuan. The monthly income of higher-level teachers can reach more than 3,700 yuan. Such a large income difference has seriously affected the enthusiasm of teachers and the morale of teachers with different professional titles. Being assigned the qualification of professional title evaluation by administrative system personnel means that personal salary income is hopeless to increase, so front-line teachers have great dissatisfaction with this phenomenon (Hu & Zhou, 2017; Ma, 2017; Ou, 2018; Zhang, 2018).

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4.2.3 Problems in the Setting of Professional Title: There Are Huge Differences in the Proportion of Professional Title Structure Primary and secondary school teachers implement the post-employment system, so the professional title evaluation results can only determine the qualification for employment, and the actual enjoyment of the corresponding remuneration of professional title depends on whether the teacher can be employed by the post with the same title. Although the reform of the professional title system of primary and secondary school teachers in China began to emphasize the combination of evaluation and employment and the evaluation of senior professional titles should be within the scope of the post, in fact, teachers are still in short supply of middle and senior posts. One of the very important factors is the large local differences in the proportion of professional title post structure. The above shows the structural proportion of senior, intermediate, and junior positions in senior high schools, junior high schools, and primary schools in 26 provinces and cities in China. As you can see, the differences between provinces are huge. For example, the proportion of senior professional titles in ordinary high schools in Tianjin, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang provinces can exceed 40%, while the proportion of senior professional titles in ordinary high schools in Fujian and other provinces remains at approximately 15% for the time being. In other words, a primary and secondary school teacher in Jiangsu and Zhejiang may be awarded a senior professional title more easily and earlier than teachers in other regions. The differences in the structure of professional titles among regions may be related to local financial revenue. Provinces with more advanced economic development can meet the salary required for senior professional titles, while provinces with relatively backward economic development have no power to support the salary of senior teachers. From this point of view, all provinces and cities still mainly regard teachers’ professional and technical titles as a tool to distinguish teachers’ salary and treatment and fail to reflect the traction effect of the professional title system on teachers’ continuous pursuit of progress and self-realization. From high-level titles, job setting structure difference phenomenon as big as you can see, the system of primary and secondary school teachers’ titles do not play a good role of the incentive factors, namely, the title does not become a measure of teachers’ intellectual equipment performance and contribution, to attract the teacher development of the perfect signal system, but the excessive health factors tend to influence teachers’ wages.

4.2.4 The Employment of the Problem: Post-employment Can Be Up or Down One of the most prominent problems in employment is whether the employment can be up or down; that is, once a teacher is employed, if he/she does not violate

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organizational discipline, is not punished, and does not commit crimes, he/she will always be employed on the post, which is not deeply related to the teaching quality and teaching performance of the teacher after employment. Leaving post and retirement are the major reasons for the teachers’ resignation, disposition, and so on. And in the primary and secondary schools do not have any spare jobs or less free post treatment, if teachers want to post to deliver the title promotion, they have to wait until the other teachers have to hire on-the-job, resignation, or retirement sanction. For teachers already employed, it is once and for all. As a result, the teachers who have been employed in the post suffer from serious job burnout. “Without merit, but without fault” is the true portrayal of this kind of teacher. Compared with the original post, the salary of the current post after realizing the senior title has been significantly improved, but the income growth brought by the further pursuit of higher-level development is no longer obvious, and the difficulty of further promotion is also higher. As a result, some employed teachers no longer seek to improve their own quality and teaching level. On the other hand, the teachers who fail to be employed try their best to get the opportunity of employment. They either focus entirely on job competition or give up job competition directly, which also has a serious negative impact on the development of teachers. At the same time, this also set off a seniority trend among these teachers, giving priority to nearby retired teachers to obtain job opportunities and guarantee their salary income and future pension, while young teachers must transfer opportunities to teachers with older qualifications. It also seriously hinders the initiative and enthusiasm of young teachers. From this point of view, the current professional title system of primary and secondary schools does not play a good role in stimulating, indicating that there are certain problems in the division of professional titles. To motivate teachers to make continuous progress, the professional title system itself needs to have certain continuity and initiative so that teachers can obtain intrinsic motivation to continue to improve themselves from the process of professional title evaluation. The actual situation is that there are great leaps and differences between different levels of professional titles, which cannot mobilize teachers’ internal motivation well.

4.3 Possible Countermeasures for the Reform of Professional Titles 4.3.1 The Professional Title Evaluation of Administrative and Teaching Posts Shall Be Clearly Distinguished In the future, the professional title evaluation process should clearly distinguish between administrative personnel and front-line teachers’ professional title evaluation paths. To achieve this goal, some supporting measures also need to be improved. First, we should pay attention to the construction of administrative and teacher teams and professionalize administrative and front-line teachers. Administrative staff

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should include both leaders from the front line of teachers and professional managers who have received special training related to teacher management. For the former, we should try our best to make them carry out professional title evaluation during the teaching period of front-line teachers. School leaders should pay attention to teachers who have the ambition and ability to develop into school leaders and administrators, provide them with relevant guidance and training according to the needs of their posts, and provide them with conditions and opportunities to participate in school administrative affairs management in advance. During the period, the teacher shall be required to meet the evaluation standards for professional and technical titles and compete with other teachers for evaluation. After they reach the corresponding professional title level, they will be given corresponding administrative posts, and they can be turned from part-time to full-time. Those who are engaged in administrative work full-time and may not have rich experience in front-line teaching should explain to other teachers how their duties and abilities adapt to them and require frontline teachers to cooperate with them in their work and meet the promotion needs of this group. Second, it should clarify the qualification conditions for administrative personnel and front-line teachers to participate in professional title evaluation to make them in a relatively equal position in the evaluation process. Many front-line teachers also worry about whether there is an obvious bias in the qualification of professional title as leadership and management. However, schools should try their best to keep a level playing field so as not to cause a psychological burden to teachers.

4.3.2 Re-examine the Core Purpose of the Professional Title System for Primary and Secondary School Teachers The professional title system of primary and secondary school teachers has a limited incentive effect on teachers but may cause dissatisfaction among teachers. Therefore, it is necessary to redefine the core purpose of the professional title system of primary and secondary school teachers. Some scholars point out that the two connotations of “level mark” and “title” of a professional title should be accurately defined. There are great differences between the two connotations in functions, evaluation criteria, and implementation subjects. As academic titles, the function of professional titles is to evaluate the level of professionals, the evaluation standard is the professional standard of each field, and the evaluation subject is the authoritative professionals in this field. The professional title, as a job name, is the institutional arrangement of the employer’s post management. Its evaluation standard is the individual’s ability to fulfill the post responsibilities and meet the post requirements, and the implementation subject is the employer. Because of the great difference between them, different understandings of the connotation of professional titles will lead to completely different system designs. In terms of functions, we need to evaluate the professional level of teachers and manage their professional and technical positions, both of which play an important role in the construction of teachers. Therefore, it is not necessary or desirable to make

References

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a unique, exclusive choice between the two attributes of the title. However, policy practice has proven that conferring two different connotations of professional title at the same time will bring confusion in cognition and practice. Therefore, the reform of teachers’ professional title system in our country, on the one hand, should continue to give full play to the two functions of teachers’ professional level evaluation and post management; on the other hand, it should be differentiated to avoid confusion in understanding and practice.

4.3.3 Establish a Scientific and Reasonable Salary System The current primary and secondary school teachers’ salary system and postemployment, and due to hire directly affecting the job salary and post allowance, occupy a large part of primary and secondary school teachers in total wages. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a more scientific and reasonable position salary system to ensure the salary income and social status of primary and secondary school teachers (Gao, 2016; Hu & Zhou, 2017; Ma, 2017; Ou, 2018; Zhang, 2018, 2020).

References Gao, H. (2016). Primary and secondary school teachers title reform of the system characteristics and present situation analysis. Journal of Teacher Education Research, 28(6), 25–31. Hu, L., & Zhou, H. (2017). The conflict and coordination of post rotation and employment contract for primary and secondary school teachers in China. Education science, 33(04), 43–48. Ma, X. (2017). Problems and countermeasures of professional title system for primary and secondary school teacher. Teaching and Management, 20(19), 8–10. Ou, L. (2018). Problems of internal control in shallow elementary and middle schools and suggestions for improvement. Taxation, 14(10), 138–139. Zhang, Y. (2018). Discussion on the fairness of post setting to study period in education system. Education Vision, 20(9), 8–9. Zhang, L. (2020). Analysis and countermeasures of internal control problems in primary and secondary schools. Accounting Learning, 20(13), 211–119.

Chapter 5

The Teachers’ Ethics Policy in China’s Education System

This chapter concentrates on teachers’ ethics policy in China’s education system. Against the background of the new era, China is paying more attention to the construction of teachers’ ethics in higher education. The country has introduced a series of important policies to strengthen the construction of teachers’ ethics in colleges and universities, establish high-quality teachers, and promote the development of national higher education. From the perspective of policy tools theory, this chapter will analyze the existing policy documents, determine the challenges and difficulties in the process of policy practice, and try to give corresponding solutions. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the party and the country have paid increasing attention to the construction of teachers’ ethics in colleges and universities. As the main body of moral education, college teachers undertake the important task of improving the quality of higher education, cultivating high-quality talent, and promoting social development. Teachers’ morality is the primary factor in constructing high-quality teachers. General Secretary Xi Jinping has made many speeches on this issue in colleges and universities and proposed that college teachers should strengthen the construction of teachers’ ethics, “combine teaching and cultivation with self-cultivation, and strive to establish themselves, learn and teach by virtue”. Under the guidance of the general secretary, colleges and universities should carry out in-depth construction of teachers’ ethics and conduct the evaluation of teachers’ ethics throughout the whole process of education and teaching.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Li and E. Xue, Teacher Development Policy in China, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1015-1_5

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5.1 Literature Review and Theoretical Tools 5.1.1 The Literature Review of Teachers’ Ethics In new period, our country issued a series of documents to strengthen the construction of teachers’ ethics by the Ministry of Education’s official website. According to the time to retrieve the file content and articles, the year 2012 has a total of 299 documents. Through the observation of annual number of post, 2013 and 2018 can be found as two important nodes. After the two years, relevant policies have witnessed an obvious growth, from only single digits of relevant documents every year to a dozen and then to more than 20. The main body of issuing documents has gradually transferred from the single department of the Ministry of Education to coordination with the Ministry of Finance, the Publicity Department, the National Development and Reform Commission, and other departments. Since the new era, China’s attention to the construction of teachers’ ethics has been increasing. Through the screening of these documents, a total of 29 valid samples were obtained, as shown in Appendix 1, except for higher education and parts with low relevance. The content of policy documents since the new era can be roughly summarized as the propaganda and guidance of the concepts related to teacher ethics, the construction of relevant systems such as evaluation and supervision, the establishment of organizational institutions such as expert think tanks of teacher ethics, and the training of teachers or the establishment of models for learning (Chen & Yang, 2010; Du, 2020; Han, 2021; Jin and Wang, 2016; Wang, 2021; Wei, 2021; Yang, 2020; Zheng & Xiao, 2019). As the country attaches increasing importance to the ethics of teachers, the number of studies on the construction of ethics of teachers in the new era also shows a rising trend, which can be divided into the following themes. The first is the definition of the construction content of the teacher’s ethics, including the analysis and research of the connotation of the teacher’s ethics and the discussion of the goal of the teacher’s ethics construction. The analysis of the connotation of teacher ethics can be summarized as teachers’ political stand and beliefs, professional attitudes toward teachers, teacher–student relationships, and social responsibility. Research on this topic has been relatively complete. Since the new era, General Secretary Xi Jinping has added new connotations for the ethics of teachers and put forward concepts such as “Mr. Big”, which not only enriches the connotation of the ethics of teachers but also points out the direction for the construction of ethics of teachers.

5.1.2 The Necessity and Importance of Ethics to Strengthen Construction The second is the necessity and importance of ethics strengthening construction. Necessity is reflected in the current new situation and higher education teacher ethics problems. The current study points out that teachers in colleges and universities in the

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aspect of ethics are influenced by unhealthy practices, and there are certain problems in ethics strengthening, such as the breeding of money worship, hedonism, egoism, and so on, leading to the existence of academic misconduct, academic corruption, lifestyle problems, and other phenomena. These problems have a negative influence on the moral education of contemporary colleges and universities, the construction of teachers’ teams, and the establishment of teachers’ images, so the construction of teachers’ ethics and style is of great significance. Research on the importance of the construction of teachers’ ethics points out that the construction of teachers’ ethics promotes the development of higher education and has great significance for the cultivation of high-quality talent. It is an important part of the work of moral cultivation and the primary standard for the construction of high-quality teachers.

5.1.3 Research on the Problems and Implementation Paths in the Process of Teacher Ethics Construction The last part is the research on the problems and implementation paths in the process of teacher ethics construction, which is a hot issue in the current research in this field. In view of this problem, scholars generally hold the following points. First, it is necessary to establish and improve the long-term mechanism of teachers’ ethics construction in colleges and universities, standardize the professional ethics and norms of teachers’ ethics, and clarify the punishment for violating teachers’ ethics. For example, as Chen Liang and Yang Juan mentioned in the article, it is necessary to provide guarantees for the construction of teachers’ ethics with clear rules and regulations to curb the occurrence of teachers’ moral anomy in colleges and universities. Secondly, ideological and political education should be carried out for college teachers, party members should play a leading role, and teachers should be guided by the socialist core values proposed by General Secretary Xi Jinping to establish a good concept of teacher ethics. For example, it is necessary to carry out more propaganda and education activities related to teachers’ ethics, set up models, and carry out the education work of teachers’ ethics for young teachers. To promote the construction of teacher ethics through curriculum ideology and politics, to improve the political quality and professional ethics of teachers in the new era. In addition, a sound supervision and assessment mechanism should be established. The system and mechanism should be improved. “A four-in-one closed responsibility system should be established to make the responsibility of teachers’ ethics construction specific, quantifiable and assessable”. Supervision and inspection of teachers’ ethics, in addition, clearer reward and punishment mechanisms can be set up to help teachers regulate their own behavior to promote and guarantee the effectiveness of teachers’ ethics construction work. On the basis of the above research, this paper innovatively introduces the theory of policy tools to analyze policy texts on the construction of teacher ethics in China’s higher education since the new era from the perspective of this theory, analyzes the challenges and problems in the process of policy implementation based

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on practical experience, and proposes corresponding policy suggestions. From many branches of policy tools theory, this paper selects the widely used division method of MacDonald and Elmer, according to the different goals of different policies into policy tools: command tool, advice tool, incentive tool, capacity building tool, and system change tool (Chen & Yang, 2010; Du, 2020; Han, 2021; Wang, 2021; Jin and Wang, 2016; Wei, 2021; Yang, 2020; Zheng & Xiao, 2019). Among them, the command tool refers to the government and other official power departments through legal rights to carry out a certain mandatory influence on the target group of policies. Advisory tools are those that influence policy target groups by means of propaganda, guidance, advocacy, etc. An incentive tool refers to the policy that the government encourages or prevents the policy object from realizing the policy goal by setting up a certain reward and punishment mechanism. Capacity-building tools refer to tools that improve the corresponding capabilities of policy objects by organizing training and learning and then guide them to achieve policy objectives. Finally, the system change tool refers to the tool type that changes the existing organizational structure to adapt to the current policy purpose. This paper will analyze the roles played by different policy tools in the policy of teacher ethics and try to find certain rules based on the content of the policy to analyze the characteristics of the current policy tools, the results achieved, and whether corresponding adjustments need to be made. If the policy is analyzed only from the policy tools, it cannot reflect the specific policy content effectively and comprehensively. Therefore, it is necessary to read and summarize the selected policy text deeply. Through the analysis of the selected samples, the teacher ethics construction policies since the new era can be roughly divided into the following four themes, namely, long-term mechanism construction, publicity and guidance, learning and training, and the establishment of relevant organizations. Combined with the content of policies, the characteristics and significance of the use of different policy tools are analyzed. Most of the policies to build the long-term mechanism of teachers’ morality and ethics are command-based tools, which are mandatory to a certain extent and are a way for the government to achieve policy goals through administrative plans or policies and regulations. These documents prohibit violations from students and parents’ gift, such as the regulation of behavior, “high school teachers’ professional ethics”, “the Ministry of Education of university teachers’ ethics anomie behavior to deal with the guidance of”, “new era college teachers’ occupational behavior ten principles” put forward the specific code of conduct and rewards and punishment regulations. It has become the standard and basis of various mechanisms in the process of teacher ethics construction and has been repeatedly cited in subsequent policies. The Ministry of Education of colleges and universities should establish and perfect the teacher’s ethics construction of the longterm mechanism of opinions, “about deepening the reform of college teachers’ evaluation system guidance”, “about strengthening and improving the strengthen construction of the moral standards of the new era of opinions”, “the reform of strengthening the construction of new era college teachers”, “guidance” and other documents on the direction to guide, put forward innovation ethics education. We should strengthen the publicity of teachers’ ethics, improve their assessment, strengthen their supervision, pay attention to teachers’ ethics incentives, and strictly punish teachers’ ethics.

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At the same time, this part of the policy also adopts the incentive tool, through the teacher’s ethics assessment and the teacher’s reward and punishment system being linked together, to encourage college teachers to establish a good teacher’s ethics and build a high level of teachers. For example, in “Several Opinions on Improving the Quality of Higher Education in an All-round way”, it is clearly proposed that “teachers’ moral evaluation system should be improved, and teachers’ moral performance should be taken as the primary content of teachers’ performance evaluation, employment, reward and punishment”. At the same time, it also puts forward the corresponding punishment mechanism for academic misconduct. The above two methods are the mainstream of the current ethics strengthen construction tools and key content and can be seen from the time. The policy published related system presents a trend of more and more perfect, more and more specific rules and regulations, and the departments to participate in policy formulation and implementation of the department are also more diversified. So it’s essential to start from these two kinds of policy tools to build long-acting mechanism of ethics strengthen construction. It is necessary to constantly improve the relevant systems and mechanisms, and form more standardized and reasonable institutional standards, so that policies are more grounded in the implementation process (Du, 2020; Jin and Wang, 2016; Yang, 2020). Most of the policies aimed at the propaganda and guidance of the construction of teachers’ ethics use persuasive tools. Relevant policies include the notices on celebrating Teachers’ Day issued by the Ministry of Education over the years, which emphasize the propaganda work of the construction of teachers’ ethics. In addition, there are policies to be guided by setting up typical models and promoting classic cases, such as “Notice on the in-depth study and publicity of national moral model activities in the education system” and “Notice on the announcement of excellent working cases of teachers’ moral construction”. The General Secretary of the Communist Party of China has publicly praised Huang Danian and other outstanding university teachers, encouraging teachers to learn from them and become exemplary teachers. Thoroughly study and apply General Secretary Xi “about education system at Peking University teachers and students seminar notice the important speech spirit” and “about education system in Tsinghua university to investigate the important speech spirit notice” which put forward higher requirements for the current university teachers and guide the combination of culture teaching and teacher to learn from the example of advanced teacher ethics, from being a “good teacher” to striving to be a “Mr. Big”. The leadership of the party to strengthen moral standards occupies the important position, “about strengthening and improving ideological and political work of young university teachers several opinions”, “about strengthening the construction of college teachers under the new situation party branch’s opinion”, such as policy emphasizes the ideological work for teachers’ ethics significance of strengthen guidance, also expounds the teacher’s ethics exemplary role of party members, and stressed party members should take the lead in promoting the construction of ethics. Proper guidance and propaganda in the education teaching process also has the very vital significance, compared with the above-mentioned command type tools, persuasion tool has longer influence. However, it can be seen from the richness

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and expression of the policy content that there are still deficiencies in the use of advisory tools, and more forms of publicity activities should be enriched. For example, some scholars have pointed out that since the new era, carrying out curriculum ideological and political thinking has stimulated the internal motivation of teachers’ ethics construction and enhanced the new understanding of the rules of ethics construction. Through this way of publicity, the effect of policy tools is expanded, and the role of publicity is strengthened to better achieve policy objectives. The learning and training of teachers’ ethics and organizational structure construction correspond to the tools of capacity building and system transformation, respectively. The proportion of these two tools or two aspects is relatively low, which is a relatively weak link in the current policy system of teacher ethics construction. The ability building tools mainly include the learning activities of teachers’ moral models learned in the Notice on Doing a good job in the 2012 National Model of Teaching and Education Publicity work and the Notice on carrying out teacher’s Moral Special Education in the Education System. Although the frequency of use is low, the ability building tool can help teachers form the habit of self-discipline and improve their own understanding and standards of teachers’ ethics under the condition of excluding all kinds of rules and regulations. It plays an irreplaceable role. Transformational tools and systems are embodied in “the notice about establishment of the national ethics strengthen construction of the expert committee”, “the notice on the Ministry of Education ethics strengthen construction base list”, and “about establishing and perfecting the university teacher’s ethics construction’s opinions on long-term mechanism” such as the establishment of the policy mentioned in the ethics of strengthen experts think tank, the construction of ethics strengthen base. The establishment of professional organizations can better carry out research, consultation, guidance, and service on the issues related to the construction of professional ethics. It provides organizational guarantees for the construction of teachers’ morality and style (Chen & Yang, 2010; Du, 2020; Han, 2021; Jin and Wang, 2016; Wang, 2021; Wei, 2021; Yang, 2020; Zheng & Xiao, 2019).

5.2 Challenges and Problems 5.2.1 In Terms of the Proportion of Policy Tools Used, Command Tools and Incentive Tools Occupy an Absolute Advantage, Which Means that they Undertake the Most Important Work in the Construction of Teachers’ Ethics In recent years, various evaluation mechanism standards related to teacher ethics have been gradually established and gradually improved, which not only positively

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encourage teachers to improve teacher ethics cultivation but also stipulate the punishment system for teacher ethics misconduct, but there are still some shortcomings to be improved. The current criteria of assessment for teachers in colleges and universities still exist the problem of materialization, for teachers’ evaluation, there are “paper, hat, awards, support, education” of the “five only” problem, despite official policy has repeatedly stressed the teacher’s ethics should be as the first standard of evaluation, but there are still difficulties in the process of execution. The reason why there is such a problem is that, first of all, the rapid growth of teachers in ordinary colleges and universities in China, the number of teachers in colleges and universities is increasing, and the ensuing pressure is getting bigger and bigger, and the paper, hat, and other specific quantifiable indicators have become the main basis for the competition between teachers. In addition, the competition between colleges and universities is also an important factor. In order to accelerate the development of the academic field, the school does not pay enough attention to the construction of teachers’ ethics, and it may even cover up the behavior of some teachers with high academic levels to ensure that they are teachers. In addition, the most direct reason, the problem of ethics is in a moral level, which means it’s more difficult for the precise calculation and evaluation, even if there are such documents similar to the Ministry of Education of university teachers’ ethics anomie behavior treatment guidelines, the 10 new era college teachers’ occupational behavior guidelines as processing basis, but unless in serious consequences, it is hard to testify and evaluation, this also leads to the evaluation and treatment of teachers’ ethics easy to become superficial and formalistic. Not only the evaluation mechanism but also the supervision mechanism of teachers’ ethics has not played a role. The perfunctory supervision and evaluation make the construction mechanism of teachers’ ethics fail to achieve the due effect in the implementation process. The key point to solve this problem is to let colleges and universities eliminate the overly utilitarian evaluation atmosphere, pay more attention to the investigation of teachers’ ethics, and establish a more feasible evaluation and supervision mechanism.

5.2.2 Persuasion Tools Occupy Second Place and Adopt a Variety of Forms of Publicity and Guidance, Which Plays an Irreplaceable Role in Promoting the Construction of Teacher Ethics However, currently, there are some problems in the use of persuasion tools, some of which pay too much attention to the form but not the content. In the process of publicity and guidance of teacher ethics construction in colleges and universities, the main means of publicity is still relying on traditional lectures, reports, and other ways to learn relevant theoretical knowledge or moral examples. Although this form can play a certain role, teachers’ participation and subjective initiative are not high.

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The lack of interactive links makes the campaign less participatory and less effective. Thus, these publicity activities become a mere formality and do not truly play the role of publicity. College teachers participate in this series of activities, aiming to complete the task rather than to improve their own moral standards. As a policy tool whose use rate is second only to that of ordered tools, it is a waste of time and economic cost to invest in it when its effect is not as expected. At present, the difficulty of persuasion policy lies in how to enrich the form and content of propaganda and guidance activities, increase the interest, participation and effectiveness of activities, give play to subjective initiative, and then increase the participation willingness and investment degree of university teachers. In addition, whether the Party can play a leading role in the field of teacher ethics education, it is also the focus of propaganda and guidance. The establishment of party organizations in colleges and universities and the promotion of the ideological and political propaganda of the young teachers mentioned above are of great significance to the construction of teacher ethics and teacher ethics (Du, 2020; Jin and Wang, 2016; Yang, 2020). Finally, the proportion of constructive tools and system transformational tools is too low, the use of policy tools has serious imbalance problems, and the current strengthening of the moral standards of young teachers in their own specification issue has some weaknesses. The lack of the function of these two types of policy instruments may be encountered in the process of teachers’ ethics strengthening construction difficulties. At present, the moral misconduct of college teachers in China is still a serious social problem that deserves attention and reflection. Young teachers are troubled by the influence of a bad social atmosphere, money worship, individualism, and other thoughts that violate the current standards of teachers’ ethics in China. For example, in December 2021, teachers of Shanghai Aurora Vocational College made inappropriate remarks on the Nanjing Massacre, and in recent years, academic misconduct of college teachers, buying and selling papers, and other phenomena can be attributed to the fact that teachers themselves are not strictly binding on their own ethics and do not have the willingness and desire to actively improve their own ethics. Too few competence-building tools, or as mentioned above, the forms are not diverse enough and the contents are not rich enough, which are the common problems faced by the construction of teachers’ ethics in colleges and universities at the current stage. The key and difficult point of this problem is whether the institutions and organizations established by the system reform tools can truly play a role. Only by combining these two policy tools, which are seldom used at present, and enabling these specialized institutions and organizations to play a role in providing enough and effective learning content for college teachers can young teachers’ understanding of teacher ethics be enhanced and the efficiency of teacher ethics construction be enhanced at the same time (Chen & Yang, 2010; Du, 2020; Han, 2021; Jin and Wang, 2016; Wang, 2021; Yang, 2020).

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5.3 Coping Strategies and Prospects 5.3.1 Form a More Comprehensive Teacher Evaluation System The new evaluation system should eliminate the “five only” disease and the disadvantage of over-quantifying teachers’ work performance. In the “Overall Plan for Deepening the Education Evaluation Reform in the New Era”, it is also mentioned that the results-based evaluation should be gradually transformed into process evaluation and comprehensive evaluation, and a more targeted and developmental evaluation standard should be established. Compared with the “five principles”, General Secretary Xi’s criteria of “four good teachers”, namely, “having ideals and beliefs, moral sentiments, solid knowledge and benevolence”, are more suitable for the current educational evaluation system for teachers in the new era. It eliminated the disadvantages of excessive utilitarianism and allowed teachers to return to their original intention of teaching and educating people. In the teachers’ evaluation system, strengthening moral standards must always give top priority, not only in the policy document, more in the concrete implementation process, and establishing clear assessment standards, teachers should have what kind of character but also should be aware of that the evaluation center of the teachers’ group from the one-sided pursuit of scientific research has shifted to the strengthening of moral standards to promote the cultivation of teachers’ moral character and their attention to teaching and educating. At the same time, it is necessary to clarify the punishment standards for all kinds of teachers’ moral misconduct, adopt a veto system, and resolutely put an end to the school’s behavior of protecting teachers’ moral misconduct in pursuit of scientific research.

5.3.2 To Promote the Cultivation of Teachers’ Moral Character and Their Attention to Teaching and Educating Through the change of the focus of the evaluation system, to change the concept of college teachers, focus on teaching and educating people, teachers’ ethics will be fundamentally improved. Secondly, it is necessary to establish a better supervision system. Due to the lack of supervision and management, colleges and universities will not punish some teachers’ moral misconduct enough, and some publicity or learning activities will become formalism. Therefore, improving the supervision system is an indispensable step in the construction of a long-term mechanism of teachers’ ethics. The key to solve this problem is to build a more diversified supervision system of teachers’ ethics and let more subjects participate in the supervision activities. Some scholars pointed out that it is necessary to build a “teacher ethics supervision system involving universities, teachers, students, parents, media and other subjects”. We

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should give full play to the characteristics of different subjects and conduct all-round supervision on the ethics of college teachers from different angles. Full play should be given to the authority of colleges and universities in the supervision process through the formulation of a targeted supervision system, the establishment of sound supervision organizations, and the implementation of supervision work to carry out regular supervision of the ethics of teachers in the university. Next, we want to play a unique role in the process of good students in the teacher’s ethics supervision. As one of the groups most closely contacting the teacher, the students’ evaluation has important reference significance for teachers. To improve the students’ evaluation of the teaching system and guarantee the students’ voice channels, it’s necessary to pay attention to students’ feedback of classroom teachers to strengthen teachers’ professional morality of the situation and the students should take the initiative to reference for teachers’ ethics. However, at the same time, we should also consider the possible subjectivity of students’ evaluation, so we should dialectically take the results of students’ evaluation of teaching as a reference for the evaluation of teachers’ ethics. Finally, to attach importance to the media and other social organizations to strengthen the moral standards of college teachers in problem situations, the supervision of the media means that the public can participate in the university teachers strengthening supervision work, and to listen to the opinions of the masses for ethics, it is very important to strengthen construction to guarantee the public channels of the supervision of teachers in colleges and universities. For example, through the official website or the media account of the school, I actively accept reasonable criticism from society and correct my shortcomings. Of course, we should also pay attention to the negative guidance of some media for public opinion to gain traffic, grasp the trend of public opinion, and ensure the orderly implementation of the supervision mechanism (Chen & Yang, 2010; Du, 2020; Han, 2021; Jin and Wang, 2016; Wang, 2021; Wei, 2021; Yang, 2020; Zheng & Xiao, 2019).

References Chen, L., & Yang, J. (2010). Logical framework and promotion strategy of moral education for college teachers in the new era. College Education Management, 15(04), 13–25. Du, B. (2020). Logic, framework and path—How to take teachers’ ethics as the first standard of teachers’ evaluation in colleges and universities. Contemporary Teacher Education, 14(03), 56–61. Han, X. (2021). The internal logic and realistic path of promoting the construction of teachers’ ethics with curriculum ideology and politics. Ideological and Theoretical Education Guide, 20(07), 123–127. Jin, & Wang, D. (2016). Problems and solutions of teachers’ ethics system construction in colleges and universities. Ideological and Theoretical Education Guide, 2016(03), 143–146. Wang, X. (2021). From “Good Teacher” to “Big Sir”: The basic path of construction of teachers’ ethics in colleges and universities. China Higher Education Research, 20(09), 31–37. Wei, J. (2021). Key tasks and difficulties in the construction of teachers’ ethics in universities. China Higher Education Research, 20(09), 38–44.

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Yang, S. (2020). Adhering to the “Four Unification” grasps the important grasp and enhances the effectiveness of the construction of teachers’ ethics in colleges and universities. Ideological Education Research, 20(01), 130–134. Zheng, X., & Xiao, J. (2019). The era value and practice path of teachers’ ethics construction in colleges and universities under the new situation. Ideological and Theoretical Education Guide, 20(08), 147–151.

Chapter 6

The “County Management and School Recruitment” Policy in Teacher Management in China

This chapter investigates the “County management and school recruitment” policy in teacher management in China. The development goal of compulsory education in China has changed from basic balance to high-quality balance, and teachers play a key role in realizing this goal. In October 2020, “the review of the fifth plenary session of the party’s 19th Congress about the national economy and social development of 14 five-year plan and 2035 vision”, the resolution clearly stressed that “difference” education career should adhere to the principle of education public welfare, deepen education reform, promote education fair, and promote balanced development of compulsory education and the integration of urban and rural areas. Teachers play a key role in the fair and high-quality development of basic education and play a decisive role in the quality of compulsory education in urban and rural areas. However, under the macro background of China’s urban-rural dual economic structure, there are obvious differences in the distribution of teacher resources between urban and rural areas. The long-term one-way flow leads to a serious imbalance between urban and rural teachers, and the number of teachers in the region is difficult to guarantee. At the same time, there are some problems in the allocation of teachers in compulsory education in China, such as the inter-school barriers of teacher resources in cities and towns, the loss of rural teachers, and the structural imbalance of rural teachers. How to ensure the adequate number and reasonable structure of compulsory education teachers and ensure the balanced allocation of urban and rural teachers has become the core policy issue of education administrative departments at all levels, and the traditional teacher management system needs to be reformed. In this context, “county management school recruitment” has become one of the important means to promote the balanced allocation of teachers by educational administrative departments at all levels. China’s scholars have deeply studied the “county administrator school recruitment” policy from many aspects.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Li and E. Xue, Teacher Development Policy in China, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1015-1_6

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6.1 Literature Review and Theoretical Tools 6.1.1 Overview of Teacher Management Policy Development In 1949, when New China was founded, China’s educational development model was greatly influenced by the Soviet Union, and the recruitment, name, and deployment of primary and secondary school teachers were still dominated by planning and administrative means. The teacher management mode of the appointment system adapted to the environment of the planned economy system at that time, in line with the political, economic, and cultural background at that time, and played a positive role in the development of China’s education to a certain extent. After the reform and opening up, the Third Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee adopted the Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Economic Restructuring, stressing the important role of the market and developing the commodity economy in a planned way on the basis of public ownership. Since then, China has changed from a planned economy system to a market economy system, which has fundamentally changed the institutional environment of teacher management. The original teacher management system cannot adapt to the social and economic system of the new era, and teacher management reform is imperative. In 1985, the central government issued a “decision on reform of the education system”, pointing out that “schools the conditions allow should gradually practice the President responsibility system hosted by the headmaster’s authoritative administrative committee, as the review mechanism”. The government will devolve education management, give the school more management space and reform the education system from the perspective of the education system. The Outline of China’s Educational Reform and Development, promulgated in 1932, clearly stipulates that “the principal responsibility system shall be exercised in schools at and below the secondary level”, forming a management system in which primary and secondary school principals have autonomy in running schools. Principals have greater autonomy in running schools, the efficiency of running schools is also improved, and the management of people, materials, and finance is more scientific. The faculty and staff appointment system has also begun to be gradually implemented. The selection of talent and a reasonable combination of personnel have optimized the quality and structure of the faculty, and the mechanism of stabilizing and optimizing the faculty is taking shape. The Compulsory Education Law of 2006 clearly stipulates that “school principals assume responsibility for schools”, which has formed the characteristics of the “school management” system in which schools manage independently and rent schools. With schools as the unit, teachers are directly assigned to schools, and different schools in the region have great differences in various treatments, gradually forming the concept of “unit person” (Cao & Lu, 2018; Fang & Xie, 2016; Li, 2019; Li et al., 2019). In 2011, the Ministry of Education established a teacher admission and management system of “national standard, provincial examination, county employment and school employment”, which further improved the connotation of the teacher management system. The “Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Some Major Issues

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concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reform” issued in 2013 clearly stated that “we should coordinate the balanced allocation of urban and rural compulsory education resources, implement standardized construction of public schools and exchange and rotation of principals and teachers”. To solve the problem in the process of actual execution of the “protectionism” school, more than 2014 departments jointly issued by the “about promoting the county (district) within the domain of communicating with teachers in compulsory education school principal rotational opinions, advice, points out that” comprehensively promote compulsory education teachers’ county tube school hired management reform”, strengthen the county (district) within the domain of compulsory education teachers as a whole management, break the management system barriers of teacher exchange and rotation. In 2020, the Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and The State Council on Doing a Good job in key Areas of agriculture, Rural Areas and Farmers to Ensure the realization of a moderately prosperous Society in all Respects as scheduled further emphasized that the construction of rural teachers should be strengthened, the “county management and school employment” of teachers in compulsory education should be fully implemented, and teachers from county schools should be arranged to volunteer teaching in rural areas. The school signs employment contracts with teachers in accordance with the law, which is responsible for the use and daily management of teachers, and gradually realizes the transformation of teachers from “school personnel” to “system personnel”.

6.1.2 Review of Policy Research on “County Administrator School Recruitment” First, from the perspective of the rationality of the policy, the publicity of educational services should be the core connotation of the policy. Publicity is the value measure for the government to practice the public service of education. It focuses on the specific educational value reflected by the government in the setting of relevant policies. It can be said that education equity is the core of education public service equalization policy. Therefore, they suggest that various measures should be taken to cultivate teachers’ public spirit and systematically implement teachers’ management strategies. Secondly, from the perspective of the effectiveness of the policy, there is a gap between the policy and the expected effect. The belonging performance of cross-school exchange teachers employed by county schools was poor, which was manifested as low school identity, indifferent interpersonal relationships, a weak sense of responsibility, and a lack of dedication. Finally, from the perspective of policy development, there is room for improvement in many aspects of the “county administrator school recruitment” policy. There are some problems in the implementation of the current teacher turnover policy, such as the difficulty in coordination among various administrative departments, the small power of the “school” and the large responsibility, and the teachers’ reluctance to participate in

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the exchange. They suggested corresponding adjustments in the implementation of the reform, including improving the financial and administrative powers of education departments and strengthening the pivotal functions of schools. The “county management school employment” policy has many difficulties in implementation, such as the flow of teachers’ understanding of policy does not reach the designated position, administrative coordination is difficult, loss of a complete set of safeguard mechanisms, and teachers’ sense of belonging is low, so it’s essential to establish the supervision mechanisms, the linkage mechanism and improve the supporting guarantee mechanism to ensure the effective implementation of the “county management school employment” policy (Cao & Lu, 2018; Fang & Xie, 2016; Li, 2019; Li et al., 2019).

6.2 Policy Text and Implementation Data 6.2.1 Review of the National Policy of “Hiring County Administrators and Schools” For a long time, the management of primary and secondary school teachers in China has been implemented by the mode of “school management and school employment”. In this mode, teachers from School A will exchange with school B, but their staffing and personnel relations remain unchanged. They still belong to School A and will return to school A after the exchange. A school has an absolute right of use and management over teachers. Teachers are usually considered to be people from school A, which is called “school people” or “unit people”. In this mode, teachers’ exchange is “the relationship between people”, and regardless of whether teachers are voluntary or forced to participate in the flow, it is difficult to eliminate the shackles of school departmentalism to some extent or even be influenced by the school. Therefore, the communication flow of teachers under the mode of “school management and school use” is not smooth enough, and it is difficult to achieve the goal and expectation of promoting education balance within the county through communication. “County management and school recruitment” is an innovative mechanism of compulsory education teacher management. Its essence is that the education administrative department at the county level manages the teacher staffing and personnel uniformly within the county to realize the balanced allocation of teachers between urban and rural areas and between schools. In 2014, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security issued the Opinions on Promoting the Exchange and Rotation of Principals and Teachers of Compulsory Education Schools within Counties (districts), proposing to comprehensively promote the “county management and employment” management reform of compulsory education teachers to realize the exchange and rotation of teachers. The Support Plan for Rural Teachers (2015–2020) issued by The State Council in 2015 once again emphasized the importance of comprehensively promoting the reform of

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the management system of “county management and school recruitment”. In 2016, the State Council issued several Opinions on Promoting the Integrated Reform and Development of Urban and Rural Compulsory Education at the county level, which clearly required comprehensively promoting the reform of ‘county management and school recruitment’ for teachers, improving the teacher recruitment mechanism and coordinating the allocation of teacher resources in accordance with the professional characteristics and job requirements of teachers (Cao & Lu, 2018; Fang & Xie, 2016; Li, 2019; Li et al., 2019).

6.2.2 Pilot Reform of “County Management and School Recruitment” With the support of the central policy documents, the Ministry of Education established 49 demonstration areas for management reform in 2015 and 2017 in accordance with the ideas of pilot first, demonstration leading, point leading, and steady progress. The management reform of “county management and school recruitment” officially entered the pilot stage, and the reform focused on changing the rigid teacher management system. In the past few years, the reform demonstration areas have accumulated rich management reform practices of “county management and school recruitment”. In 2015, the list of the first batch of demonstration zones for the reform of county management and school recruitment was released, covering 19 districts (counties), including first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, populous provinces such as Sichuan and Shandong, and small counties such as Minhou county of Fuzhou city in Fujian province and Luzhai County of Liuzhou city in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It is worth noting that the 19 reform demonstration areas announced this time had already carried out exploration and practice of “county management and school employment” or similar management modes before the state issued the Opinions. Beijing chose Dongcheng District as a demonstration area for the reform of county management and school recruitment. The reform mode of Dongcheng District is not a typical “county management school recruitment” mode, and the teacher flow only occurs in the “school district” rather than the whole flow in Dongcheng District. The model adopts 8 approaches, and cadres (organs and grass-roots cadres) and teachers (including the subject backbone, nine-year system, high-quality resources with teachers) have made clear provisions, emphasizing that schoolteachers and principals should be mobile. Through cadres serving in different schools and teachers teaching in different schools, the integration of cadres and teachers in urban and rural exchanges and rotation can be promoted to realize the sharing of talent resources in the county. Shandong Province has two first national reform demonstration areas, namely Qingdao and Weifang city. In addition to the two cities to carry out the national pilot, the provincial Department of Education required no less than 1–2 districts and counties in each city to carry out the provincial pilot in 2015 and strive to fully roll out the “county management school

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recruitment” reform pilot in 2017. At the same time, Shandong Province stressed that when assigning professional and technical posts, especially those with middle and senior titles, rural areas and weak schools should be given preferential treatment, and greater support and assistance should be given to these schools. Sichuan Province is one of the provinces that carried out the exploration of teacher exchange and rotation earlier in China. In 2015, the second year after the State issued the Opinions on The Exchange and Rotation of Compulsory Education teachers, the Provincial Department of Education, together with relevant departments and bureaus, issued the Supporting Implementation Opinions of Sichuan (Sichuan Education [2015] No. 103). The “implementation opinions” clearly put forward, “comprehensively carry out the compulsory education teacher team” county management and school recruitment management reform, break through institutional barriers, improve incentives and guarantee measures, establish and improve the principals and teachers regular exchange rotation system. According to the Implementation Opinions, teachers and principals who have been teaching (serving) in the same school for more than 9 consecutive years (3 terms, each term of 3 years) shall be exchanged in rotation. The duration of exchange rotation should be no less than 3 years for teachers and no less than one term for principals. The proportion of teachers from urban (high-quality) schools to rural (weak) schools should be no less than 10% of the total number of teachers to be exchanged and no less than 20% of the total number of teachers to be exchanged. In May 2017, the Ministry of Education in 2015 in the first 19 districts and counties on the basis of the pilot experience, again in the country’s 30 districts and counties, set up “county management school recruitment” reform demonstration areas, including Shanghai’s Minhang District, Shengzhou City of Zhejiang Province and Shandong Province zibo city, and other places. As the first city and county in Zhejiang Province to pilot the “appointment of county administrators”, Shengzhou began to explore the practice of “appointment of county administrators” for primary and secondary school teachers in 2015. Through the three stages of “preparation, implementation, adjustment”, four mechanism of “innovation for approval, post management, school, teacher evaluation of choose and employ persons, and five steps of” the government attaches great importance to and actively build atmosphere, rigorous scientific plan, organize and implement, strengthen humanistic care. The pilot project has basically achieved the goal since it has been implemented for 2 years from 2017. More than 5,000 primary and secondary school staff participated in the competition for employment. In the first round of internal competition, 93 staff were dismissed, among which 50 competed for employment across school districts, 41 were transferred, 2 were waiting for employment, and 11 were dismissed and transferred. It has realized 136 post exchanges between urban and rural areas, 118 oversubscribed schools have been successfully reduced, the contradiction of teacher resource allocation has been alleviated, the problem of structural oversubscribed teachers has been solved to a certain extent, promoted the benign flow of primary and secondary school teachers, and provided the “Shengzhou model” experience for Zhejiang Province to comprehensively roll out the reform pilot of “county management and school recruitment”. All districts (counties) of Zibo City, Shandong

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Province, have set up education talent service centers in the education Bureau to take charge of the management and service of primary and secondary school teachers in the county. In carrying out the “county school employment” policy, taking the way of gradual transition, reform of industries is usually adopted “the old man old way new methods, new”, first of all for the new open recruitment into the teacher implements the “county”, that is clear in the open recruitment notice, by the district (county) education talent service center, unified management, and then gradually all compulsory education teachers in the county to implement the “county management school appointment” (Cao & Lu, 2018; Fang & Xie, 2016; Li, 2019; Li et al., 2019).

6.2.3 The Overall Situation of the Adoption of the Policy of “Hiring County Administrators and Schools” in Each City By the end of 2019, 23 provinces across the country had clarified the implementation path of the management reform of “county management and school recruitment”, which has been fully spread at the provincial level. From 2014 to 2019, the diffusion of “county management and school recruitment” management reform among cities conforms to a typical “S” curve. The adoption frequency of the management reform of “county management and school recruitment” reached its highest value in 2016. As of December 2019, a total of 201 cities in China have adopted the reform, with a cumulative adoption rate of 71%, reaching a high level of diffusion.

6.3 The Effect and Problems of the “County Management School Recruitment” Policy 6.3.1 Achievements Achieved in Practice of “County Management and School Recruitment” Policy On the one hand, “county management school recruitment” improves the professional level of teachers to create a greater platform and opportunities. Under this policy, teachers no longer have the possibility of “teaching in one school for life” because of regular job rotation. Exchange teachers regularly exchange posts in different schools, often in a complex and changeable teaching environment, facing different teaching problems, and may encounter students from different backgrounds, qualities, and characteristics. As a result, exchange teachers have to make great efforts in summing up experience and lessons, enriching teaching forms and improving coping ability, accumulating teaching experience, updating teaching ideas, and improving professional level. On the other hand, under the policy of “county management school

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recruitment”, the exchange teachers bring new teaching ideas and methods to the exchange schools and improve the overall teaching level in the whole region. At the same time, the inflow of exchange teachers injected fresh blood into the exchange and enhanced the creativity and vitality of the school organization. For example, the inflow of high-quality backbone teachers has brought advanced teaching concepts and rich management experience, which has greatly improved the teaching and management level of rural schools. Teachers from rural (weak) schools who enter urban (high-quality) schools can learn advanced teaching ideas and educational concepts on the new school platform and acquire a wider range of teaching knowledge, thus promoting the improvement of teaching level. Therefore, the exchange of teachers is very conducive to different schools learning from each other and jointly promotes the improvement of the school-running level. Before the implementation of “recruitment of county administrators and schools”, various forms of exchanges have been adopted to promote teacher rotation, but the results are not ideal, and the key to the problem lies in the inability to effectively solve the contradiction between teacher staffing and post. As a result, some schools have a surplus of subject teachers, some schools lack subject teachers, there are some schools “overteachers”, and some schools “lack of overteachers” problems have been very difficult to solve (Cao & Lu, 2018; Fang & Xie, 2016; Li, 2019; Li et al., 2019). Under the “county management school employment” policy, the teacher relationship no longer belongs to a particular school but belongs to the whole education department. According to the total number of primary and secondary school students in the county, the department of county establishment and human resources and social security should determine the total number of positions of compulsory education teachers in the county. Under the guidance of the idea of educational balance, the education department verifies the number of teachers in each primary and secondary school. According to the actual situation, the teachers in each school are allocated scientifically and rationally, and then the schools hire teachers according to their needs. Teachers of “make people with” and “work with”, and the relatively fixed preparation of personnel, realize the teacher resources in the county “chess”, activate resources for the whole of the compulsory education teachers, widen the teachers exchange flow channels, and solve the contradiction between teacher preparation and communication job problems on the basis of system. Teacher establishment is a kind of enterprise establishment in our country. Before the “county management school recruitment” policy, teachers and schools signed employment contracts, but tend to be formalistic, and cannot act as a real constraint on teachers. In this system, a small number of teachers lack enthusiasm for teaching, showing a state of “overstaffing”, lack of responsibility and professional spirit. The pilot reform of “county management school employment” has broken the “life tenure system” and “iron post” of teachers and society, which has had a great impact on teachers. Teachers have a sense of crisis of “small is losing face” and “big is losing rice bowl”; the work of passive to active, effectively stimulating the enthusiasm of teachers and endogenous power, can be said to be a training, transformation, and sublimation of teachers. Under the long-term “school management” mode, teachers in compulsory education have a strong sense of dependence and belonging to the school because

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there is little communication flow. As a result, it is difficult for schools to establish a real contractual management relationship with teachers without effective means to manage teachers. After the implementation of “county management and school employment”, the staffing and posts were transferred to “county management” and the identity of “system person”, which reduced the dependence of teachers on the school to a certain extent. Through the establishment of an exit mechanism, the concepts of the “life tenure system” and “iron rice bowl” of teachers were broken, and the shackles of the school on teacher management were liberated to a certain extent (Cao & Lu, 2018; Fang & Xie, 2016; Li, 2019; Li et al., 2019).

6.3.2 Problems Faced by the Policy of “Hiring County Administrators and Schools” in Practice As far as schools are concerned, under the current situation, it is the trend of education management system reform to grant schools more rights to run schools independently, while “county management school employment” endows counties and schools with their respective rights, which will affect schools’ right to run schools independently to a certain extent. After the establishment of teachers is separated from the school, some teachers may slack off after completing teaching tasks, their enthusiasm to participate in school activities is greatly reduced, and they are perfunctory or even ignore the arrangement of the school, which will not only reduce the school’s management authority on teachers but also affect the school’s daily work order. For teachers, the reform of “county management and school employment” has put an end to the era of “iron rice bowl” for teachers. However, the changes in working partners and the environment brought by teacher turnover will also affect the construction of teacher teams and teacher professional development to a certain extent. The policy aims to deepen the reform of the teacher management system, optimize the allocation of teacher resources, promote the balanced development of education, and promote educational equity. However, as the implementation object and stakeholders of the policy, the recognition degree of schools and teachers for the policy has not caught up with the overall progress of the policy. Compared with the macro goal of balanced development of compulsory education, schools and teachers focus more on their own development. Compared with weak schools in remote or rural areas, teachers want to grow and develop on a high-quality platform. As for schools, because of the great influence of backbone teachers on the construction of teachers and the development of schools, they are afraid that the flow of teachers will reduce the quality of teaching and affect the reputation of schools, so they are not willing to communicate with them. Therefore, in the process of policy implementation, schools and teachers in the pursuit of personal interests affect the recognition of policy, the understanding of “county management school employment” is not profound, the rate of participation is not high, for teachers’ communication system did not have enough sense of responsibility, and ability to solve problems and experience is

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insufficient, simply obey this kind of system arrangement. The policy goal of “county management and school recruitment” is based on meeting the educational needs of the public, but the needs of teachers at different levels in life and work should also be considered. For teachers, it is easy to accept the flow from the low level to the high level, from the rural to the city, and from the weak school to the high-quality school. If it is the reverse flow, it will increase the psychological and ideological burden of teachers, which will affect their enthusiasm to move to a great extent. Although the state has emphasized in several policy documents that “the implementation of the education system in townships and local governments can give corresponding subsidies according to the actual situation”, the incentive guarantee mechanism for teachers has not yet made corresponding specific provisions, and the demand of teachers cannot be guaranteed. In addition, teachers’ willingness to communicate is influenced by various life and work factors, such as the distance between school and home, the education of children and the care of elderly individuals, income and professional development. These factors are particularly critical for female teachers, and the difficulties caused by mobility can be imagined. First, special documents were issued to improve relevant laws and regulations. The state shall issue special policy documents to put forward general objectives and requirements, standardize the specific contents of policies, clarify the division of responsibilities of various departments, and stipulate detailed rules for teacher staffing management, post management, employment management, exchange and rotation systems and exit mechanisms so that local governments can have evidence and rules to follow when formulating policies. In addition, legislation should be adopted to provide a legal basis for the formulation and implementation of the policy of “county management school recruitment”. The government should carry out overall planning from the macro point of view, make provisions on the relevant content in the Education Law and Teachers Law, clarify the implementation principles and ideas of the policy, and give full play to its guiding role. Second, the leading role of local governments is clearly defined. In the process of promoting the balanced development of regional compulsory education, local government departments play a vital role and influence the development direction of local education, so it is necessary to clarify the leading responsibility of local government. After the promulgation of relevant laws and policies on “county school recruitment”, local governments should take this as the basis and reference standards and make overall coordination and arrangements according to the specific conditions of local schools and teachers so as to form a teacher management system that not only conforms to national document standards but also adapts to local conditions. Under normal circumstances, it is far from enough to achieve fairness only by market allocation and social forces. The policy of “county management and school recruitment” for compulsory education teachers is related to the interests of schools, teachers, students and parents, and other groups. As the main body of policy implementation, the government has obvious advantages in planning mutually satisfying visions. At the same time, the reform will also readjust the rights and responsibilities of various departments. It is difficult for the education administrative department to coordinate the work with

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other departments at the same level, and the role of the higher education administrative department is also very limited, which requires the government to play a leading role. In compulsory education local responsibility, the county-based management system, in addition to the need to pay attention to the provincial and municipal level when formulating policies, should grasp the “degree”, macro principal guidance, and norms to avoid provisions that are too detailed and practical; otherwise, it will overreach the long-term, compressing the adjustment space of the county plan (Cao & Lu, 2018; Fang & Xie, 2016; Li, 2019; Li et al., 2019).

References Cao, T., & Lu, N. (2018). The management of rotating teachers under the mode of “County Management School Recruitment.” Education Research, 39(02), 58–63. Fang, Z., & Xie, C. (2016). Implementation dilemma and improvement of the teacher turnover policy of “County School Management Recruitment”. Educational Development Research, 36(08), 72– 76. Li, M. (2019). Research and Rethinking on implementation plan of “County Administrator and School Recruitment”—Based on content analysis of implementation opinions of “County Administrator and School Recruitment” reform in Zhejiang, Anhui, Guangdong, Shandong and Fujian Provinces. Educational Development Research, 39(02), 67–72. Li, G., Yuan, S., & Lin, Y. (2019). Research on the belonging problem of cross-school exchange teachers in “County Management and School Employment.” Educational Development Research, 39(02), 78–84.

Chapter 7

The Teachers’ Honor Recognition Policy in China

This chapter figures out the teachers’ honor recognition policy in China. Teachers are the engineers of the human soul, the inheritors of human civilization, carrying the responsibility of spreading knowledge, spreading ideas, spreading truth, shaping the soul, shaping life, and shaping new people. Over the years, teachers have trained many outstanding talents and made important contributions to China’s economic and social development. On September 9, 2014, General Secretary Xi Jinping quoted Xunzi in his speech to the representatives of teachers and students at Beijing Normal University, “The country will prosper; if you are a good teacher and if you are a good teacher, the law will survive”. The key to national rejuvenation lies in talent, education, and teachers. The degree of social respect for teachers determines the status of education and the future of the country. Attaching importance to the recognition of teachers’ honor can help improve the attraction and sense of honor of the teaching profession, further promote the social trend of respecting teachers and valuing education in society as a whole, and make teachers the most respected and enviable profession in society. Teacher honor recognition is an important part of education, which plays an important role in motivating teachers and guiding the construction of highquality teachers. The establishment of a system of honoring teachers who have made outstanding contributions to education is a concrete manifestation of respect for knowledge and talent, a practical measure to revitalize the country through science and education and give priority to the development of education. It has a significant encouraging and guiding effect on teachers and even society as a whole. So that most teachers do not forget the original aspiration of moral education, keep in mind the mission of educating people for the Party and the country, feel at ease in teaching, enthusiastic in teaching, comfortable in teaching, and therefore constantly make new contributions to the development of the country.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Li and E. Xue, Teacher Development Policy in China, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1015-1_7

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7.1 Literature Review and Theoretical Tools 7.1.1 Literature Review A total of 2598 studies with the subject word “teacher” and including “honor” or “commendation” were searched in the CNKI database, and a total of 1113 studies accounted for 42.84% of the total number of studies. In China, the main keywords of the research on teacher honor recognition involve Teachers’ Day (27.13%), excellent teachers (23.09%), respect for teachers and education (7.64%), special-grade teachers (6.74%), national model teachers (6.56%), people’s government (6.20%), excellent educators (6.02%), Ministry of Education (5.84%), primary and secondary schools (5.66%), and advanced collective (5.12%). All the literature related to teacher honor recognition has a long time span. The earliest literature can be traced back to 1979, and the annual growth rate was relatively slow from 1979 to 2004. From 2005, there was a sharp increase, in which the annual growth rate was twice in 2006 and 2007, and the maximum growth rate was 167 in 2009. Then, there was a decline to 100 in 2011. In the past decade, the number of studies on teacher recognition fluctuated approximately 150 per year. Of the total 2598 articles, 765 were journal articles, 167 of which were core journal articles. The topic vocabularies involved in 167 core journal articles include Ministry of Education (16.46%), Excellent Teachers (16.46%), honor system (11.39%), primary and secondary school teachers (11.39%), National Model teachers (8.86%), Teachers’ Day (8.86%), rural teachers (7.59%), special-grade teachers (7.59%), Education Foundation (6.33%), and China Textile Federation of Industries (5.06%). The research direction is basically consistent with the mainstream literature, but the proportion of “Ministry of Education” rises to first place, and “Respecting teachers and valuing education” does not appear in the top ten of 167 core journals (Feng, 2010; Liu, 2017; Tu, 2009; Yang et al., 2021). In the research on teacher honor recognition in China, the number of all the core journals published at different times shows that the variation trend is different from all the literature to a certain extent. The core journals related to the research of teacher honor and recognition had been floating online at approximately 5 articles per year before 2007 and showed a two-fold growth from 2007 to 2009, but the change was limited. In 2014, there was a sharp increase, reaching a maximum of 16 articles, and the number dropped to 2 in the next year. It rebounded to 13 in 2016 and has been growing at approximately 10 a year in recent years (Feng, 2010; Liu, 2017; Tu, 2009; Yang et al., 2021).

7.1.2 Theoretical Tools Firstly, this paper will carry out literature research and form a new understanding after literature research based on collecting and sorting out relevant literature in the research field. In the literature research, policy text analysis will be chosen as the main

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analysis method, and the literature will be sorted out with literature measurement tools. Policy text analysis is a widely used research method in policy research, but there is little research on policy text analysis in China, especially in education policy text analysis. The existing text analysis of education policy involves both content analysis and discourse analysis, but the research is not theoretical and deep enough. Most of the research is limited to the description and analysis of the shallow level of the text and has not yet “gone” out of the text. Some scholars have expressed that the text should “dialog” with its historical context and social practice to reveal the rich connotation and internal logic of the policy text. At the same time, the standardization of research and the organic combination of research methods and theories also need to be strengthened. Policy based on text analysis of the research approach, the help from the text, and associated with the history of mining and accumulating knowledge and social practice, and then the theory of development based on domestic policy or analytical framework, in our understanding of the process of education policy and its rich at the same time, finally promote the improvement of education policymaking (Feng, 2010; Liu, 2017; Tu, 2009; Yang et al., 2021).

7.1.3 Normative Research: Speculative Analysis Unlike empirical research, normative investigation does not aim to “confirm” or “falsify” an assumption but rather to interrogate, explain, or justify educational values by systematically criticizing, speculating, and demonstrating. Many educators in ancient and modern times, such as Dewey, Rousseau, Comenius, Confucius, and Mencius, have conducted normative studies on educational activities. These pioneers’ thoughts on education are still of great significance today. In normative research, speculative analytical methods often assume the function of explaining the world as it should be. The so-called speculation is a thinking process of “from here to there, from the outside to the inside” of the empirical materials by conjecture and logical reasoning, and it is the thinking and discrimination of various concepts, judgments, and their mutual relations. Early scientific research originated from the rational investigation of empirical knowledge, but the birth of modern science put this rational knowledge activity based on stricter empirical examination. Based on the text analysis, this paper will carry out a speculative analysis combining the existing policy texts and the implementation effects of the policy and put forward suggestions for the implementation of the policy of teacher honor recognition.

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7.2 Policy Text and Implementation Data 7.2.1 National Teaching Achievement Award The national Teaching Achievement Award is the highest level established by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China to reward the collective and individuals who have achieved teaching achievements, encourage educators to engage in teaching research, and improve teaching level and quality. As early as 1989, China started the selection of national higher education teaching achievement awards, and the selection practice of once every four years continues to this day. On March 14, 1994, officially released the teaching achievement award ordinance, which was the first reward ordinances of teaching achievements in the history of education in our country. In 1993, after another important education law and regulation related to teacher issued by the state, teaching achievement prizes at the national regulations are no longer limited to higher education but are geared to the needs of all kinds of education at all levels. “Regulations on Rewarding Teaching Achievements” stipulate that teaching achievements refer to educational and teaching programs that reflect the laws of education and teaching, are original, novel, and practical, and have obvious effects on improving teaching level and education quality and realizing training objectives. The reward to the teacher in “Pedagogic law” further specific in that the teacher work as creative labor in teaching job, give sufficient affirmation with the form of teaching achievement, treat with scientific research achievement likewise, which is according with the spirit of that “pedagogic law” safeguard the legal rights and interests of teacher and respect teacher’s teaching job. The teaching achievement award has greatly stimulated the spirit of continuous innovation and hard work of teachers in their work. On the one hand, the teaching achievement award has certain requirements on the selection qualification. Article 5 of the regulations on the award of teaching achievement points out that “those who meet the following conditions may apply for the national teaching achievement award: (1) those first established in China; (2) having passed the test of more than two years of educational and teaching practice; (3) those that have exerted certain influence throughout the country”. On the other hand, the teaching achievement awards cover a wide range of areas, including national, provincial, and ministerial teaching achievement awards. Article 6 of the Regulations on Teaching Achievement Awards points out that “national teaching achievement awards can be divided into three grades: special prize, first prize and second prize, and corresponding certificates, medals and bonuses will be awarded”. At the same time, article 12 also notes that “the conditions, grades, amounts, organization and methods for the evaluation of teaching achievement awards at the provincial (ministry) level shall be stipulated by the people’s governments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government and relevant departments of The State Council with reference to these Regulations”. The authority of the award is guaranteed, and local governments are given autonomy in light of their actual conditions. In terms of basic education, since the regulations on rewarding teaching achievements were promulgated in 1994, some provinces have

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launched the selection of provincial awards for teaching achievements in basic education. In 2010, the General Office of the Ministry of Education organized an activity to collect, evaluate, and exchange teaching and research results of basic education curriculum reform, collecting more than 900 results of the reform. In January 2014, the Ministry of Education organized the application of the first National Basic Education Teaching Achievement Award, which is the highest level of business award set up by the government in the field of basic education, in accordance with the Implementation Measures of the Regulations on Rewarding Teaching Achievements. According to the evaluation, the evaluation expert database, subnetwork evaluation experts, and experts need to be established. Of the 1,600 experts who participated in the review, 800 were selected as online experts, and 100 were selected from 800 experts. At the basic education teaching achievement prizes at the national review, a member of expert committee, deputy director of the China education association bing-lin zhong said “evaluation experts team to ensure that its representative, it must be covered all over the country, such as network evaluation experts involved in 29 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions), rate experts reach 23 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions). It must be an influential and authoritative expert review team”. The declaration of teaching achievement awards adopts the form of provincial recommendation. First, each provincial education administrative department accepts the declaration results, carries out provincial selection in advance, and selects the best recommendation within the limit issued by the Ministry of Education. It also stipulates that among the recommended projects, “no less than 70% of the total recommended results should be completed by front-line teachers and primary, secondary and kindergarten teachers”. At the same time, university teachers are encouraged to conduct research in primary and secondary schools. The total number of items recommended by each province was 1,305. Ultimately, 417 achievements were awarded the 2014 National Teaching Achievement Award in Basic Education after a strict evaluation process (Feng, 2010; Liu, 2017; Tu, 2009; Yang et al., 2021). In 2018, the coverage of national Teaching Achievement Awards in basic education was further expanded, and the winners were distributed in 28 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government) and Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions. Among them, 5 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government) won more than 30 awards, and 19 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government) won less than 10 awards. The special prize and the first prize are distributed in 12 provinces (regions, cities), including 1 first prize from Hong Kong and 1 first prize from Macao. Special prizes were won by Shanghai and Chongqing. The provinces with the largest number of special prizes and first prizes were Beijing (12), Shanghai (12), Jiangsu (12), and Chongqing (4). In terms of vocational education, vocational colleges won the Teaching Achievement Award for the first time in 2005. In 2014, the National Teaching Achievement Award was officially established to list vocational education separately on the basis of higher education. Taking the evaluation of the 2018 National Teaching Achievement Award for Vocational Education as an example, based on the extensive solicitation of expert opinions from colleges and universities, teaching and research institutions,

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industrial enterprises, and other experts, the evaluation experts are selected based on the expert database of vocational education and the expert database of the Bank Guidance Committee according to the needs of classification evaluation by using the combination of online preliminary evaluation and conference re-evaluation. A total of 540 experts were selected for the online evaluation, covering 31 provinces and cities. A total of 88 experts from vocational colleges, undergraduate universities, teaching and research institutions, industrial enterprises, the military, and other fields participated in the event, with no more than 3 experts from the same province (excluding the ministry’s universities), covering 25 provinces and cities. In the 2018 National Awards for Teaching and Learning achievements in Vocational Education, there were 294 achievements in vocational education, 20 more in 2014. There were 120 achievements in secondary vocational education, 31 fewer than in 2014. Higher vocational colleges were the first units to complete 282 achievements, 11 more than in 2014; Secondary vocational schools ranked first in 88 cases, down 21 cases from 2014. In the field of higher education, the Higher Education Teaching Achievement Award has been evaluated every four years since 1989 and has been awarded eight times thus far. Higher teaching achievement awards are divided into special prizes, first prizes, and second prizes. There were 2 grand prizes except 3 in the fifth year. From the fourth session to the sixth session, the first prize, the second prize, and the total number of awards increased, while in the seventh session, because the higher teaching achievement award no longer includes the higher vocational teaching achievement award, the first prize, the second prize, and the total number of awards decreased. In the seventh and eighth sessions, the number of awards at all levels was the same, but the proportion of awards in the seventh session was higher than that in the eighth session. There are an increasing number of institutions or units participating in the evaluation of higher teaching achievement awards, the difficulty of winning awards is increasing, and the requirements are increasingly strict (Feng, 2010; Liu, 2017; Tu, 2009; Yang et al., 2021).

7.2.2 Honor System for Rural Teachers The unbalanced development of educational resources between urban and rural areas has always been an important educational reality in China. Thirty-five percent of junior middle schools, 66% of primary schools, and 35% of kindergartens in China are in rural areas. Rural schools are the grass-roots teaching units with the most extensive coverage in China. Due to the influence of a variety of complex factors, such as the unbalanced development of urban and rural education, inconvenient transportation and geographical conditions, and outstanding school-running conditions, the vocational attraction of rural teachers is still not strong enough, and the confusion of “failing to get down, failing to stay, and failing to teach” still exists, which seriously restricts the further development of rural education. In 2012, The State Council issued the Opinions on Strengthening the Construction of Teachers, pointing out that the construction of teachers in primary and secondary schools should focus on rural

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teachers and enhance the attractiveness of rural teachers. Subsequent explorations have discussed this goal. In this context, The State Council issued the Rural Teacher Support Plan (2015–2020) in 2015, which clearly proposed the establishment of a rural teacher honor system to commend teachers who have been teaching in rural areas for a long time. Since the release of the Rural Teacher Support Plan (2015– 2020), various regions in China have honored rural teachers. In a survey of more than 120 rural primary and secondary schools in 12 counties (districts) of 6 provinces in central and western China, all districts and counties established the rural teacher honor system. For example, in Pengan County, Sichuan Province, in addition to issuing honorary certificates to teachers who have been teaching for 30 years, it is also stipulated that those who have been teaching for 30 years in rural areas who meet the basic requirements for professional title evaluation and have outstanding performance can be directly recommended for senior title evaluation. For teachers whose teaching ages are 10, 20 years, their salary are not limited by the title, directly enjoy the highest salary of the title. Granting rural teachers due honor and giving sympathy for those silently in the rural school cultivation of the soul show not only respect for knowledge but also respect for talent, and futher guide the formation of good social fashion respect for teachers and education. Rural teachers’ hard work has been fully affirmed by the state. In 2016, Xundian County of Yunnan Province honored teachers who have been teaching in rural areas for 30 years. A total of 1,100 rural teachers are eligible. A total of 1,050 certificates of honor have been issued, and the second batch of 50 will be issued. The certificate of honor is made delicately, and the certificate number is printed. Most of the old village teachers cherish and recognize the certificate and honor very much (Feng, 2010; Liu, 2017; Tu, 2009; Yang et al., 2021).

7.3 Challenges and Problems in Practice 7.3.1 State-Level Teaching Achievements In basic education, the national teaching achievement awards for basic education are mainly concentrated in the eastern region, accounting for 69% and 68% in 2014 and 2018, respectively. In particular, the special prize and the first prize, which represent higher levels, are highly concentrated in the eastern region, and the proportion of the central and western regions is much lower than that of the eastern region. In vocational education, the data analysis of the awards in 2014 and 2018 shows that the distribution of teaching achievement awards among regions and colleges is not balanced. The eastern region presents a dominant situation, the number of awards, and the level of the present characteristics. There are also obvious differences among different provinces within the same region. At the same time, in terms of specific awardwinning units, there is a great difference between the number of national demonstration (backbone) higher vocational colleges and ordinary higher vocational colleges.

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In higher education, the geographical position, economic development level, and influence of China’s eastern, central, and western regions’ development of higher education levels showed obvious uneven phenomena. The teaching achievement of higher education is prized to the east of high, medium, and low proportions in the west and its unevenly distribution represents a feature of east and western in China. The Matthew Effect, which is widely used in social psychology, education, finance, and science, refers to the phenomenon that the strong become stronger and the weak become weaker. The Matthew effect reflects the social phenomenon of polarization: the rich become richer, and the poor become poorer. The name comes from a parable in the New Testament Gospel of Matthew: “To everyone who has, give twice as much and make him redundant. From him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away”. Morton points out that “Matthew effect” plays a significant role in scientific research, namely, the existing reputation, making special contributions to social scientists, will be given the honor of more and more, but not yet famous, scientist achievement is often difficult to fully endorse. As you can see in the analysis above, in the teacher’s honor for work, the Matthew effect exists in basic education, vocational education, and higher education. In basic education, most of the winners of teaching achievement awards come from urban areas. Of the 2018 national Awards for Teaching Achievements in basic education, only seven, or 1.5%, came from primary and secondary schools at the township level, and none came from village-level schools. However, it is worth mentioning that two of the seven achievements came from Chongqing, namely, from Chongqing Fuxing Town Central School and Jiangbei Middle School, and both won the first prize. It can be seen that although most provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) have given certain preferences and support to the evaluation of basic education and teaching achievement awards in ethnic minority areas and rural areas, the cultivation and support efforts are still insufficient, and the proportion is still small. In vocational education, the proportion of executive awards is too high. In the 2014 and 2018 national Teaching Achievement Awards for vocational education, 90.17% and 90.93% of university leaders at all levels (including university level, department-level, and departmentlevel) were awarded as the first completers, while only 9.07 and 8.85% of front-line teachers were awarded. The proportion of front-line teachers winning awards is low, and their ranking among the winning teams is relatively low. In higher education, the winners of higher education teaching achievement awards are mainly distributed in key universities. In China’s higher education teaching achievement awards, the former “211”, “985”, and “double first-class” universities account for a relatively large number (Feng, 2010; Liu, 2017; Tu, 2009; Yang et al., 2021).

7.3.2 Honor System for Rural Teachers The setting of an honorary title is the starting point of the honor system. At present, the research on the setting of honorary titles for rural teachers in China mainly

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focuses on the lack of honorary title settings, the lack of honor publicity and prestige, and the improper existence of the existing honorary name. According to the survey data of Peng Dongping et al. on the implementation of the teacher honor system in southern Jiangxi, only 10.4% of rural teachers knew the specific content of the system, and only “the most beautiful rural teacher” had a higher awareness of the honorary title. The proportion of awards is too low, so many rural teachers give up the pursuit of honor subjectively. In the rural teachers’ survey and the interview of gansu, ningxia, shanxi, shandong, jiangsu, Heilongjiang Province, it was found that, at present, rural teachers’ economic status, cultural capital, and social capital are at a disadvantage. The outside world for rural teachers forms negative stereotypes, so the title set in the word “country” is part of the rural teacher rejected. Words such as “rural” have become the source of inferiority of some rural teachers, who believe that “rural” means a weak position, which itself contains hierarchy and discrimination. Incentive measures are the core part of the honor system. At present, the incentive measures of the honor system of rural teachers are mainly awarded certificates, and a small part of them will issue one-time incentive money. Such incentive measures lack sufficient incentive effects in both material and spiritual aspects. In the survey of the six provinces, it was found that the proportion of “honorary certificates only” was 65%, while the proportion of “honorary certificates often accompanied by material rewards” and “honorary certificates always accompanied by material rewards” were 5.5% and 2.9%, respectively. According to the survey data in southern Jiangxi, 80.92% of the teachers were awarded certificates, and 56.65% of the teachers said there was no ceremony, or they only posted notices to praise them. The results of a nationwide survey of rural teachers’ interviews showed that the interviewed teachers repeatedly mentioned the “insufficient value” of the teacher honor system. Post-honorary management is the most easily neglected link in the honor system. At present, the honor system of rural teachers in China is characterized by “once awarded, honor for life”, and there is a serious lack of post-honor management for award-winning rural teachers. According to the results of Peng Dongping et al., in terms of the guiding and demonstration role of the honor system, only 10.69% of the award-winning teachers will appear in the training of rural teachers, 10.4% of the award-winning rural teachers will be invited to give a report, and 11.27% of the honored rural teachers will set up a master studio. In terms of the long-term development of award-winning teachers, only 10.02% of the respondents believe that there are special measures to promote the post-prestigious development of award-winning teachers (Feng, 2010; Liu, 2017; Tu, 2009; Yang et al., 2021).

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7.4 Countermeasures and Suggestions 7.4.1 Allocate the Quota of the National Teaching Achievement Award Reasonably The number of schools from basic education is 39 times that of vocational education and 168 times that of higher education. But most of the national teaching achievement prizes are given to higher education and vocational education, which influences the demonstration leading role of national teaching Achievement award in basic education reform and development. Therefore, it is suggested to appropriately increase the number of national teaching achievement awards in basic education according to the volume of basic education, vocational education, and higher education so as to make the overall structure of national teaching achievement awards more reasonable.

7.4.2 The Awards of Each Academic Section Are Tilted Toward the Central and Western Regions and Rural Areas Objectively speaking, there are also many excellent teaching achievements in central and western regions and rural areas, but these achievements are difficult to explore due to limited summarizing and refining ability, limited publicity and promotion channels, and other reasons, and the proportion of achievements awarded is low. Therefore, the national publicity, promotion, training of basic education teaching achievement prizes should be increased in the Midwest and rural areas, especially in minority nationality areas, especially Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and other places. We should pay more to encourage and support on policy, discover and foster local typical education teaching achievements and experience, promote the teaching reform and development of the local education, so that to promote high-quality and balanced development of education.

7.4.3 Front-Line Teachers Are Given Priority to Participate in the Evaluation and Award Regardless of basic education, vocational education or higher education, the situation of front-line teachers receiving awards is low. It is difficult for front-line teachers to contact the judges, while schools and local education administrations are more likely to contact the judges, thus causing unfavorable conditions for front-line teachers to participate in the evaluation of awards. According to the Notice of the Ministry of Education on carrying out the Evaluation of 2018 National Teaching Achievement

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Awards, it is clearly pointed out that excellent talent should be guided to lifelong teaching, and teachers who have been engaged in front-line education and teaching for a long time should be preferred. Therefore, the evaluation of national teaching achievement awards should pay special attention to first-line achievements. Attaching importance to the teaching reward to front-line teachers is conducive to reducing the influence of the Matthew effect on front-line teachers, greatly stimulating teaching vitality, and exploring methods, cases, and experiences that can be combined with teaching practice.

7.4.4 Encourage Collaborative Innovation in Education and Teaching Outcomes In basic education teaching reform and research, primary and secondary schools are practice subjects, but the overall level of scientific research ability is not high. Universities are the subject of research, but they are often not combined with the teaching practice of basic education. Teaching and scientific research institutions are the bridge between the theory and practice of basic education. The three have their own advantages and disadvantages in basic education and teaching reform and research. Only by learning from each other and cooperating with each other can more breakthroughs and innovations be made. Therefore, colleges and universities, teaching and research institutions, primary and secondary schools, and kindergartens should be encouraged to form a collaborative innovation mechanism to jointly study hot and difficult issues in education and teaching reform and form influential teaching results. At the same time, cross-unit and even cross-regional cooperation between colleges and universities, teaching and research institutions, and similar institutions in primary and secondary schools and kindergartens should be strengthened to jointly cultivate and create awards for basic education and teaching achievements. On this basis, more units are encouraged to apply for national teaching achievement awards in basic education to stimulate the motivation of team cooperation and cross-unit and cross-regional cooperation. First, rural teachers have both the commonness of all teachers and the particularity of rural background. Therefore, when setting the honorary title of rural teachers, it is necessary to consider both their attributes as teachers and their regional characteristics in rural areas. Secondly, the current setting of honor for rural teachers emphasizes the function of moral example, and the honor itself lacks recognition of teachers’ outstanding achievements, which leads to social groups underestimating the value of honor for rural teachers. Therefore, when setting honor for rural teachers, we should focus on morality and consider excellence.

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7.4.5 Establish an Open and Democratic Evaluation Mechanism First, the maintenance of the fairness and fairness of honor selection depends not only on the more objective and specific selection criteria but also on the supervision of the outside world. The subjective and fuzzy status quo of the honor selection criteria for rural teachers urgently calls for more quantitative standards for comparison and supervision. Secondly, the weak position of rural teachers in terms of size leads to the urbanization orientation of the selection criteria for teachers, and there are few honors specifically for rural teachers, which is unfair for rural teachers. Therefore, the selection criteria for honors that are integrated into local culture should be formulated under the investigation of the specific situation of rural areas. Finally, the setting of honor selection criteria should consider the professional development path of rural teachers, provide personalized guidance and targeted resources for their professional development, and promote the continuous improvement of the professional level of rural teachers. The reward mechanism mainly emphasizes the principle of equal emphasis on spirit and material. Material rewards refer to specific quantifiable and comparable currency, while spiritual rewards are more complex, mainly reflecting the scarcity of status of the “privilege”, “opportunity”, and “family sharing”. “Privileges” can include free public transport, preferential tourist attractions, etc. “Opportunity” includes opportunities for studying abroad, training, and further study; “Family sharing” is a preferential policy for parents, partners, and children, such as assisting in solving problems such as supporting parents, employment of partners, and children’s education, and considering systems such as “joint commendation” and “joint vacation and recuperation” for families. The ceremony and publicity mainly emphasize two aspects: government awards and media publicity. To carry out follow-up management of award-winning teachers, one is to promote the long-term development of award-winning teachers, and the other is to promote the development of other teachers. To retain sufficient follow-up development funds, it’s indispensable to establish an “honor rural teachers database” and make further tracking and regular assessment. To promote the development of other teachers, she proposed giving full play to the award-winning teachers’ exemplary role in professional knowledge and skills as well as the influence of professional sentiment and actively carrying out relevant activities (Feng, 2010; Liu, 2017; Tu, 2009; Yang et al., 2021).

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References Feng, X. (2010). Discrimination between “speculative” and “empirical” methods in higher education research. Peking University Education Review, 8(01), 172–178. Liu, L. (2017). Reflection and defense on the research paradigm of educational norms. Journal of Education, 13(06), 26–35. Tu, D. (2009). Text analysis of education policy and its application. Fudan Education Forum, 41(05), 22–27. Yang, Y., Wang, Y., & Zhou, Y. (2021). Research on the current situation, problems and countermeasures of education and teaching reform in Chinese Universities—Based on the analysis of national teaching achievement awards since the 21st century. Journal of Southeast University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), 23(S2), 127–131.

Chapter 8

Teachers’ Qualification Management and Policy in China

This chapter focuses on teachers’ qualification management in China. Obtaining a teacher’s qualification is the bottom-line requirement of being a teacher. Teacher qualification management is of great significance to guarantee the quality of teachers. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China’s teacher qualification management policy has experienced two stages: the pilot and promotion of the national unified primary and secondary school teacher qualification examination system and the regular registration system and the reform of teachers’ qualifications without examination for normal university students. There are some problems in the management of teacher qualification, such as the design of teacher standards does not adapt to the development of the times, the teacher qualification examination shapes the teaching ability of pseudo-education, the regular registration of teacher qualification is not effective, and the management organization of teacher qualification is single. Thus, we should respond to these problems and improve the design and implementation of teacher qualification systems.

8.1 Literature Review and Theoretical Tools 8.1.1 Literature Review of Teacher Qualification Management Take CNKI as an example. In terms of quantity, from 2011 to 2012, the number of relevant studies increased significantly as the national examination for teacher qualification was fully implemented after the pilot was started in Hubei and Zhejiang Provinces. Since 2012, the number of studies on teacher qualifications has been stable, with a significant increase in 2016 and 2018 and a decrease year by year thereafter from the perspective of research topics. There is much research on the teacher © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Li and E. Xue, Teacher Development Policy in China, Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts, and Practices, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1015-1_8

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qualification system. Different scholars have different definitions of teacher qualification systems. Teacher qualification system is a statutory professional licensing system for teachers in a country or region that specifies the qualifications and admission conditions required for the teaching profession. The teacher qualification system, also known as the “teacher certificate system”, is a legal professional licensing system for teachers. The teacher qualification system includes the teacher qualification standard, curriculum standard of teacher education, curriculum standard and curriculum resource standard of teacher education, qualification standard of teacher education institution, admission, promotion system of teacher, etc. A perfect teacher qualification system includes three aspects: entry requirements, teacher qualification examination, and applicable regulations for teachers. Scholars have different definitions of the teacher qualification system, so there are differences in research. However, no matter how to define the teacher qualification system, it is the regulation of the teacher qualification management mechanism at the national level. In other words, the teacher qualification system is the teacher qualification management mechanism at the national level. Since 2012, several scholars have analyzed the problems and improvement strategies of the teacher qualification system during the period. At the level of the teacher qualification certification system, there is no independent professional certification institution for teacher qualification, the types and levels of teacher qualification are single, and the scope of adaptation is vague. The educational standard is low, the content of the teacher qualification examination is single, the Putonghua level standard fails to reflect regional differences, the regular registration of the teacher qualification certificate lacks specific operational procedures, and there is no compatibility among teacher qualification certificates. In terms of research methods, some scholars have used historical analysis to sort out the changes in China’s teacher qualification system from ancient times to after the founding of New China. More scholars introduce the teacher qualification systems of different countries and regions by means of comparison. For example, some scholars combed the primary and secondary school teachers’ qualification system in Taiwan from “teacher” selection mechanism, the teacher education curriculum system, the education practice, teachers’ qualification examinations four aspects, providing a reference for the reform of middle and primary school teachers’ qualification system in the mainland area. Starting from the characteristics of teachers’ work, if the teacher system is too unified, rigid, trivial, and too mechanized and technical in implementation, it may hinder the selection and professional development of teachers (Chen, 2008; Chen & Yu, 2015; Jin & Lin, 2013; Liu & Sun, 2017; Liu & Yu, 2018; Wan, 2014; Zhang, 2015). As the initial link and main basis of teacher qualification certification, the teacher qualification examination has the largest number of studies. From 1978 to 1993, a system of examination certificates for primary and secondary school teachers was established for in-service teachers to improve the quality of teachers. From 1993 to 2009, a teacher qualification examination system was established for qualified non-normal university students and social personnel applicants, aiming to expand

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the number of teachers. From 2009 to 2015, a unified national qualification examination system for primary and secondary school teachers was gradually established. In the research of teacher qualification examination, there is much reflection on the validity of teacher qualification examination. Some scholars point out that the national teacher qualification examination is shaping the “teaching ability of false education”. In addition, the representative question is the relationship between teacher qualification examination and teacher education. From the angle of examination necessity, the unified examination strengthens the specialty of the teaching profession; from the examination content point of view, the unified examination is beneficial to improving the quality of teachers. However, from the perspective of examination objects, contents, and results, the unified examination may damage the uniqueness of teacher education and lead to its marginalization. From the angle of the examination supporting system, the unified examination makes teacher education face the risk of dissolving the system. The question of the relationship between teacher education and teacher qualification examination is the same as the question of whether normal university students can directly identify teacher qualification through interviews. The opponents think that the open teacher education system makes the professional quality of some normal college graduates lower, and the direct certification of their teacher qualifications will affect the quality of teachers. There are few similar regulations in other professional qualification certification systems in China. It cannot guarantee the equality of teacher qualification opportunities for normal university students to directly identify teacher qualifications after graduation (Chen, 2008; Chen & Yu, 2015; Jin & Lin, 2013; Liu & Sun, 2017; Liu & Yu, 2018; Wan, 2014; Zhang, 2015).

8.1.2 The Status of Teachers’ Education and the Quality of Teachers It is of great significance to ensure the status of teachers’ education and the quality of teachers. Good teachers are made, not tested. Putting normal university students and non-normal university students on the same starting line is a question of teacher training. The national unified teacher qualification examination is actually a part of teacher qualification recognition. There is no lack of scholars to conduct special research on teacher accreditation. In addition to the recognition of teacher qualifications, after the implementation of the interim Measures for Regular Registration of Primary and Secondary School Teacher Qualifications in 2013, more attention was given to the regular registration of teachers. Some scholars point out that China’s regular teacher registration system does not cover all registered objects, the registration time is relatively fixed, the “threshold” of the registration conditions is low, and the registration process is formalized. In general, in addition to the results mentioned above, existing studies still have the following deficiencies. In terms of research

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methods, existing research mainly focuses on policy analysis, international comparison, and theoretical speculation. Especially in recent years, the heat of teacher qualification management has decreased, and relevant research mainly focuses on introducing foreign teacher qualification management systems. A more comprehensive empirical study is lacking. The relationship between teacher qualification test scores and educational background and university level, the relationship between teacher qualification test scores and teaching achievements after teaching, and the differences between normal university students and non-normal university students in teacher qualification recognition have not been revealed and supported by empirical research and data. In terms of the research perspective, there are many scholars based on the characteristics of teachers’ work from the perspective of teachers’ competence and system effectiveness. The management mechanism of teacher qualification has been analyzed, but few scholars have studied the economic problems (such as cost) in the management of teacher qualification. As a result, our understanding of teacher qualification management in China is not comprehensive enough, and the ideal view may be hindered in practice (Chen, 2008; Chen & Yu, 2015; Jin & Lin, 2013; Liu & Sun, 2017; Liu & Yu, 2018; Wan, 2014; Zhang, 2015).

8.2 Policy Text and Implementation Data 8.2.1 Pilot and Promote the National Unified Primary and Secondary School Teacher Qualification Examination System and Regular Registration System Around the 18th National Congress, the state began to organize unified examinations for teacher qualifications. In 2011, Hubei and Zhejiang were the first to enter the pilot teacher qualification examination. In April 2012, the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued the Notice on Expanding the Pilot Work of the Reform and Periodic Registration System for Primary and Secondary School Teacher Qualification Examinations in 2012 and decided to add Hebei, Shanghai, Guangxi, and Hainan to the list on the basis of Zhejiang and Hubei. By the end of the first half of 2013, a total of 280,768 people took the written test in the four pilot tests, with a passing rate of 36.2%. A total of 105,621 people participated in the interview, with a pass rate of 73.1%. The examination methods and contents have been widely recognized and have achieved the expected results. On August 21, 2013, the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China issued a notice on Expanding the Pilot Reform of The Qualification Examination and Regular Registration System for Primary and Secondary School Teachers (Teacher letter [2013] No. 2). Based on the pilot programs in Hebei, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Hubei, Guangxi, and Hainan, four provinces, Shanxi, Anhui, Shandong, and Guizhou, were added as pilot provinces. From the second half of 2013, the newly added pilot provinces

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began to participate in primary and secondary school teacher qualification examinations, and at the same time, one prefecture-level city was selected to carry out regular pilot registration of primary and secondary school teacher qualifications. On the same day, based on summarizing the pilot experience, the Ministry of Education issued the Notice on Printing and Distributing the Interim Measures for primary and Secondary School Teacher Qualification Examination and the Interim Measures for Regular Registration of Primary and Secondary School Teacher Qualification. By the second half of 2014, the teacher qualification examination was extended to 15 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) in Zhejiang, Hubei, Hainan, Guangxi, Hebei, Shanghai, Anhui, Shandong, Guizhou, Shanxi, Jiangsu, Shaanxi, Jilin, Fujian, and Sichuan. According to the MOE plan, since the first test in the second half of 2011, a total of 816,561 people have taken the written test, and 309,767 people have taken the interview. A total of 216,794 people passed both the written test and the interview. Notice of the General Office of the Ministry of Education on Further Expanding the Pilot Reform of The Teacher Qualification Examination and Regular Registration System for Primary and Secondary Schools (No. 3, 2015) decided to further expand the pilot reform scope of the Teacher Qualification Examination and Regular Registration system for Primary and Secondary Schools in 2015. Based on trials in 15 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government), including Zhejiang and Hubei, 13 new provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government) were added as pilot provinces. Pilot reforms were launched in Beijing, Jiangxi, Henan, Hunan, Gansu, Qinghai, and Ningxia Provinces in the second half of the year. In the first half of 2016, the six provinces of Tianjin, Liaoning, Montenegro, Guangdong, Chongqing, and Yunnan launched pilot reforms. To ensure a smooth transition, on December 4, 2015, the Ministry of Education issued the Notice on adjusting the interview time of the Secondary and Primary School Teacher Qualification Examination in the second half of 2015 (Teachers’ Office Letter (2015) No. 21) and postponed the interview time by two weeks. The period from 2015 to 2016 is mainly a period of gradual adjustment and stabilization of the primary and secondary school teacher qualification examination and regular registration system. The Ministry of Education issued the Opinions on Agreeing to implement the Regular Registration System for Primary and Secondary School Teacher Qualifications in Zhejiang Province (Letter of teachers Office (2015) No. 20). The Opinions on Further Expanding the Pilot Work of Periodic Registration System for Primary and Secondary School Teachers in Hainan Province (Letter of the Teachers’ Office [2016] No. 1) and the Opinions on Further Expanding the Pilot Work of Periodic Registration System for Primary and Secondary School Teachers in Jiangsu, Henan, and Hunan Province (Letter of the Teachers’ Office [2016] No. 7) were issued. Opinions on Further Expanding the Pilot Work of regular Registration System for Primary and Secondary School Teachers in Six Provinces including Fujian (Letter of Teachers Office [2017] No.12) (Chen, 2008; Chen & Yu, 2015; Jin & Lin, 2013; Liu & Sun, 2017; Liu & Yu, 2018; Wan, 2014; Zhang, 2015).

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8.2.2 Reform of Teachers’ Qualification Certification for Normal University Students Without Examination Since 2020, the management of teacher qualifications has gradually shifted from comprehensive promotion of teacher qualifications and regular registration systems to examination exemption recognition for normal university students. The Notification of the Ministry of Education on printing and Distributing the Implementation Plan for the Qualification Reform of Primary and Secondary School Teachers in Education Graduate Students and Government-funded Normal University Students exempted from Examinations in 2020 (Teacher letter no. 5, 2020), which kicked off the prelude of the examination exemption identification of normal University students in the new era. On the one hand, the document clearly defines the scope of exemption from examinations and classifies teaching divisions and disciplines. On the other hand, it requires universities to establish a system for assessing the education and teaching ability of normal university students and strengthening the construction of normal education majors. In 2021, the general office of the Ministry of Education of doing a good job on the exemption decision in the class of 2021 graduate education and business students that reform primary and secondary school teachers’ qualification work notice (teacher hall letter [2021] no. 2) is further defined the university organization woven normal teachers’ professional ability tests, the professional ability of student’s teachers’ certificate issued by personnel information submitted work-related matters. This is the further refinement of the exemption procedure. At the beginning of 2022, the Notice of the Ministry of Education on Promoting the Reform of Primary and Secondary School Teachers’ Qualification For Examination Free Normal University Students (Teacher Letter (2022) No. 1) pointed out that the reform scope of examination-free normal university students should be expanded and that the education and teaching ability assessment system should be established and improved. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the teacher qualification management policy has shown the following characteristics. First, we have made timely adjustments according to the reality of China’s educational development. From 2000 to 2009, when China vigorously popularized the nine-year compulsory education system, the social demand for primary and secondary school teachers was very large. Therefore, China launched a teacher qualification examination oriented to society, attracting students from various majors to primary and secondary school teachers and alleviating the serious shortage of teachers. After years of practice, the number of teachers basically meets the needs of the development of education, and the problem of education quality becomes increasingly prominent. Therefore, there has been a reform of the national teacher qualification examination since approximately 2011. In addition, due to the influence of the college enrollment expansion policy and the policy of allowing non-normal colleges and universities to participate in teacher education, in addition, due to the lack of supporting qualification standards for teacher education institutions and the perfect quality assurance system for teacher education, the number of normal university graduates each year is too large, and the quality is uneven. Therefore, the primary and secondary school

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teacher qualification examination began to meet the academic standards, planning to apply for a higher level of teacher qualification of social personnel and ordinary college graduates, normal students, and non-normal students alike. With the increase in the number of teachers, the quality of teachers in the examination-oriented certification system has many problems. Therefore, the state began to promote the regular registration of teachers and carry out continuous monitoring of the quality of teachers. In the past two years, teachers have also begun to pay attention to the problem of normal university students to restore the qualification of exemption from examinations. On teachers’ qualification management, the party and state clearly realize that the construction of teachers’ qualification system is not once and for all engineering, must insist on the same frequency with the development of the society, teachers must constantly improve the new quality to satisfy the needs of the development of modern education and the new requirements, timely update and perfect the management mechanism of teachers’ qualification. Second, we grasped the key issues and made all-out efforts to advance and solve them. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the management of teacher qualifications has been committed to improving the quality of teachers. The first step is to improve the quality of first-time certified teachers through a national teacher certification test. In addition, the government will continue to monitor the quality of teachers by promoting a regular teacher registration system and abolishing the lifetime teacher qualification system. In the past two years, we have restored the exemption of examination for normal university students so that normal university students do not have to return to the starting line, and at the same time, it is not a copy of history but strives to balance the relationship between teacher education and teacher qualification examination through a number of requirements and improve the teacher’s normal nature and overall quality. Third, there is a trend from centralization to decentralization in the management subject. For personnel to the society before 2009 and in-service teachers’ qualification exam is a national teachers’ qualification examination to determine the outline, the provincial education administrative department is in charge of proposition and organize the implementation of the test, in the qualification stage through an exemption tested education teaching ability and teaching demonstration, standard and method to be determined by the provincial administrative department of education, the education administrative departments at the county level are responsible for the implementation. The qualified line of written examination shall be determined by the provincial educational administrative department, and the qualified line of interview shall be determined by the county educational administrative department. The Interim Measures for Primary and Secondary School Teacher Qualification Examination promulgated in 2012 is the professional standards, examination (written and interview) standards, and outline issued by the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Education Examination Center is responsible for organizing unified questions and demarcating passing lines, while provincial administrative departments organize written tests and interviews. The passing line of the written examination is determined by the state; the qualified line of the interview shall be determined by the provincial educational administrative department. In terms of proposition and demarcation of qualification line, the power and responsibility are moved up to an

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administrative unit level, and normal university students and non-normal university students are required to participate in the exam equally, which has obvious characteristics of receiving power. In the past two years, the central government has delegated some of the authorities of teachers’ qualifications to colleges and universities, and the central government only plays the role of supervision and implementation. In this change, the management of teacher qualification appears to be a characteristic of decentralization (Chen & Yu, 2015; Zhang, 2015).

8.3 Challenges and Problems in Practice Teacher qualification management includes teacher qualification standard management, teacher qualification certificate management, and teacher qualification certification management. Certification includes the initial certification and on-the-job certification. The form of initial certification includes the application system and the examination system. Since 2011, China has gradually pushed out the national unified examination system. The promulgation of standards requires legal protection, policy guidance, operational procedures, and the protection of specialized institutions.

8.3.1 Teacher Qualification Standards Do not Adapt to the Development of the Times The design of teacher qualification standards includes academic standards, practical requirements, and many other aspects. At present, the teacher qualification standard in China is low, and relatively many people pass the teacher qualification examination every year, which leads to the low value of teacher qualification certificates and low social recognition. In addition, students who are not normal major can teach in schools directly by passing the national teacher qualification examination without systematic teacher education training and learning. The teacher qualification standard does not require the applicant’s normal education and educational practice, which is not conducive to the professional development of teachers and the development of education in China. Teachers’ long-term involvement in teaching work requires the support of professional feelings and continuous enthusiasm. These are not things that can be acquired through a short period of training and self-learning. Normal universities and normal majors are oriented toward the cultivation of qualified teachers in the future because of their school-running objectives, training objectives, professional structure, and curriculum system, and they pay attention to the creation of an environmental atmosphere and the development of hidden courses. Only in the long term can they be transformed into the professional feelings and personality qualities of normal university students. In short, with the development of The Times, the “Regulations on Teacher qualifications” issued in 1995 has been inconsistent with

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the reality of education in China. The criteria for teacher qualifications need to be redesigned.

8.3.2 The Enthusiasm of Normal University Students to Be Exempted from Examinations Needs to Be Improved The practice of including normal university students in the examination scope and “one examination decides the outcome” weakens the uniqueness of teacher education and damages the status of teacher education in the public mind. The return of the system of certifying teachers’ qualifications without examination shows that our country attaches importance to and recognizes the specialty of teacher education. However, the current examination exemption for normal university students may lead to the phenomenon of formalization in the examination of education and teaching ability because universities are unwilling to organize the examination of education and teaching ability of normal university students and acquiesce in the examination of national unified examination of normal university students. In fact, the exemption of normal university students is equivalent to transferring part of the task of teacher management from central and local administrative departments to universities. When normal university students participate in the unified national teacher qualification examination, the organization and management of the examination are mainly responsible for the local administrative departments. The examination bears the main cost of the examination. When students exemption that enforcement mechanism, on the one hand, colleges and universities to develop work plan, distribution of manpower, material resources, on the other hand, it may seem to have more rights of colleges and universities but failed to establish in this security system and support system, under the condition of colleges and universities undertake various statistics, even make declaration to the administrative department of the central. Therefore, in the early stage of normal university students’ exemption from examinations, colleges and universities may be reluctant to organize normal university students’ exemption from examinations, and their enthusiasm for participation is not high.

8.3.3 Teacher Qualification Examination Shapes the Teaching Ability of Sham Education The teacher qualification examination in our country adopts the combination of written examination and exemption from examination, focusing on the examination of professional knowledge and teaching design ability. Such an examination design has a certain reality and rationality, but it easily leads to the test-oriented tendency of teacher qualification examination. Socially exist in teachers’ qualification training institutions for relevant exam content targeted, utilitarian test preparation, increase

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as the number of students into the short-term training courses, short-term training courses to develop the so-called their teachers’ education concept to a certain extent replace the legitimacy and voice in the field of teacher education, causing the dissimilation of the teachers’ qualification exam and harm on the quality of teachers, especially in weak areas. The current national teacher qualification examination has shaped a kind of “pseudo-education teaching ability”. “Pseudo-education teaching ability” cannot help the applicant for teacher qualification to solve the education and teaching problems, but it can help the applicant to pass the national qualification examination (Chen, 2008; Chen & Yu, 2015; Jin & Lin, 2013; Liu & Sun, 2017; Liu & Yu, 2018; Wan, 2014; Zhang, 2015).

8.3.4 Regular Registration of Teachers’ Qualifications Has not Been Effective The lifetime teacher qualification system cannot make up for the limitation of the initial teacher qualification identification, which ignores the law of teacher professional development and is not conducive to the management and supervision of in-service teachers. The teacher qualification should not have admittance but also should have development. Since 2012, China has started to implement a regular registration system for teacher qualifications, but it has not been effective. The periodic registration system is “highly promoted” in media publicity, but it is “gently dropped” in the implementation process, and there are formalization problems in the registration process. There are some problems in the regular registration system of teacher qualifications. For example, the unification of the management of primary and secondary school qualification registration of the number of years and the registration time is relatively solidified and should be done every five years. However, registration every five years does not conform to the law of professional development of teachers. For some specialist teachers, registering every five years is cumbersome and unnecessary. For some novice teachers, five years is too long to respond well to the development of teachers. In addition, in the implementation of the teacher qualification registration, the provinces and cities try to grasp the scale loosely and make relaxed requirements for the annual training hours and the scope of identification. The main body of the assessment is the local education administrative department, with little participation of parents and students. To pursue the stability of teachers, the educational administrative department must pursue flexible management in the implementation process.

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8.3.5 A Single Administrative Body for Teacher Qualifications At present, the central and local educational administrative departments are responsible for the management of teachers’ qualifications. Professional teams rarely intervene and play a minor role. Its education administrative department has limited personnel, so it is difficult to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of teachers in its jurisdiction, and it is difficult to master the professional development characteristics of teachers in different disciplines. Therefore, it is difficult to be professional and effective in teacher qualification management. In addition, a country’s teacher certification agency and training agency cannot be part of the same department. However, these two institutions belong to the educational administrative department, which is not conducive to the objectivity and authenticity of teacher certification. In recent years, China attaches great importance to the construction of vocational education teachers, and various colleges and universities around the country have carried out extensive practice. The cultivation of “double-qualified” teachers has become the main goal of the construction of vocational education teachers. However, many theoretical issues behind teacher policy still need to be further clarified and further studied.

8.3.6 Policy Objectives Need to Be Further Clarified For example, what is a “double-qualified” teacher? This is the logical starting point and the core concept of the “double-qualified” teacher policy. At present, “double certificate”, “double professional title”, “double identity”, “double quality”, and other views are different, the standards are different, and the lack of evaluation indicators has not established a set of perfect qualification certification systems. The weakness of theory research leads to the chaos of policy practice standards after landing. Some colleges and universities adopt “double certificates” that “double type” teachers, although the feasibility is stronger, our appraisal system of professional qualification certificate system is still imperfect in that teachers of “double certificates” don’t have “double quality”, making the “double type” teachers a misfit. Some provinces and universities, such as Guangxi, Henan, Anhui, Jiangxi, Chongqing, and Lanzhou Petrochemical Vocational and Technical College, have formulated relatively perfect standards for the identification of “double-qualified” teachers. However, due to the lack of national standards, the standards of “double-qualified” in provinces, cities, and colleges are uneven and inconsistent. This will lead to confusion and difficulties in practice for the professional guidance of teachers and the establishment of a “double-qualified” teacher certification system at the national level. Policy content needs to be further improved. Training and teacher management are important parts of the construction of a “double-qualified” teacher team system. At present, the

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training system of “double-qualified” teachers is relatively perfect, but the management system is weak. First, the assessment mechanism is not sound. The assessment and evaluation of “double-qualified” teachers in vocational colleges attach great importance to admission, less importance to withdrawal, more importance to result management, and less importance to process evaluation. “Double-qualified” teachers, once identified, will no longer carry out a dynamic assessment and lack an exit mechanism. Second, the incentive and restraint mechanism is not sound. The incentive measures of the existing policies for teachers to be certified as “double-qualified” are not strong, “mandatory” and lack of concrete implementation measures. Lacking of restrictive measures, “double teacher” has not been a hard evaluation index of teachers. Thirdly, in the evaluation of teachers’ professional titles, theoretical scientific research ability is given more importance than technical application and transformation ability, and teachers’ technical certificates, project development, cooperative achievements and practical experience are given too little weight in the evaluation indicators. “Double teacher quality” is not a guide for promoting teachers’ professional growth. Policy supervision needs to be further implemented. Enforcement supervision is an important means and guarantee for the effective realization of policy objectives. Over the past 10 years, there have been more than 20 policies related to vocational education teachers at the national level, which the government attaches great importance to, and policies are frequently introduced. However, due to the lack of effective supervision and evaluation of policy implementation, many good policies and measures have not been implemented. Ministries and commissions such as the State Council and the Ministry of Education explicitly asked to strictly enforce the teachers’ qualification regulations, such as the related work experience and professional ability as the entry requirements of the new professional class teacher. But because of lack of regulation, new teachers in vocational colleges are still given priority to fresh graduates, making it difficult to meet the demand of the practice teaching.

8.3.7 Institutional Support Needs to Be Further Improved As an education system, the smooth operation of “double-qualified” teachers not only depends on the scientific construction of the internal system of education but also needs the support of a sound personnel system, salary system, and social security system. Otherwise, policies will be inefficient or invalid due to “insufficient system supply”. For example, in the incentive policy for “double-qualified” teachers, it is emphasized that performance-based salary is inclined to “double-qualified” teachers. However, vocational colleges do not have the autonomy of salary payment, making this incentive policy difficult to implement. Again, for example, “measures for the management of part-time teachers’ vocational school” regulated that “enterprises and institutions shall support with the practical experience of professional and technical personnel and skilled personnel to teach at vocational schools part-time, among

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them, the institution should be part-time recognition teaching situation as an important content of the evaluation”, but the “management method” by the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance, people club department, state-owned assets supervision, and administration departments jointly issued, without the participation of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which has direct binding force on enterprises, enterprises have little incentive to support high-level technical talents to teach in vocational schools. In particular, the technical talents that vocational colleges want to employ are the technical backbone of enterprises, who are busy with their work. From the perspective of enterprises themselves, enterprises do not want them to take part-time jobs. In addition, due to the lack of institutional constraints on enterprises, enterprises do not have the enthusiasm to train “double-qualified” teachers with vocational colleges. It is necessary to strengthen the top-level design of the policy of “double-qualified” teachers and improve the policy system of “double-qualified” teachers by clarifying policy standards, perfecting policy text, strengthening policy implementation, and optimizing the institutional environment. Teacher professional standards are an important basis for the construction of a “double-qualified” teacher team system in vocational colleges and an important measure to promote the professional development of teachers in vocational colleges. It is necessary to scientifically establish a three-dimensional system of “doublequalified” teachers’ professional standards and qualification certification systems. First, horizontally, to ensure the diversification of the subjects of professional standard formulation and qualification certification of “double-qualified” teachers and establish a standard formulation and qualification certification group composed of education administrative departments, industries, enterprises, and colleges. The second is to establish professional and qualification certification standards for national and provincial (municipal) teachers. Vocational colleges with mature conditions can establish school-level standards. Among them, the national standard focuses on solving the problems of universality, constraint, and operability of the standard and formulates the minimum quality standard for “double-qualified” teachers through a scientific index system. The provincial (municipal) level is considered as the standard of regional characteristics, based on national standards, focusing on the area of the location advantage, industrial structure, economic development level, and technical conditions, such as establishing the province (city) level of “double type” teachers’ professional and certification standards to reflect regional characteristics, thus to promote vocational colleges’ better service for regional economic development. High-level vocational colleges with mature conditions can comprehensively consider the development stage and specialty layout of the college and formulate college standards that conform to the long-term development plan of the college based on national and provincial (municipal) standards. Three is vertical, and corresponding to the current title evaluation system, the hierarchical level sets “double type” teachers’ professional and qualification standards, such as Guangxi, Anhui’s standards of “double type” teachers, according to the requirements for teacher education teaching and professional practice ability step by step of lift set as primary, intermediate, advanced, and three levels. It plays a good role in promoting the

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professional growth of “double-qualified” teachers from the primary to the senior level. Then, through the three-dimensional system of “double-qualified” teachers’ profession and certification qualification standards, the system of “double-qualified” teachers’ qualification certification in China is established and improved. Establish a policy system for part-time teachers. It focuses on how to certify the teacher qualification of part-time teachers and how to stipulate the rights and obligations of part-time teachers. While ensuring meeting the requirements of vocational education development, the particularity of part-time teachers and their own development needs are also considered in the horizontal construction of policy groups. For part-time teacher policies, the formulation of employment policies and management assessment systems for part-time teachers belongs to feedforward control. To ensure the implementation of policy documents and practical benefits, the guarantee mechanism refers not only to financial support but also, more importantly, to the improvement of law enforcement, supervision mechanisms, and policy evaluation systems. Throughout the past documents, the central financial support can’t meet the actual demand and the funds of part-time teacher funds is mainly supported by the local government and vocational colleges. “On the opinions of implementation of the plan to improve the quality of teachers in vocational colleges of opinions” clearly emphasized to strengthen the guidance and inspection of work, which shows that the real work of employment and management of part-time teachers that do not have adequate supervision mechanism and social public opinion environment. Failure to ensure the effectiveness of policies will inevitably result in a substantial discount in actual work. In addition, it should also be noted that the key reason for the current difficulties in the management of part-time teachers is that the policies have not been implemented or the policies are inconsistent with the actual environmental needs. To solve the real problem, should we rebuild the policy, or should we blame the insufficient cognition of the policy in vocational colleges? These are the first things that should be made clear when formulating policies. Therefore, it is necessary to rely on the mechanism of law enforcement and supervision to give full feedback on the implementation of the policy and the coincidence between the ideal preset of the feedback policy and the real environment. It is necessary to construct a scientific and reasonable policy for part-time teachers and build a policy system and guarantee mechanism for part-time teachers. As the main source of part-time teachers, the industry and enterprises have the responsibility to provide convenience for vocational colleges to employ part-time teachers, which is not only conducive to deepening industry-university cooperation but also to improving the overall education quality of vocational colleges so that enterprises and institutions benefit from the talents trained by vocational colleges. In addition, for the policy of part-time teachers focusing on funding, policy tends to emphasize the government and vocational colleges as the main undertaker. Although there are individual files advocates of an enterprise, the government and vocational colleges as the main input mechanism, actually because of government financial pressure and vocational colleges continued demand for construction funds, there is an urgent need for enterprise investment. Therefore, the construction of a part-time teacher policy should highlight the responsibility of the industry and enterprises. To stimulate the participation

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motivation of industries and enterprises, policies should also protect their rights in the field of vocational education and economic development, such as participating in the decision-making of vocational education and supervising the implementation of policies, which will be a major innovation in the policy construction of part-time teachers. Improve the construction of the teacher management system and the policy system of “double-qualified” teachers. Management is soft productivity, and effective management is an important guarantee for the construction of a “doublequalified” teacher team system. While constantly improving the training system of “double-qualified” teachers, we should strengthen the construction of teacher management systems and improve the policy content system of “double-qualified” teachers. First, establish a development-oriented assessment and evaluation system. According to the different stages of the professional development of “doublequalified” teachers, assessment standards are set at different levels to promote the professional development of teachers through target motivation. At the same time, a system of annual examination and registration, merit-based promotion, and dynamic adjustment for “double-qualified” teachers’ qualifications was established. Doublequalified teachers will be certified and reviewed every five years. Teachers with outstanding achievements in education, teaching, professional practice, and business contribution will be upgraded according to “professional standards” and will enjoy priority in overseas training and promotion of professional titles. Teachers who no longer meet the “dual teacher” certification criteria of this level will be demoted or canceled. Second, we should combine material and spiritual incentives to improve the incentive mechanism. On the one hand, we should implement the post treatment of “double-qualified” teachers and give preference to “double-qualified” teachers in terms of job promotion, class remuneration performance, post treatment and overseas training. In the evaluation of professional titles, in addition to professional and scientific research ability, the evaluation criteria are inclined to application technology and practical operation ability so as to mobilize the initiative and enthusiasm of teachers to develop “double-qualified”. “Double-qualified” teachers with outstanding teaching achievements, fruitful scientific research achievements, outstanding practical skills, and strong social service ability will be awarded the honorary titles of excellent teacher, vocational Education Master, and skill Master and will be preferred candidates in the construction of “double-qualified” studio for famous teachers. So it is necessary to construct the “double teacher” teacher incentive system covering salary, social status, industry influence, and so on. Further strengthening the application of policy tools for improving the quality of local vocational education teachers. A single policy cannot solve the needs of different areas of teacher management. Different policy environments pose new challenges to the training of vocational college teachers in the whole country. The administrative departments of education at all levels from the state to the local should attach importance to the appropriateness of the teacher development policy in the process of constructing the policy support system. The promulgation of local policies is the product of their combination with specific situations. It highlights the innovative implementation of provincial policies based on the specific conditions of

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their own regions and the establishment of policy support systems from the state to the local level, rather than mechanically applying documents at the national level. We should realize the local government’s overall planning and rational distribution of local resources. According to the overall planning objectives of local economic construction and social development, and make planned and targeted implementation of every policy on vocational education teachers. Establishment in college and university management is given priority. The local government should give macroeconomic regulation and control to the policy support system, appropriately join the enterprise in the power industry to participate in training management, arouse the enthusiasm of the policy target group, coordinate policy landing of various functional departments, and eventually, closely combine the vocational college’s teacher training and with the local development, thus realizing the benign development of the vocational education teacher training policy. We will continue to build a professional quality improvement system for modern vocational education teachers in China.

8.4 Countermeasures and Suggestions for Challenges and Problems 8.4.1 Redesign Teacher Qualification Standards to Respond to the Development of the Times First, practice requirements or teacher education experience should be added to limit the teacher’s ability of applicants. Teacher qualification is the bottom-line requirement for teachers. The bottom line should be a moral bottom line and a developmental bottom line. Those things important and difficult to shake and obtain later should be added in the teacher qualification standards. Not all people can adhere to teaching or enjoy teaching. Teachers represent a kind of temperament, happy learning, and happy teaching. “Teachers need to have their own unique and full of integrity of high standards of professional accomplishment, including that the concept of education, structure and content are special knowledge and skill accomplishment, including communication, management and other professional work ability and creativity necessary for engaging in education”. It is not enough to have some subject knowledge and the ability to manage students to become a teacher. Each industry has its own spiritual temperament and professional characteristics. This kind of temperament may require long-term immersion of normal education and is by no means quick. “Highquality teachers are made, not tested”. Therefore, the admittance conditions of teacher qualification should clearly stipulate that the non-teacher professional examination must receive at least the necessary teacher education training or participate in the necessary education practice for a long time before taking part in the teacher qualification examination. Secondly, to improve the standards of teachers’ qualifications should be improved according to local conditions. “Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and The State Council on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of

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Teacher Team Construction in the New Era” points out that gradually upgrade the education of kindergarten teachers to junior college, compulsory education teachers to undergraduate, ordinary high school teachers to graduate. At the same time, the revision of teachers’ law will also “improve the professional entry qualifications and ability standards of teachers” as the focus of the revision. In addition, China’s higher education has entered the stage of popularization. In 2020, the number of college graduates in China was 8.74 million, and nearly 5 million graduates had a bachelor’s degree or above, accounting for 57% of the total number. From the overall scale of undergraduate graduates and the long-term development of education, it can be considered to raise the baseline educational requirements for teachers’ qualifications to the level of undergraduate education in a timely manner (Chen, 2008; Chen & Yu, 2015; Jin & Lin, 2013; Liu & Sun, 2017; Liu & Yu, 2018; Wan, 2014; Zhang, 2015).

8.4.2 Improve the Examination Exemption Mechanism for Normal University Students and Mobilize the Enthusiasm of Colleges and Universities Since 2020, the examination exemption certification for normal university students has been carried out in an all-around way, and the first batch of normal university students and graduate students of education are participating in the examination exemption certification for normal university students. In early 2022, the Ministry of Education issued a document, which further expanded the scope of examination exemption for normal university students. When the responsibility of teacher qualification is transferred to colleges and universities, their resources should be strengthened. At the same time, because colleges and universities assume the dual functions of teacher training and teacher qualification certification and the public normal university students themselves have “rice bowl” security, some colleges and universities may lack effective supervision and thus reduce the quality of talent training. Some scholars have found after the investigation of three normal colleges in the east, west, and midst of China that the examination of students for master’s degree in education is too loose in the training process, and the quality of the graduation thesis is not good. Therefore, while strengthening resource security, it is also very important to establish relevant mechanisms to supervise colleges and universities that implement the exemption certification. For example, inter-school supervision and third-party “education qualification committee” supervision can be considered. The central education administrative department should also supervise the behavior of the examination exemption recognition of colleges and universities and dynamically adjust the list of colleges and universities for the examination exemption recognition of normal university students.

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8.4.3 Standardize the Teacher Qualification Examination and Respond to the Professional Characteristics of Teachers From the perspective of teachers’ work characteristics. Teachers’ work is characterized by presence, uncertainty, and value. Teachers’ qualifications cannot be identified only by the standards and indicators stipulated in the system but also need a more situational, open, and flexible mechanism to identify and cultivate teachers’ professional development. The investigation of these contents must be adjusted in the whole teacher qualification examination and teacher qualification process management should be effectively implemented. (1) In view of the current situation that the content of the written examination is too narrow in China, it is necessary to broaden the subjects and content of the written examination, optimize the content of the teacher qualification examination, and pay more attention to the applicants’ ability to solve the problems of education and teaching and the comprehensive application of knowledge, and to explore various flexible assessment methods. The types of written examination questions should not only be limited to multiple choice questions, judgment questions, concept questions, discrimination questions, etc., but should also be selected according to the actual situation by solving the problems found in education. More emphasis was placed on teachers’ feelings and ethics. For example, the investigation of the applicant’s education and teaching life history and specific practice can be increased in the interview, which should be measured by field investigation and file transfer, especially through the interviews with relevant units such as streets and communities, and the teacher’s morality is voted on by one vote. Teachers’ psychological quality and mental health status have a lasting and stable influence on long-term teaching. Therefore, it can be considered to list teacher quality as an independent item, set up a mental health review team for mental health testing, and verify it through mental health archives, family history, and other aspects. Finally, the exact conclusion of mental health can be carefully drawn. (2) Standardize teacher qualification examination procedures. The interview content of teacher qualification mainly included trial lectures and structured interviews. The length of teacher qualification interviews in China is generally 40 min, but in practice, it is only approximately 20 min. The format of international interviews will be more reasonable. Interviews for teaching qualifications in South Korea last approximately 130 min and focus on in-depth communication and testing of practical skills. Optimize the staff structure of the interviewers. At present, the examiners of teacher qualification are usually excellent teachers in local primary and secondary schools, and the structure is relatively simple. Such examiner personnel composition has obvious limitations, and teachers pay more attention to the performance of teachers in the trial lecture. A team of examiners formed by teachers alone cannot carry out comprehensive and multidimensional professional evaluations of applicants. Therefore, we should actively recruit educational researchers, curriculum experts, excellent teaching and research staff, and other candidates to optimize the structure of interview and assessment

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personnel, so as to provide a good evaluation guarantee for scientific and standardized evaluation of the professional orientation, value identity, basic literacy, and teaching ability of the applicants for teacher qualifications. (3) Establish a teacher probation mechanism and dynamic teacher qualification management mechanism to observe teachers’ education and teaching in real scenes. According to the law of teacher professional development, it is impossible for a teacher to complete the development before entering the job, and a person’s ability and accomplishment will be shown differently with the passage of time and the change of the environment. Therefore, it is of great value to establish the probation mechanism of teachers and the continuous management mechanism of teachers’ qualifications (Chen, 2008; Chen & Yu, 2015; Liu & Yu, 2018; Wan, 2014; Zhang, 2015).

8.4.4 Improve the Regular Registration System and Make It Effective At present, the regular registration system of teacher qualification is not yet perfect, and the change in the system brings some risks to stakeholders such as teachers, local administrative departments, parents, and students. On the one hand, the teacher qualification system itself must be improved. Specifically, one is to adjust the registration time. The regular registration system of teacher qualification should be designed flexibly according to the theory of teacher professional growth and the law of teacher growth. For example, incremental time management can be used to implement flexible management for 3–5 years. In primary and secondary schools, the registration cycles for new teachers, secondary and tertiary teachers, and high above teachers are 2, 4, and 6 years, respectively. Those whose teaching experience is more than 25 years or who registered qualified five consecutive or with honorary title at or above the provincial level do not need to be registered on a regular basis. Second, we need to establish and improve assessment methods. At present, it is stipulated that the education administrative department is the subject of teachers’ regular registration, but in fact, many contents of teachers’ work cannot be directly understood and evaluated by the education administrative department, such as the question of ethics. Therefore, it is more necessary to encourage multiple subjects to participate in the evaluation and assessment of teachers and encourage schools, schools, parents, and other teachers to participate in the assessment and evaluation of teachers’ regular registration. Third, the teacher withdrawal mechanism should be improved. First, we should pay attention to the assessment of the professional skills of registered teachers and avoid unqualified personnel occupying the teaching staff so that more excellent young people are involved in education. Second, it is necessary to determine the reality of teachers who hold teacher certificates but do not teach for a long time and teachers who have transferred to other jobs, timely investigate, process, and cancel their qualification certificates, and build more platforms for excellent teachers who hold teacher certificates and are willing to teach. The third is to seriously deal with

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teachers’ moral anomie, and once verified, immediately clear out the line of teachers. On the other hand, publicity, guidance, and supervision should be strengthened in specific implementations. First, the regular registration system of teacher qualifications breaks the traditional idea that teachers are “iron rice bowl”. Therefore, it is necessary to do a good job in policy publicity so that the public realizes that to do a good job as a teacher requires lifelong learning and constant adapting to the changes in the times and the development needs of students. The strict implementation of the regular registration system for teachers may affect the attractiveness of the teaching profession, but it is beneficial to the construction of teachers in the long run. On the one hand, it stimulates the professional development of in-service teachers, and at the same time, it reduces the number of people who are unwilling to lifelong learn to enter the teaching force. Second, we need to strengthen supervision and management at the national level. We need to supervise provinces to formulate detailed work plans in light of local conditions, make detailed arrangements for schools and teachers, and ensure that the work is implemented. In addition, it is necessary to strengthen the supervision and management of administrative powers, investigate the cases of fraud and favoritism, and ensure that the registration results are true and effective (Chen, 2008; Chen & Yu, 2015; Jin & Lin, 2013; Liu & Sun, 2017; Liu & Yu, 2018; Wan, 2014; Zhang, 2015).

8.4.5 Encouraging Third-Party Institutions to Participate in the Management of Teacher Qualifications In order to ensure the objectivity and authenticity of teachers’ qualifications, a thirdparty should be introduced to evaluate them. Professional third-party registration has the characteristics of professionalism, specialization, independence, non-profit, and extensive supervision. Some foreign practices are worth learning from. For example, in Japan, teacher certification institutions and training institutions have a clear division of labor and are independent of each other. Education committees at all levels are responsible for the certification work, while universities approved by the Ministry of Education are responsible for the training. Another example is that the existing teacher certification institutions in the United States are jointly responsible by official administrative agencies and intermediary non-profit organizations, and the latter has become the main teacher certification institution in the United States. This approach can ensure the fairness and objectivity of the whole accreditation process because there is no interest involved and more effectively select outstanding talent to enrich the teaching team []. In view of this, China should consider to be advanced with the times to strengthen the refinement of the responsibilities and functional authority of the teacher qualification accreditation bodies, fully delegate the accreditation rights, give full play to the role of the expert committees such as the “Teacher qualification Accreditation Committee”, and make the expert committees fully responsible for the examination, identification, and management of teacher qualifications. Ensure the

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fairness of the whole accreditation process. The educational qualification management body shall be composed of the educational administrative department and expert groups such as the “teacher qualification Committee”. Education experts are mainly responsible for the assessment of applicants’ education and teaching ability and the regular evaluation of in-service teachers’ education and teaching. The personnel of the administrative department of education are responsible for the formulation of rules and regulations for the accreditation of teachers (Chen, 2008; Chen & Yu, 2015; Jin & Lin, 2013; Liu & Sun, 2017; Liu & Yu, 2018; Wan, 2014; Zhang, 2015).

References Chen. (2008). Reflection and reconstruction of teacher qualification system. Educational Development Research, 20(Z4), 42–45. Chen, S., & Yu, R. (2015). Review and prospect of China’s primary and secondary school teacher qualification examination system. Curriculum. Teaching Materials. Teaching Method, 35(04), 98–104. Jin, D., & Lin, H. (2013). The realistic dilemma and path choice of the construction of teacher qualification system in China. Education and Occupation, 20(05), 18–21. Liu, H., & Sun, J. (2017). Historical changes in the teacher qualification system in China. Modern Education Science, 20(07), 113–118. Liu, T., & Yu, X. (2018). Integration of examination and education: The experience and enlightenment of the reform of primary and secondary school teacher qualification system in Taiwan. Teacher Education Research, 30(05), 111–116. Wan, Z. (2014). Comparison of teacher qualification system between the United States and Japan and its enlightenment to China. Education Exploration, 20(02), 151–152. Zhang, L. (2015). Reflection on the ability of “fake education teaching ability” to pass the national teacher qualification examination. Journal of Education, 11(03), 46–52.