Rethinking Schooling for the 21st Century

In the case of China, the clash between the curricular espousal of autonomy and
creativity on the one hand, and structures for governing the teaching profession
on the other, is especially stark. While the rigour with which political conformity
is enforced has varied considerably from place to place and over time — with
teachers in ‘elite’ schools in ‘advanced’ areas (such as those investigated by Ye
in Shenzhen) typically granted greater latitude — the framework of control is allpervasive.
This begins with teachers’ own socialisation as youngsters, including
their tertiary education and pre-service training: compulsory ideological/
political education for students in ‘normal’ (i.e. teacher-training) institutions is
particularly stringent (Yan, 2014; Chang, 2015). Systems for teachers’ subsequent
professional development are often elaborate and impressive, especially in
major cities, but these perform the dual function of supporting and monitoring.
Meanwhile, teachers are subjected to constant, high-stakes assessment of their
own performance, to determine decisions over contract renewal, promotions,
salary increments or the allocation of prestigious tasks such as teaching
examination classes (see Vickers and Zeng, 2017, Chapter 7). Such performance
monitoring involves a mixture of quantitative metrics (chiefly students’
examination results) and more qualitative personnel reports. But the insecurity
and intense pressure that these measures imply tends to militate against a sense
of autonomous professionalism.
While China’s ‘democratic centralism’ implies strong constraints on teacher
autonomy, the pursuit of tighter official control over the profession has
also been a feature of Japanese policy in recent years. When the Basic Act of
Education 25 was revised in 2006, a reference to the fostering of ‘independent
spirit’ was downgraded from Article 1 to Article 2.2, where ‘a spirit of autonomy
and independence’ was tied to ‘emphasising the relationship between one’s
career and one’s everyday life and fostering the value of respect for hard work’.
Meanwhile, in Article 9, on ‘Teachers’, a new reference was inserted to the ‘noble
mission’ (suko na shimei) of teachers (officially translated as ‘the exalted nature
of their calling’), linked to an obligation to ‘continuously devote themselves to
research and self-improvement’ (see also McNeill and Lebowitz, 2007). Further
revisions (in 2007) both to the School Education Law and to the Education
Personnel Certification Law tightened administrative and managerial control
over the teaching profession, requiring teachers to renew their licenses every
ten years and undergo compulsory in-service training for this purpose. This was
justified with reference to the obligation to pursue ‘self-improvement’ enshrined
in the revised Act, as well as to managerialist notions of ‘accountability’ and
‘quality assurance’ — also increasingly invoked in China and Korea (on Korea, see
Kang, 2016 and Sung, 2016).
Notwithstanding rhetorical affirmations of the importance and ‘exalted’ status of
teachers, constraints on their professional autonomy are thus relatively stringent
25 The official translation of 教 育 基 本 法 is the ‘Basic Act of Education’, but it is also translated
as the ‘Fundamental Law of Education’.
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Chapter 3: East Asia