Changes and Challenges in China’s New National School Science Curriculum

Gao Lingbiao

South China Normal University

The Newly Curriculum Reform in China

Basic education in China is now experiencing great changes arose by the curriculum reform started at 2001. This new school curriculum promotes changes in various aspects:

1.    The MOE[1] used to publish a syllabus to list all the contents and to explain the ideology and strategy of teaching and learning. It did not describe the objectives of teaching and learning. A set of new curriculum standards was published in 2001 for compulsory curriculum and 2004 for senior secondary curriculum. It mentioned the nature and value of the set course, explained the principles and described the process of course development. It described the structure and general goals of the course, and objectives of every teaching-learning point from three aspects: a) knowledge and skills, b) process and strategies and, c) affection, attitude and value. In this way, the new curriculum changed the aims and objectives of school curriculum from focusing narrowly on knowledge delivery and skills training to a wide range development of students. Suggestions on textbook editing, teaching-learning strategies, evaluation and resources development were also included in this document.

2.    The previous school curriculum was consisted of three independent circles to fit the needs of children who leaved schools at different levels: primary, junior secondary and senior secondary. With the implementation of nine-year compulsory education policy, more than 90 per cent of school age boys and girls are now expected to have 9 year schooling[2]. Under this context, the new national curriculum is consisted of two correlative parts: compulsory and senior secondary curriculum.

The structure of the compulsory curriculum does not change. Nine major courses are included in the primary curriculum. They are: Chinese, mathematics, morality & life/society, science, foreign language, physical training & health education, music/painting/art, and, practical activities. Two types of junior secondary curriculum are developed for schools. There are 14 subjects in the curriculum if a school chooses to run separated subject courses. The name of these subjects are: Chinese, mathematics, foreign language, morality & ideology, physics, chemistry, biology, history, geography, physical training and health education, music, painting, and practical activities. If a school chooses integrated courses, then, physics, chemistry and biology are integrated into science, history and geography are integrated into history & society, music and painting are integrated into art. Thus the number of courses decreases to 10.

A field-subject-module structure is used to build the senior secondary curriculum. On the top of the new structure are 8 learning fields: language & literature, mathematics, cultural & social studies, science, technology, art, physical & health education, and, practical activities. Each field includes a few subjects, so there are 16 subjects in the curriculum: Chinese, foreign languages, mathematics, politics, history, geography, physics, chemistry, biology, information technology, general technology, music/art, painting/art, physical training & health education, project learning, and, community service. A subject is consisted of a number of learning modules. There are 155 modules totally in the curriculum. Among them 62 modules are obligatory, others are elective. A student needs to finish at least 144 credits (2 credits for a module except the art module which is 1 credit for a module) for graduation.

3.    China used to have a very rigid school scheme full of central developed courses. All schools in China needed to follow this scheme strictly. There is flexibility in the new curriculum in terms that schools can now decide the distribution of time among different courses. They can cut down a small percentage of time scheduled for a course and add to another. They can decrease the time of the national-developed courses thus leave rooms for the school-based courses developed by their own.

4.    There was only one set of textbooks which was developed by the central educational authority and published by the People’s Educational Press for all schools over China twenty years ago. In the past two decades, this situation changed gradually and a number of textbooks developed by local educational authorities were allowed to use locally. A new policy is applied accompany with the implementation of the new curriculum. All qualified publishers are now allowed to develop and publish school textbooks for the country in case that they could pass the examination organised by MOE. Now, there are about 175 sets of school textbooks published by 68 publishers passed the examination and allowed to use in schools over China.

5.    The new curriculum aims at the development of student abilities of acquiring information, analysing, problem-solving, communicating, and cooperating. It expects changes in students’ approaches to learning from a passive perception to active enquiring, more open and co-operative learning. Teachers are expected to facilitate students to master learning strategies and to develop their own style of learning. They are requested to change their conceptions of and approaches to teaching towards a more interactive style, to organize more activities and experiments in order to create a proper environment in which students could learn by independent enquiry and through cooperative groups. Application of multi-media facilitations and information techniques in classrooms are encouraged. Teachers are also encouraged to develop their own resources for teaching and learning.

6.    A new evaluation system will be setting up accompany with the new curriculum. It aims at facilitating students’ all round development rather than focusing sharply on knowledge recalling and lower order thinking skills as in the past. It will be more friendly and promotive in terms that students can play a more active role within the system. Both external and internal evaluation such as self-evaluation and peer-evaluation will be used. They focus not only the quantity but also the quality of student achievements as well as their attitude and strategies to learning. Both formative and summative assessments will be used in the evaluation. Varieties of techniques including qualitative techniques such as student portfolio, performance assessment, etc. will be adopted to evaluate the quality of student learning.

Changes in school science courses

Primary Level

Ÿ           Primary grade 3-6

Ÿ           An enlighten course:

n         Science in children’s everyday life: plain true and simple knowledge in science

n         Scientific process and method: think and behave like a scientist, enjoy scientific enquiry

n         STS

n         Interest, curiosity, attitude and value

Ÿ           Contents of the primary science

n         The Living World

n         Variety of life

n         Nature of living beings

n         Environment and life

n         Life & health

n         The Physical World

n         Objects & matter

n         Motion & forces

n         Energy

n         Earth & space

n         Earth

n         The earth’s movement & related phenomena

n         Planets in space

Ÿ           Junior secondary Level: Integrated Science or Physics/Chemistry/Biology

Ÿ           An introductive course:

n         Interest & curiosity in science

n         Attitude and value: harmonious

n         Basic knowledge & skills

n         Basic understanding of scientific process & methods

n         Ability of scientific enquiry

n         Solving everyday problems in scientific ways

n         Concepts of STS & substantial development

Ÿ           Contents of junior science

n         Life science

n         Life system

n         Metabolism of  organisms

n         Regulation of organisms

n         Succession & evolution of life

n         Human being, health & environment

n         Physical Science

n         Substance

n         Structure of matter

n         Motion & interaction of matter

n         Energy & resource

n         Earth & space science

n         The position of the earth in  space

n         The homeland of human being

n         The relationships between science, technology & society

n         History of science

n         Technical design

n         Important issues today

Ÿ           Contents of junior physics

n         Matter

u       States and transform of matter

u       Property of matter

u       Structure & size of matter

u       New materials & their application

u       Motion & interactions

u       Modes of motion

u       Mechanical movement & forces

u       Sound & light

u       Electricity & magnetism

n         Energy

u       Energy, transfer and transform of energy

u       Mechanical energy

u       Internal energy

u       Electric-magnetic energy

u       Conservation of energy

u       Resources of energy & substantial development 

Ÿ           Contents of junior chemistry

Ÿ           Contents of junior biology

n         Organization of organism

u       Cells: unit of organism

u       Classification & differentiation of cells

u       Organization of multicellular organism

n         Organisms & environment

u       Lives of living tings depend  on environment

u       Ecology system: the composition of environment & living things

u       Biosphere: the homeland of all living things

u       Green plants in biosphere

u       The life of green flowered flora

u       Water & inorganic salts: necessities of the  development of plants

u       Photosynthesis & respiration of plants

u       Importance of plants in biosphere

n         Human beings in biosphere

u       Foods from the environment

u       Human activities & energy supply

u       Excretion of wastage in human metabolism

u       Nerve & endocrine system: regulation of human activities

u       Human being is one of the members of biosphere

Senior secondary Level

Separated subject: Physics, Chemistry, Biology

Ÿ           Contemporary, fundamental, optional

Ÿ           Aimed at science literacy

Ÿ           Foundation of science

Ÿ           Interest & curiosity in science

Ÿ           Basic understanding of scientific process & methods

Ÿ           Ability in scientific enquiry, communication, problem solving, & creativities 

Ÿ           Scientific attitude & spirit  

Ÿ           STS & substantial development

Ÿ           Nature & value of science

Course structure of senior physics

Contents of senior physics

Ÿ           Common modules 1

Ÿ           Description of motion

Ÿ           Laws of motion & interaction

Ÿ           Common Module 2

Ÿ           Mechanical energy & resource

Ÿ           Projectile & circulate movement 

Ÿ           Contribution & limitation of traditional mechanics

Ÿ           Option 1-1

n         Phenomena & laws of electricity & magnetism

n         Electric-magnetic technique & social development

n         Household electric devices & everyday life

Ÿ           Option 1-2

n        Phenomena & laws of heat

n        Heart & everyday life

n        Energy resources & social development

Ÿ           Option 2-1

n        Electric circles & technique

Ÿ            Electric-magnetic wave & Information technology

•Option 2-2

–Forces & Machines

–Heat & engines

•Option 2-3 

–Light & Optical instrument

–Structure of atoms & nuclear technique 

•Option 3-1

–Electric field

–Electric circle

–Magnetic field

•Option 3-2

–Electric-magnetic induction

–Alternative current

–Sensors

•Option 3-3

–Molecular dynamics & statistics

–Solid, liquid & gases

–Thermo-dynamic laws & conservation of energy

–Energy resource & substantial development 

Course structure of senior chemistry

Course structure of senior biology

What really happens?

•Science textbooks are now more interesting, friendly and close to students.

•The new ideas and ways of teaching are widely spread and gradually accepted by most teachers.

•Most science teachers in primary and junior secondary value student activities and project learning and put them in teaching practice.    

•Primary science teaching made bigger changes and more enquiring oriented than those at secondary level. Little changes happened in most of the senior secondary science classes.

Challenge 1
The Gap between theoretical concepts and teachers’ practical believes of teaching

New views of teaching

Teachers’ conceptions of teaching

Challenge 2
Misunderstanding of the new teaching ideas

•Doing enquiry learning approach means to  organize activities to allow students to experience the whole process of enquiry from promoting questions to reflective evaluation. It is so time consuming that we can’t afford. 

•The fewer the teacher talk in front the class, the better the student learn.

•It seems to me that student activities is so important that we need to organize student activities in all classes. Otherwise, it is not good teaching.

•We don’t need to spend time on thinking about how to instruct well since that is out of date and not encouraged by the new curriculum.

•Cooperative learning should be the most important approach in classroom learning.

•Do we still need to help students to get good marks in examination?

•The conditions of my school are so poor that it is impossible to implement the new ideas of teaching and learning.

Challenge 3
Shortage in resource and financial support

•Very large class side

•Shortage in lab and instruments

•The government spend very small amount of money in curriculum reform.

•The reform got forward too fast so left the supplementary tasks behind. Teachers need to teach without necessary support.     

Challenge 4
Impediment of the high stake public examination

•Today in China, education is still an important and effective way to raise one’s social and economic status. Success in schooling, especially if one can pass the national university entrance examination and then graduate from the university, means that he/she could expect a better career with a security and high income.

•Student records in public examinations are treated as the most important or even the only indicator of the quality of schools by the communities.

•It is very difficult in China today to find alternative way of the pen-and-paper test in public examination due to the:

–Overflowing utilitarianism

–Poor public trust

–Improper way of evaluation and management

–Very broad scale

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