New curriculum in the education news

More on my exploration of the MOE website. In this post I examine a section on the website entitled Education News "jiaoyu xinwen" I went through all of the documents listed in the basic education section and paste links to articles of interest below.

I just found a list of all acceptable textbooks and supporting materials. while there is decentralization there is also standardization and the official moe stamp of approval still reigns supreme. the list contains books that have been published by educational publishing houses in provinces across the country. i wonder how much variation there is between these textbooks published in different places.

here is the link to the fall 2006 list
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info17434.htm

recent news about the achievements of the new curriculum implementation in ningxia: greater middle school enrollment.

宁夏灵武市作为国家课程改革实验区，于2001年9月进入新课程实验，去年有了首届初中毕业生，参加中考的学生比上年增加了800人，达到3387人，初中巩固率达到98.2%。原来初二时就会有部分学生辍学，每到初三的最后一个学期，就会出现两种情况，考试分数高的、升学有希望的拼命学习，分数低的一部分学生就逃课或完全放弃，辍学率最高时达到15.8%，而这两届学生没有出现这种情况，所有的学生都对学习充满信心。

the article goes on to say that one of the most important reasons for high drop out rates in middle school is that students hate to go to school for the following reasons: 厌学又主要因为教学水平低，教学内容脱离学生实际，课业负担过重，师生关系紧张，学生缺乏积极的学校生活体验。

The article goes on to describe how after the new curriculum was introduced in this experimental county the curriculum has come closer to the student's lives, the textbooks are more vivid adn interesting, teachers teachign has become more democratic and harmonious, exam scores are no longer the only measure of a students success, there has been an increase of encouragement and praise for the students, theer is respect between teachers and students and studetns and students, and the students' confidence and eagerness to search for knowledge have been stimulated. the article discusses the school based curricula that have emerged, for example: research into the folk literature of the hui people, and the growing and use of mushrooms, and growing pot plants.

the last paragraph discusses the various methods of evaluation that are now begin used in schools in lingwu county, ningxia.

http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info13707.htm

more articles on new curriculum experiences are found for liaoning and hebei, hunan, xinjiang
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info10697.htm
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info10699.htm
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info10248.htm
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info10258.htm

the following articles are concerned specifically with the impact of the new curriculum on the test for entrance to high school (i just discovered i can past the hyperlinks directly)

中考改革系列访谈：对综合素质评价的具体建议 2005/04/05
中考改革系列访谈：解析初中毕业学业考试改革新思路 2005/04/04
中考改革系列访谈：关键表现记录如何做 2005/04/04
2005年中考：实验区方案亮点闪现 2005/04/04
中考改革系列访谈：高中招生制度改革若干问题解答 2005/04/04
中考改革系列访谈：新课程下中考怎样进行 2005/04/01
教育部发布2005年中考改革指导意见 2005/03/03
我国中考改革将在更大范围推进 实验区从去年的17个拓展到500多个 2005/02/24

report on the progress monitoring of the new curriculum reforms
义务教育课程改革第三次评估结果表明：基础教育课改稳步健康推进 2004/12/09

There is a list of recommended books for primary school libraries (from 1998-1999 but does not seem to have been updatd as this list was posted in 2004). A large percentage of the books are very "aiguo" in nature for example "songs from the anti-japanese war", "the spirit of Yanan--poems and pictures from the holy land" "the story of grandfather deng xiaoping". there are also books on weapons! "guns of the world"!!, "a brief overview of firearms." there are seventy three books in total. it might be interesting to analyze the list in more detail to see what the categories are. of course primary schools are encouraged to have a much larger number of books but it is interesting that these are the books chosen especially as recommended books from the moe.
1998-1999年度小学图书馆（室）推荐书目（小学） 2004/09/13

further articles of potential interest in the education new section that are related to the new curriculum reforms

抢抓机遇 乘势而上 加快推进基础教育课程改革 2004/08/09
基础教育新课程进入全面推广阶段 2004/08/09

教育部部署全国基础教育新课程改革实验将推广到500多个县区市 2004/08/09
提高认识，加强领导，扎实做好基础教育课程改革实验推广工作－－陈至立在全国基础教育课程改革实验工作电视电话会议上的讲话 2004/08/09

教育部基础教育司2004年度工作要点 2004/02/13
教育部基础教育司2003年度工作要点 2003/09/13
深化教育改革 全面推进素质教育－－在“加强和改进教育工作切实抓好青少年学生思想教育”座谈会上的讲话（摘要） 2000/02/16
国家基础教育课程改革项目概览 1999/12/13