NEW TEACHERS, NEW METHODS

It wouldn’t have made sense to train all Gansu’s practicing teachers in participatory approaches, if the province’s teacher training institutions continued to coach new teachers in the traditional way. The projects worked to improve the capacity of teacher training institutions and to introduce new participatory methodologies.

Throughout the province, universities, teaching colleges and teacher training schools benefited from training of trainers, study tours to UK training institutions for key personnel, materials development, and other training activities.

The project paid great attention to training in teaching schools, colleges and universities, which was the basis for pre-service training in basic education. Teachers in these institutions in Gansu were involved in the project. These teachers changed a lot. The skills they acquired not only contributed to the project in the short term, but will also contribute to the development of Gansu basic education in the long term. I think the project was well planned and took a systematic approach to improving teacher training skills and in this way it is more sustainable.

Professor Wang is a renowned scholar specialising in basic education in Western China, especially teacher training. Involved in GBEP from the very beginning, he led several research programmes including case studies for the Mid-term and End of Project Reviews.

Making it happen

Training was provided to 4,146 head teachers across the 35 counties. The projects developed nine modules including Responsibility and Awareness in School Development in a Changing Era, Practice and Innovation in School Development in a Changing Era.

School Development Planning was implemented in 1,900 schools as a new method of school management.

Training was provided to female community members to give them the encouragement and skills to get more involved in school management.

After a year of SDP, the situation was not very encouraging. Many problems hadn’t been solved and community participation was not good. This was because the SDP objectives and actions were just a ‘shopping list’ and tried to cover everything. I then realised that the process of making the SDP is very important. Without a good process, there won’t be good results.