Strengthening Basic Education: an EU‐China joint project in Gansu Province

Abstract

Since 1986 when the National People's Congress ratified the Compulsory Education Law, China's achievement of nine‐year compulsory basic education for its huge school‐age population has been rapid and successful. However, the rate of achievement has grown unevenly across the country, reflecting the different economic development patterns of the more prosperous Eastern coastal China and poor Western and rural areas. As quantitative targets were gained for most of the country, attention turned to the quality of basic education and the increasing gap between the more advanced and less developed areas. Shortage of resources for improving the situation in the poorest areas led the Chinese government to seek assistance from international donors, including the European Union. This article describes a joint European Union‐China project undertaken to improve the quality of compulsory nine‐year education with the ultimate goal of reducing poverty in one of the poorest Western provinces, Gansu. It outlines the policy context and summarises the project's organisation, strategies and outcomes. It identifies the main issues that arose during its implementation and examines the inter‐cultural dimension of collaborative work on this project.

Making universal education a priority for sustainable development: The EU, Vietnam and education

“…Giving a bigger share of development aid for education is essential for economic and social development (European Union, 2023b). The EU could replicate in Vietnam and other partner states the joint European Union-China project it undertook in 2001 to improve the quality of compulsory education with the goal of reducing poverty in a poor province, Gansu (Robinson & Wenwu, 2009). 5 It could apply the policy it implemented in Bangladesh, where EU budget support for primary education 'helped greatly' to increase the attendance of girls in primary and lower-secondary education (European Union, 2019, pp.…”

New Curriculum Reform Implementation and the Transformation of Educational Beliefs, Practices, and Structures in Gansu Province

“…Furthermore, the majority of primary and middle schools in Gansu are in rural areas (Robinson & Yi, 2009). Gansu has faced several challenges in educational development including low levels of achievement, high levels of repetition and drop out, low rates of compulsory education completion and poor school conditions (Robinson & Yi, 2009). A case study of curriculum reform in rural primary and junior middle schools in Gansu province allows for a picture of implementation status in isolated and resource constrained environments in China.…”

“…Teachers and principals in more remote regions of the nation may have higher levels of receptivity. Furthermore, as part of the "Develop the West" campaign, additional resources of the central government have been dedicated to educational development and Gansu has received intensive support from international projects most notably the UK Gansu Basic Education Project (Brock, 2009) and the EUGansu Basic Education Project (Robinson & Yi, 2009). These projects have provided strong support for teacher professional development and school development thus potentially enhancing the capacity for effective reform implementation.…”