Editor’s note: Along with the opening in Beijing of the fifth session of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC) on 5 March 2022, and the fifth session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) on 4 March 2022, the OUC will keep its tradition of publicising “Two Sessions Deputies and Members from the OUC”, reporting on leaders, teachers, students or alumni who are also deputies and members of the two sessions, and aiming to enhance the image of the OUC while encouraging its teachers and students to work together toward the reform and development of open education.
Brief Introduction:
Tang Jiangpeng is a Chinese Language graduate of Shaanxi Open University (Shaanxi OU), and is now principal of Xishan Senior High School in Jiangsu Province; his other titles include Special-grade Chinese-language Teacher and Senior Middle-school Teacher.
He is vice chair of the People’s Political Consultative Conference of Huishan District, Wuxi City; Vice Chair of the Basic-education Teaching Steering Committee of the Ministry of Education (MOE); and a member of the National Expert Working Committee for Curricula and Textbooks in Basic Education. He is also Vice Chair of the Senior High-school Education Professional Commission of the Chinese Society of Education, and a mentor of the "Famous Principals Class" of the MOE Pilot Project of Outstanding Principals. Finally, he has been named a "Most Influential Principal of the Yangtze River Delta of China" , "National Outstanding Principal in Education Reform and Innovation" and “Excellent Performance Award for 2021 CPPCC Members”
Tang Jiangpeng, president of Xishan Senior High School in Jiangsu Province, has been speaking out for education since he became a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in 2018. This year, Tang paid special attention to talent training integrating senior high school and university education. Furthermore, he has considered in-depth the construction of engineering-led integrated talent training and put it into practice by starting from engineering education.
At present, there is a disconnect between talent training in senior high schools and universities. Tang has learned from his visits to several science and technology universities that freshmen lack basic interest and literacy in engineering majors.
What is causing this problem? An analysis of China’s curriculum system of senior middle schools shows that humanities courses account for 39%, science courses account for 25%, physical education and comprehensive practice courses account for 29%, and real technical courses only account for 7% of the 88 credits of compulsory courses.
“In recent years, the new engineering construction in universities has become a hot topic, but engineering has not received much attention in the field of basic education, meaning that there is a lack of top-level overall design and curriculum system arrangement.” Tang believes that the current curriculum system has led to the generally weak hands-on ability of students in regular senior high schools. Many students prefer office jobs in fields like finance and economics. Students do not favour engineering majors.
Therefore, Tang proposed that we should explore the establishment of a basic engineering education curriculum system in senior high schools, work on scientific curriculum standards, develop supporting teaching materials, and form a course resource package that can be popularised as a demonstration. An engineering education curriculum pilot should be launched to develop construction standards for the learning environment of engineering education.
Tang suggested that universities should more actively participate in the talent training system of basic education, jointly build a curriculum system integrating senior high schools and universities, and establish a matching evaluation system. At the same time, modern educational technologies should be used to realise the combination of online learning and offline tutoring so that urban senior high schools can share high quality education resources with senior high schools in counties and rural areas.
By OUC News Network
Source：China Education Daily