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Beijing Schools' Education Reform to Cultivate Creativity
Quality education, a new method of learning designed to make students excel in studies and other areas of the lives, is being implemented in Beijing's primary and middle schools.
"Quality education means I can do it,'' Wang Xing, a student in Guangming Primary School said confidently.
The school adopted the "I can do it'' slogan in 1996 calling on students, parents and teachers to strengthen students' confidence by allowing them to participate in everything that interests them.
Many students in Guangming are part-time journalists at China Children's News.
Wang, with a camera in her hands, said: "I like photography very much, and I want to be a journalist in the future."
These young journalists arrange their classroom lessons along with their part-time job of contributing campus stories to the newspaper, because the school has been easing up with homework, said the schoolmaster Liu Yongsheng.
Other schools such as Beijing No 2 and No 11 middle schools are also implementing quality education programmes.
"To reduce students' heavy homework and relieve their psychological burdens, primary schools in Beijing will abandon the `100 mark evaluating system' for students starting this autumn,'' said the capital's education committee director Xu Xi'an.
Meanwhile, primary and middle schools will eliminate 70 textbooks which are either outdated or too difficult for students, said Xu.
A heavy homework load, frequent examinations and the 100 mark system have caused great anxieties among students, sources from the Ministry of Education said. Consequently, many students had little time to play or relax.
The ministry has introduced the concept of lightening students' loads to encourage creativity. Beijing has spearheaded the effort.
Starting this year, junior middle schools will end the city's unified entrance exams to senior middle schools. Instead, the schools will hold exams that will test students' abilities to solve social and daily life problems, rather than simply memorizing textbooks, said Xu.
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