Zou Qingchao: Correctly Handling the "Five Major Relationships" to Solidly Advance the Construction of a Powerful Country in Education [1]
“To honor teaching and encourage learning is the fundamental basis of state-building; to promote the virtuous and nurture talent is the primary task of governance.” [1] Education is the cornerstone of building a strong country and achieving national rejuvenation. At the National Education Conference in September 2024, General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered an important speech, making systematic arrangements for accelerating the construction of an education powerhouse on the new journey of the New Era. He expounded on the scientific connotation of an education powerhouse and pointed out the basic path for its realization, which carries significant milestone significance in the history of China’s educational development. Currently, the modernization level of China’s education has entered the upper-middle ranks globally, and we have built the world’s largest education system. However, to further advance the construction of an education powerhouse and stabilize education—a foundational cause concerning national rejuvenation and social progress—we must correctly handle five major relationships.
Correctly handling the relationship between supporting national strategies and meeting the needs of people’s livelihoods.
Education is a matter of great significance to the State and the Party. It carries a clear political mission, profound sentiments for the people, and long-term strategic significance. It must not only provide solid talent support for major national strategies but also continuously meet the urgent needs of the masses for high-quality educational resources and diversified educational models. It is evident that supporting national strategies and meeting livelihood needs are fundamentally and internally unified within the core mission of education. On one hand, every step of educational reform and development should closely center on the core objectives of national strategies, focusing precisely on the main directions, key links, and priority areas. We must ensure that the allocation of educational resources, the direction of talent cultivation, and the needs of national strategic prosperity are highly integrated through the integrated advancement of educational development, scientific and technological innovation, and talent cultivation, injecting inexhaustible momentum into the country's long-term development. On the other hand, reform and development in the field of education are directly related to the quality of life and future prospects of every individual. As General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized, to build an education powerhouse, we must "adhere to a people-centered approach, continuously improve the universality, accessibility, and convenience of public educational services, and allow the fruits of educational reform and development to benefit all people more extensively and equitably." Therefore, the development of the education cause must ensure that the people can enjoy high-quality educational services justly and equally, and must continuously enhance the people's sense of happiness and fulfillment.
Correctly handling the relationship between knowledge learning and well-rounded development.
Adhering to the "simultaneous development of the five educations" [2] and promoting the well-rounded development of students in moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic, and labor education is an inevitable requirement for building an education powerhouse. Although knowledge learning primarily belongs to the category of intellectual education, it is by no means the only manifestation of intellectual education, nor should it run counter to well-rounded development. On the contrary, as a multi-dimensional process of quality enhancement, knowledge learning itself integrates elements such as aesthetic creation, labor education, physical exercise, and moral cultivation, constituting a solid foundation for promoting the well-rounded development of students. Therefore, knowledge learning should not be narrowed down to the memorization of knowledge points. Education at all levels and of all types must abandon the "score-only" and "enrollment-only" mentalities [3]. We must actively optimize and improve the methods of knowledge transfer. Based on the comprehensive and practical nature of knowledge, we should guide students to learn by doing and learn through application, achieving the comprehensive development of integrated qualities. At the same time, promoting well-rounded development requires building an integrated "five educations" system—where moral education casts the soul, intellectual education empowers, physical education strengthens the will, aesthetic education nurtures the heart, and labor education shapes the person—using relational, interconnected, and penetrating thinking. We must let knowledge learning become the key bond for the collaborative force of the "five educations," so that in the educational process where knowledge learning is the main form, students become New Era talents with noble character, solid knowledge, strong physiques, aesthetic sensibilities, and a spirit of labor, maximizing the fundamental task of "fostering virtue through education" (li de shu ren).
Correctly handling the relationship between cultivating talent and meeting social needs.
As the cornerstone for promoting social progress, if education is to better serve high-quality development, it must closely track dynamic changes in the social environment. It must comprehensively and qualitatively meet the urgent needs of economic and social development for diverse and multi-level talents, such as research-oriented elites and skilled personnel, providing solid talent support for social advancement. Therefore, whether social needs can be met is an important criterion for judging the effectiveness of talent cultivation, and cultivating talent is the mission of education in actively responding to social development needs. In the process of comprehensively promoting Chinese-path modernization, education should clarify the strategic direction of structural reform, align closely with the transformation of social industrial structures and the actual status of talent demand, accurately grasp key links in reform, strengthen the effectiveness of education in serving social development, and strive to build a practical talent cultivation system that meets the requirements of the New Era. Additionally, in the current global trend of continuous change and innovation, innovation has become the source of social progress. Talent cultivation in the New Era must also focus on guiding the educated to recognize, respond to, and actively seek change, making the promotion of industrial upgrading and social progress the core value pursuit of personal career development, thereby forcefully driving various fields to achieve groundbreaking results through continuous innovation. Particularly in the face of the national strategic demand to develop new quality productive forces, education must be grounded in the perspective of new quality productive forces, comprehensively optimize the cultivation of high-quality talent, and continuously solidify the foundation for nurturing new quality productive forces across all social sectors. This will drive high-quality economic and social development through the harmonious interaction between talent cultivation and meeting social needs.
Correctly handling the relationship between standardized order and stimulating vitality.
Building an education powerhouse must adhere to upholding the fundamentals and breaking new ground. The relationship between standardized order and stimulating vitality is the specific manifestation of the relationship between "upholding the fundamentals" (shou zheng) and "innovation" (chuang xin). Standardized order means "upholding the fundamentals"; it requires that educational work strictly abide by the major policies of the Party and the State, as well as laws and regulations. It aims to provide a standardized basic framework and a stable operating environment for educational activities, ensuring that educational work is carried out in an orderly manner. Only within a standardized and orderly educational framework can frontier educational knowledge, advanced educational concepts, and innovative teaching methods be integrated into every link of teaching and management; only then can it be guaranteed that educational activities keep pace with the times, present diverse characteristics, and are full of innovative spirit; and only then can it maximize the guarantee that every educated person shares high-quality educational resources and participates in diversified educational activities, ensuring the fairness and stability of education. Meanwhile, stimulating vitality means "innovation"; it is about achieving continuous progress and innovative development through deepening comprehensive educational reform. Only by taking reform and innovation as the keywords for developing the cause of education—systematically advancing reform and innovation in nurturing methods, school-running models, management systems, and guarantee mechanisms—can we effectively strengthen teacher-student interaction, improve teaching effectiveness, and broaden the efficacy of nurturing, thereby achieving the leap from a country with a large education system to an education powerhouse.
Correctly handling the relationship between rooting in Chinese soil and drawing on international experience.
Rooting in Chinese soil and drawing on international experience are intimately complementary. In the process of building an education powerhouse, this is specifically manifested as the organic integration of local educational characteristics and international horizons, as well as the harmonious coexistence of educational nationality and internationality. On one hand, an education powerhouse must be deeply rooted in the cultural soil of China, taking the unique historical culture, social system, and actual national conditions of the Chinese nation as the starting point. Specifically, we must leverage the vivid educational resources contained in excellent traditional Chinese culture—including cultural classics, moral norms, literature and art, philosophy and religion—and, in the process of promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of excellent traditional Chinese culture, allow the educated to strengthen their historical consciousness and firm up their cultural confidence through subtle and silent influence. On the other hand, in the irreversible wave of globalization, actively absorbing and drawing on advanced international educational concepts, management methods, and teaching models provides a valuable opportunity to broaden educational horizons and stimulate innovative thinking in education. On the premise of maintaining and promoting the characteristics of China’s education, effectively integrating top global educational resources and elements will help enhance the talent cultivation efficiency of China’s educational system, accelerate the comprehensive prosperity of China’s educational cause, and explore and open up a path toward an education powerhouse that both conforms to international trends and possesses profound Chinese characteristics.
In conclusion, constructing an education powerhouse is an arduous and long-term comprehensive systematic project. It requires us to closely follow the fundamental task of "fostering virtue through education," steadily handle the multiple relationships between supporting national strategies and meeting livelihood needs, knowledge learning and well-rounded development, cultivating talent and meeting social needs, standardized order and stimulating vitality, and rooting in Chinese soil and drawing on international experience. We must build a high-quality, high-efficiency educational system to provide solid talent support and intellectual assistance for the Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Author: Zou Qingchao, Lecturer at Sichuan Cadre Correspondence College (Sichuan Vocational College of Cultural Industries) Source: People's Forum (rmlt.com.cn)