Chinese teachers to have continuous training

Educators have training sessions in Beijing on Wednesday. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A high-level China-UK training program for teachers' continuous professional development (CPD) has been launched for the first time by the British Council and the Ministry of Education of China on Wednesday in Beijing.

An official who researches teaching in the Ministry of Education, said during the conference that all the teachers in the system are expected to have over 360 hours of training sessions every five years.

He also mentioned in the 13th Five-Year Plan, the national training plan for primary and middle school teachers is to add a training program for village teachers and make it a fundamental public service, and to do this they must overcome the lack of funds.

Sam Ayton, director of English Language Service of the British Council, believes education nowadays is not about passing on content but what kind of skills teachers can lead students to learn such as innovation, teamwork and critical thinking.

Ayton said training cannot be limited to gathering teachers to have days of lectures and workshops to improve their teaching techniques. But most importantly, training must not be far removed from teaching in school. The training session needs to diagnose teachers' teaching problems from their teaching practice.

China and the UK have been enhancing communication in teaching skills.

Earlier this year, the department for education in the UK hired thirty Chinese math teachers to teach math in different local schools in hope of encouraging students to improve their math through different methods.

In August, the BBC's TV program "Are our kids tough enough?-Chinese school" demonstrated the headline-making conflicts between Chinese teachers and British students, which raised countless discussions and comments among people about the difference between Chinese and British education.

According to Ayton, UK and China are cooperating on several teaching programs currently, for example, on sports education, the program Premier Skills, aims for training more than 1,100 football coaches to support the development of grassroots football in China, benefitting more than 500,000 young people.

The training program lasts two days.