The Ministry of Education launched the Excellent Teacher Training Programme on 18 September in order to pinpoint the key problems in the teacher education system that constrains teacher’s professional development and educate high quality future teachers. The key points are summarised below:

• The Programme aims to solve the problems affecting China’s teacher education system, including the methods employed to teach the would-be teachers. The Ministry wants to introduce a sweeping educational reform that will upgrade the whole system step by step in the teacher educating universities and colleges.
• It suggests that the teachers’ education system needs to adopt a more practical approach that will include the actions of all parties involved including higher education institutions, local government and schools. In the meantime it is the higher education sector’s responsibility to monitor the change to the demands and needs in the labour market for pedagogical students.
• It points out that the out of dated teacher educating approach, i.e. teaching an integration of pedagogy, psychology and subject-related teaching study, is no longer suitable given how much society has changed. Curriculums for pedagogical students should be more functionally segmented, richer in subjects’ diversity and more practical. For example, a case study model should be widely. In addition, more resources will be allocated to work placement arrangement for would-be teachers acquiring enough practical teaching experience in schools.

Note: The Excellent Teacher Training Programme aims to systematically improve the quality of future teachers. It will have direct impact on Chinese teacher education institutions. As a result, Chinese teacher educating and training institutions may have more interest in connecting with overseas partners for research, training and teaching collaboration.