The fundamental follow-up of deepening the reform of educational evaluation in the new era
■ A series of talks on deepening the reform of educational evaluation in the new era
Moral education is the fundamental task of education and the fundamental starting point and foothold of implementing the party’s educational policy. The establishment and improvement of a scientific education evaluation system is the fundamental guarantee for implementing the fundamental task of educating moral people and the Party’s educational policy. Without or without a scientific educational evaluation system, the development of educational work and educational reform will deviate from the direction, or even get lost. More seriously, it may run counter to the goals, directions and tasks of education, and even endanger the reform and development of education, the healthy growth of students and the implementation of the party’s educational policy.
In his important speech at the National Education Conference, General Secretary of the Supreme Leader pointed out that it is necessary to deepen the reform of the education system, improve the implementation mechanism of moral education, reverse the unscientific orientation of education evaluation, resolutely overcome the stubborn disease of only scores, only studies, only diplomas, only papers and only hats, and fundamentally solve the baton problem of education evaluation. The important speech of the Supreme Leader General Secretary pointed out the direction for us to deepen the reform of the education system, improve the implementation mechanism of moral education and establish a scientific education evaluation system and mechanism. The "Overall Plan for Deepening the Reform of Education Evaluation in the New Era" recently issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council (hereinafter referred to as the "Overall Plan") points out the direction of education evaluation, is a programmatic document for implementing the spiritual task of the National Education Conference and guiding the reform of education evaluation, and is the fundamental follow-up for deepening the reform of education evaluation in the new era. It is of great significance for us to comprehensively implement the party’s education policy, adhere to the socialist direction of running schools, implement the fundamental task of educating people, and comprehensively deepen education reform. It is of great guiding significance to systematically promote the reform of educational evaluation, strive to cultivate new people of the times who are responsible for national rejuvenation, and cultivate socialist builders and successors with all-round development in morality, intelligence, physique, beauty and labor, so as to guide the whole party and society to establish a scientific concept of educational development, talent growth, selection and employment, break the stubborn disease of "five talents", reverse the unscientific orientation of educational evaluation, and establish a scientific educational evaluation system and mechanism that meets the requirements of the times.
Educational evaluation is related to the overall implementation of the party’s educational policy and the direction of educational development. "Five Virtues" is a concentrated expression of the current educational evaluation problems, which reflects the unscientific evaluation orientation in China’s educational evaluation. "Only score" evaluates students, taking score as the only criterion to evaluate students, and score comes first, which ignores the important factors of students’ ideological and moral character, physical and mental health, ability and quality, which is not conducive to the all-round development of students’ morality, intelligence, body, beauty and labor, damages students’ physical and mental health, and deviates from the educational essence of education. The evaluation of schools by "only entering higher schools" unilaterally pursues the enrollment rate, which is regarded as the only criterion for evaluating schools and the concrete embodiment of educational achievements, which violates the educational laws and is not conducive to creating a healthy educational ecology. Evaluating talents only by diploma ignores people’s character, ability and quality, which is not conducive to encouraging students’ diversified growth and success. "Only papers" evaluate teachers, taking papers as the core index of teachers’ professional title evaluation, development and promotion, ignoring the essence of teachers’ teaching and educating people. "Hat-only" evaluation of disciplines takes "hat" as an important index to evaluate talents and disciplines, ignoring the essence, responsibility, mission and role of discipline construction, which is not conducive to promoting the return of talent title and discipline construction to academic nature.
To study and implement the spirit of the "Overall Plan", it is necessary to break through and improve the effectiveness of the reform, and grasp and do the following work well:
First, comprehensively implement the party’s educational policy and implement the fundamental task of educating moral people. The core of fully implementing the Party’s educational policy, adhering to the socialist direction of running schools and fulfilling the fundamental task of educating people by virtue is to cultivate talents with all-round development in morality, intelligence, physique, beauty and labor. To implement the spirit of the Master Plan, we must improve the system and mechanism of Lide Shuren, base ourselves on China’s basic national conditions, follow the laws of education, persist in reform and innovation, take rallying people’s hearts, perfecting personality, developing human resources, cultivating talents and benefiting the people as the working goals, cultivate socialist builders and successors with all-round development in morality, intelligence, physique, beauty and labor, accelerate the modernization of education, build an educational power and run a satisfactory education for the people.
Second, change educational ideas and establish a scientific view of educational evaluation. The scientific concept of educational evaluation must adhere to the principle of educating people, take people’s all-round development and healthy growth as the foundation, base on educational practice and face the future development, and establish a scientific and effective educational evaluation mechanism. Guide the establishment of scientific educational goals, ensure the correct development direction of education, change the unitary, instrumental and utilitarian educational evaluation methods, and change the tendency of traditional educational evaluation to pay too much attention to selection and screening, so that educational evaluation can return to the true nature of education, more reflect the all-round development of people, their healthy growth and the cultivation of talents, and expand from focusing on "knowledge evaluation" to "ability literacy evaluation" and from focusing on "score result evaluation" to "completeness"
Third, deepen the reform of educational evaluation and put an end to unscientific educational evaluation orientation. For the reform of educational evaluation, the Master Plan lists the key tasks: improving the result evaluation, strengthening the process evaluation, exploring the value-added evaluation and improving the comprehensive evaluation. This is also the first time that such a formulation has appeared since deepening the reform of the education system. The traditional education evaluation is based on the results and emphasizes the key role of the results in the whole evaluation, which leads to the serious consequences of emphasizing scores and ignoring the process. This is the starting point of improving the evaluation of results and strengthening the evaluation of process in the Overall Plan. Value-added evaluation pays attention to the increase of students’ progress, emphasizes the value-added points of students compared with their original studies, and expands the channels of education and teaching evaluation. Comprehensive evaluation is to establish an evaluation index system for students, teachers or schools, and make a systematic, comprehensive and complete comprehensive evaluation of the evaluation objects. To follow the law of education is to improve the result evaluation, strengthen the process evaluation, explore the value-added evaluation and improve the comprehensive evaluation according to the characteristics of different subjects, different classes and different types of education.
Fourth, establish a scientific concept of talent evaluation and innovate the talent training mode. Establish the concept of scientific talent, reverse the single evaluation tendency of "only scores, only entering higher schools", and take stimulating more talents and producing good talents as the evaluation orientation. For every child, we should establish the evaluation criteria for multiple talents, improve the comprehensive quality evaluation, pay attention to the process evaluation, and comprehensively use various evaluation methods such as examinations and performance evaluation. Innovate the way of talent training, and guide students to develop in an all-round way, grow up with full personality and grow up healthily with all factors. Innovate the talent training mode, fully respect the students’ personality, and publicize their characteristics and specialties. Improve the evaluation system of scientific research in colleges and universities and encourage major original scientific research achievements.
Fifth, establish a scientific educational evaluation system and scientific educational evaluation standards. Adhere to the effectiveness of Lide Shuren as the fundamental standard. Accelerate the improvement of the evaluation standards of schools at all levels, strive to get rid of the stubborn disease of only grades, only entering higher schools, only diplomas, only papers and only hats, and establish a scientific educational evaluation system and mechanism that meets the requirements of the times. In terms of student evaluation, we should reverse the single evaluation tendency of "only scores and only entering higher schools". In the aspect of teacher evaluation, we should reverse the single evaluation tendency of "only diploma, only thesis and only hat". Establish a scientific evaluation standard and evaluation index system for education, deepen the reform of teacher evaluation system, improve the evaluation standard for professional titles, establish an evaluation index system that conforms to the post characteristics of primary and secondary school teachers, and make it clear that teachers should not be evaluated simply by the enrollment rate and students’ test scores, so as to accelerate the formation of an education evaluation system with the characteristics of the times, highlighting the characteristics of China and reflecting the world level.
(The author is the Party Secretary and President of China Education Press)
Source: China Education News, 6th edition, October 29th, 2020.
Author: Zhai Bo
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