EENET asia Newsletters : Fourth issue June 2007 Contents

EENET Asia Interview

with Yu Mei Yue, Xu Maizhen, Yunying Chen and Gio Xiao-Ping
by Anupam Ahuja, Els Heijnen and Terje Magnusønn Watterdal

During the South-Asia Workshop on Inclusive Education and Child-Friendly Schools in Delhi in November 2006 we had a chance to sit down with the Chinese delegation invited as observers to the event to talk about their plans to make schools in China more inclusive and child-friendly.

The Chinese Delegation comprised of Yu Mei Yue from the Department of Basic Education [Ministry of Education], Xu Meizhen and Yunying Chen from the China National Institute for Education Research and Gio Xiao-Ping from UNICEF.

What do you plan to do regarding inclusive- and child-friendly education when you go back to Beijing?
Based on information from this Workshop, a National Seminar held earlier on Inclusive Education and Child Friendly Schools [co-hosted by the Ministry of Education and UNICEF] as well as the results of a five year pilot programme we would like to draft national standards for child-friendly schools for students, age 6 to 10.

The pilot was implemented in five of the income poorest provinces of China. 5,000 head teachers and teachers received training and more than 30,000 have benefited because their schools have become more child-friendly.

How do you plan to incorporate inclusion into the child-friendly education model you have implemented so far?
We will adapt ‘Embracing Diversity - UNESCO Toolkit for Creating Inclusive, Learning-Friendly Environments’ and use it together with the material we have already received from UNICEF. We will develop indicators for the following five aspects:

1. Child Development
2. Quality of Teaching
3. School Management
4. Safe and Protective Schools
5. Community Participation

We are now in the first year of the latest 5 year National Development Plan. This is the 11th Five Year Plan in the People’s Republic of China. The plan now emphasises quality education but also access to education as this remains a challenge in income poor parts of China.

How is the pilot implementation of child-friendly schools monitored?
We are using the 5 dimensions of a child friendly school:

1. Proactively Inclusive - Child Seeking
2. Healthy, Safe and Protective
3. Community Participation
4. Effective and Child-Centred
5. Gender Responsive

Have the experiences with the child-friendly schools had any effect on existing teacher training and education programmes?
Until now we have focused mostly on in-service training programmes but we are starting to think about how inclusion and child-friendly education can be incorporated into pre-service teacher education. Some of the new ideas for teacher education are quality education as well as child-friendly and harmonious education - However, we are still looking for more appropriate terminologies in Chinese.

How do you tackle the challenge of new and progressive teachers being held back by their head-teachers and teacher colleagues?
We try to include these head-teachers and teachers in the in-service teacher upgrading and training programmes to make sure that they have the latest knowledge and information - we hope that by taking part in these programmes will help them to support innovation and change in their schools.

Much of our attention is on rural schools and schools in income-poor areas where change is welcomed. We also work with the province/district level Teacher Support & Learning Centres to make sure that schools are positive to change.

How do you involve parents? How do you co-ordinate the changes in school with the way children are raised at home?
We teach about child rights in schools. Many parents complained. They said that their children had changed. We learned from this and are now working much more closely with parents, involving them as trainers, which has helped them to change their parenting practices - focusing on positive alternatives to discipline.

We face many challenges in rural areas were children often live with their grand parents while their parents are working in the cities. Some of these children have to care for their grand parents and are therefore not able to come to school.

In urban areas the challenges are different. Boys are preferred by most parents. These boys with no siblings often have two parents and four grand parents who care for them. They tend to become spoiled which creates a different set of challenges for teachers and schools.

The first dimension of a child-friendly school is pro-actively inclusive and child seeking - In addition to the children who have to care for their grand parents which children are vulnerable to marginalisation and exclusion in China?
Children with more severe forms of disabilities and children in remote areas are still very vulnerable to exclusion in China.

372 districts have not yet achieved 9 years compulsory education for all. The government is now investing an extra 10 billion Yuan to make sure that these districts catch up with the rest of the country.

In some remote areas they have started home based distant education programmes and residential schools are being built.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences with us.

EENET asia Newsletters : Fourth issue June 2007 Contents