The Problem of Standards and Quality

Central to the discussions of teacher policies and educational reforms is the issue of standards for teachers. By the time of the 1978 Third Plenum a teacher shortage greater than that experienced before the Cultural Revolution existed quantitatively and in terms of credentials and competence. As figure 7.1 suggests, the rapid expansion of precollegiate education since the 1950s had not seen a commensurate growth in teacher education or trained teachers. The national shortage in 1977 was estimated at 3.45 million elementary and secondary school teachers (Cui 1979, 31). According to leaders, quality was a bigger problem than quan-

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Fig. 7.1.
Elementary and Secondary Expansion, 1951–78

tity. The Chinese indicate that quality—as measured in terms of qualifications (teachers' academic credentials)—fell over the years, as is seen in table 7.1.^[7]

If China was to reach its broader educational goals, there had to be a strengthening of standards. Yet given the vigor of the attacks on teacher education and professionalism during the years of the Cultural Revolution, the urgent need to coordinate and regulate the establishment of professional standards for teaching posed a major policy challenge. The study of bureaucratic behavior and the use of authority that were called

on to meet this policy challenge illustrates three aspects of the process of educational policy formation within the vertical educational policy system: its slow, reactive, and groping character; the power of subordinates; and the limited authority available to education bureaucrats and the resulting strategies they adopt.