Research on the teaching quality of compulsory education in China’s West rural schools

Abstract

The paper has compared the quality of compulsory education of rural schools in West China with the counties, cities, and provincial capitals, and find out that there is a big gap between the quality of West rural and urban compulsory education, the quality of some grades of the rural primary schools has not achieved the basic requirement of the curriculum standards, the gap between the quality of junior high schools in rural and urban areas is relatively severe. The mean score and qualified rate in the subjects of Chinese, mathematics and English of West rural junior high students are distinctly lower than that of the urban and county schools. The main factor that leads to the bigger discrepancy between the urban and rural education quality mainly lies in the difference in the teaching force. Compared with urban schools, the teachers in rural schools is insufficient and poorly-trained, with less access to teachers’ professional development and support. The teaching quality in the West rural schools should be paid attention and improved in light of the rationale of educational equity.

Keywords

rural schools / compulsory education / teaching quality / teachers quality