Opinions on Improving the Mechanisms for the Collaboration of Schools, Families, and Society on Education

Promulgation Date: 2023-1-13
Title: Opinions of thirteen departments including the Ministry of Education on improving the school-family-society collaborative education mechanism
Document Number:Ed [2022] No.7
Expiration date: 
Promulgating Entities: 教育部 公安部 民政部等
Source of text: http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A06/s3325/202301/t20230119_1039746.html

Ed [2022] No.7

To the education departments (committees), Party Committee publicity departments, internet information offices, civilization offices, public security offices (bureaus), civil affairs departments (bureaus), culture and tourism departments (bureaus), cultural relics bureaus, general offices of Working Committees on Children and Women, youth league committees, Women's Federation, Committee for the Next Generation, and technology association of each province, autonomous region, and directly governed municipality, and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps education bureau, party committee publicity department, internet information office, civilization office, public security bureau, civil affairs bureau, bureau of culture, sports, radio, television, and tourism, cultural relics bureau, office of the Working Committees on Children and Women, Youth League committee, womens federation, Committee for the Next Generation, and technology association:

Building sound mechanisms for the collaboration of schools, families, and society in education is an important policy decision and arrangement of the Party Central Commission and State Council that concerns the comprehensive development and healthy growth of students, as well as our nation’s development and the future of our people. In recent years, all areas have actively explored the collaboration of schools, families, and society in education and have achieved notable success, but there are still outstanding problems such as a lack of clarity in the positioning of duties, collaborative mechanisms being incomplete, and insufficient capacity safeguards. The following opinions on improving mechanisms for the collaboration of schools, families, and society on education are hereby put forward on the basis of the PRC Law on the Promotion of Family Education and the PRC Law on Protection of Minors, so as to earnestly implement the spirit of the 20th Party Congress.

I. General Requirements

1. Guiding ideology. Perist in having Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as guidance, earnestly implement General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important discourse on education emphasizing the establishment of family education and family work styles, fully implement the Party’s directives on education, implement the basic task of fostering virtue through education, carry forward the exceptional traditional Chinese culture, uphold the scientific conception of education, strengthen the consensus on collaborative education, actively construct a new structure for collaboration in education by schools, families, and society; and strive to cultivate builders and successors of socialism who are comprehensively developed in morality, intelligence, sport, and arts.

2. Work Principles

——Adhere to the principal of education. Use the Party’s innovative theory for the new era to forge spirit and educate people, expand the practice of the Core Socialist Values, follow the rules of student growth and education, thoroughly implement the ‘two reductions’ policy, and vigorously develop education for character.

– Persist in government planning. Give full play to the role of government in planning and coordination, strengthen system planning, promote coordinated action by departments, strengthen capacity safeguards, and promote the sharing of resources and effective implementation of collaborative education.

– Persist in coordinated collaborative education. Clarify the responsibilities for collaborative education by schools, families, and society, improve work mechanisms; promote the development of each area’s strengths, close cooperation, and mutual support; truly enhance synergies in education, and jointly take on the important responsibility for student’s growth and development as useful persons.

——Persist in being problem oriented. Strengthen professional guidance, encourage exploration in practice, and strive to resolve prominent issues such as in establishing systems, guiding services, and capacity safeguards, to continuously enhance the rationality, focus, and efficacy of collaborative education.

3. Primary Goals. As the period of the 14th 5-year plan concludes, government guidance of efforts on school, family, and societal collaboration on education should increase, and institutional systems are to be essentially built and completed. Collaborative education mechanisms with active leadership by the schools, families actively fulfilling their responsibilities, and effective societal support, is to be further improved, and a positive atmosphere for promoting the full development and healthy growth of students is to be fortified. Further strengthen the primary front of education in schools and make guidance services for family education more professional; essentially establish a parents’ scientific conception of parenting, with the performance of primary responsibility for family education more firmly in place; and widely establish family education service stations in urban and rural communities, further increasing the use of society’s educational resources. By 2035, form a scientific and effective mechanism for schools, families, and society to collaborate on education in which positions are clear, the mechanisms are complete, and there is close joint action.

II. Schools are to give full play to their role in guiding collaborative education

4. Prompt communication on students’ situations. Schools are the primary front in teaching and education, and should earnestly perform their teaching and education duties; they should grasp and promptly communicate with parents regarding students’ situations at school such as their thoughts and feelings, academic status, behavior and conduct, and physical and mental development; and, at the same time, learn from parents about the students’ related situations at home. Actively innovate channels for routine communication, using methods such as contact directories, telephone, WeChat, and the internet to maintain regularized close contact between schools and parents, to help parents promptly learn about students’ normal conduct in school; the house visit system should be earnestly implemented and schools’ leaders should lead the way in carrying out home visits, with the teachers in charge of a class making at least one house visit to each student each academic year, and subject matter teachers making targeted home visits.

5. Strengthen guidance of family education. Schools should make guidance services for family education an important duty, including it in the school work plans and giving full play to the advantages of professional school guidance; truly strengthen teachers’ capacity for family education guidance, and include teachers’ level of family education guidance and achievements in the performance evaluation system for teachers. Establish and complete school family education guidance committees, parent schools, and parents committees, and implement systems such as parent committees, school open house days, and parent reception days, Schools with the capacity are encouraged to establish online parents schools, actively developing and providing guidance and resources for family education and guiding parents to increase their internet literacy, and assisting children in cultivating positive online habits. Carry out at least 2 family education gudiance activities each semester, actively publicizing the scientific conception of education, major education policies, and information on family education; introduce school education and teaching, and respond to questions of common concern to parents; and at the same time provide specific guidance targeted to the individualized need of different families, especially emphasizing children with difficulties such as left-behind children in rural areas, children with disabilities, orphans, and children from special families. Give full play to the role of parents committees as a bridge and bond, hearing the comments of parents on school work through multiple channels; strengthen guidance of parents committees' work, clarify their work duties, improve work systems, regulate work conduct, strictly administer the publication of information in online parent chat groups, and strictly prohibit improper fee collection in the name of the parents committees.

6. Make good use of societal resources for education. Schools should make planning the good use of societal resources an important channel for strengthening practical education, actively expanding the space for off-campus education, and emphasizing students’ sense of social responsibility, spirit of innovation, and practical abilities. Contact and communication with relevant social units should be actively strengthened, establishing relatively stable educational bases for practical education and catalogs of resources; carrying out social practicum courses based on the different resources and situations of bases, and carrying out targetted and regularized activities such as Communist Youth League and young pioneers activities, labor education, practical teaching, volunteer service, legal education, safety education, and research activities. Actively invite the ‘5 retirees’ [retired cadres, veterans, experts, teachers, and role models], model laborers, models of ethics, models of the times, various representatives of advanced spiritual civilization, artists of good moral and artistic character, and so forth, to come carry out publicity and education activities at the school. Fully utilize resources from all sides such as the Communist Youth League and young pioneers, Committee for the Next Generation, science and technology associations, sports, culture, and travel; using methods of both inviting people into the school and going outside the school to effectively enrich the content of school coursework after school services, and to better satisfy students’ diversified needs in studying.

III. Parents truly fulfill the primary responsibility for family education

7. Increase the level of family education. Parents should strengthen awareness of the family being the first classroom and parents being the first teachers, emphasizing family construction, persist in setting an example and teaching through words and actions, cultivate an uplifting family culture, actively pass on positive family workstyles, advocate the family values of the Chinese people, and build harmonious and tranquil familial relationships, to create a positive family environment for children’s healthy growth. A scientific conception of family education should be established, following the concept of character education and the rules of minors’ physical and mental development, emphasizing the cultivation of children’s positive thinking and character, behavioral habits, and physical and mental health; respect individual differences to ideally determine goals for children’s growth. A correct hold should be taken on the proper methods of family education, and parents should spend more time with and care for their children, emphasizing active parent-child activities, giving play to the role of passive moral education; they should give more guidance and encouragement, emphasizing strengthing the cultivation of character and nurturing positive habits; parents should have more respect and understanding, strengthening equal communication, stressing the means and methods of education; and parents should give more reminders and more help, promptly dissuading, stopping, and teaching about negative conduct, mixing compassion with sternness, and promoting children’s more independent and autonomous growth. The parents of left-behind children should regularly maintain contact with their children, giving care and love, and promptly notifying the children’s school and the residents’ or villagers' committee for their actual residence of the circumstances of their entrusted care.

8. Actively coordinate school education. Parents should actively participate in family education guidance and interactive parent-school activities organized by schools, conscientiously study information and methods for family education, actively participate in efforts related to the parent committees, fully understand schools' normal education and teaching work, actively cooperate with the schools’ strict management and education of students in accordance with laws and regulations. They should promptly and proactively communicate with the school about students' thoughts and feelings a home, their physical and mental state, and normal conduct, creating a positive two-way interaction. Parents should lead their children in completing their daily schoolwork and necessary academic studies, carrying out appropriate physical training to ensure an hour of exercise outside of school each day; conduct extracurricular reading on interests to cultivate the habit of reading, and conduct various activities on arts and interests as available locally; and engage in household chores suited to their level of ability to increase their hands-on abilities. Lead children to use electronics reasonably, controlling the duration of their use, preventing internet addiction, protecting their healthy eyesight and preventing nearsightedness; ensure children’s balanced nutrition, urge children to go to sleep on time, and promote children’s maintaining a good physical and mental state and having robust energy for learning. Truly fulfill legally-prescribed guardianship duties, collaborate with schools to strengthen children’s safety education, increasing their awareness and ability to keep themselves safe.

9. Lead children to experience society. Parents should fully recognize the important function that the big classroom of social experience has in children’s education, and, based on the child’s age, actively use breaks such as holidays and days off to lead or support their children in having outdoor activities and sightseeing, actively participating in all forms of cultural experience, social labor, volunteer service, occupational experiences, and practical activities such as on cultural and the arts, science and sports, and manual skills, helping the children to get closer to nature, expand their horizons, broaden their minds, and increase their caliber.

IV. Effective Societal Support Services for Full Education

10. Improve the system for societal family education services. Make family education guidance an important part of urban and rural community public services, actively building an inclusive family education public service system. Support residents' and villagers’ committees in utilizing the urban-rural community public service facilities to establish family education guidance service stations such as parenting classes that cover urban and rural communities, actively alott full and part-time professional guidance personnel, cooperate with family education guidance establishments to complete guidance services in a targetted manner, particularly emphasizing left-behind children, children with disabilities, and children from special families. Marriage and adoption registration establishments should use methods such as on-site information and counseling and playing educational publicity films to publicize family education knowledge to parties. Public cultural service establishments should regularly carry out public interest publicity and guidance service activities on family education each year. Open universities, universities for the elderly, community colleges, and other such units should establish family education guidance courses, actively giving play to the role of guidance.

11. Advance open sharing of societal resources. Communities should actively carry out all types of public interest extra-curricular practicum activities for primary and secondary school students, promoting students’ physical health and enhancing their sense of social responsibility. All types of patriotic education bases, legal education bases, research practice bases, popular science education bases, libraries, museums, cultural centers, museums of intangible culture, art museums, memorials, science and technology museums, performance venues, sports venues, national parks, youth pavillions, children’s activities centers, and so forth, should give free or reduced-price admission to primary and secondary school students and children not yet old enough for school; and regularly carry out activities such as for publicity and education, popular science, cultural inheritance, cultivation of interests, and practical experience, and use methods such as establishing green channels, online reservations, and open days to facilitate school and kindergarten organized visits by students or parents bringing children for activities. Encourage and support relevant aspects of society in providing exceptional children’s cultural products that combine learning and entertainment, lead the production of exceptional artistic works such as movies, television shows, documentaries, cartoons, and stage productions that satisfy the esthetic demands of youths, continuously promote work such as ‘bringing fine arts on campus’ and “bringing drama to campus”, to pass on and promote the exceptional traditional Chinese culture, enrich students' spiritual and cultural lives, and increase students’ esthetic ability to appreciate and evaluate esthetics.

12. Purify the social education atmosphere. Thoroughly carry out a cleaning up and rectification of children’s books, audiovideo, and other publications, complete systems for comprehensive governance online, increase the force of governance for harmful online information, addiction to online games, and negative online behavior, sternly investigate and address violations of laws and regulations by online platforms, urge enterprises to strictly implement primary responsibility, and strive to create a clean social culture and positive online ecology that are conducive to the healthy growth of youths. Establish mechanisms for school safety work in which multiple departments cooperate, strengthen governance in the areas surrounding schools, and strengthen prevention and control of safety risks; for-profit entertainment venues, bars, internet service business venues, and other venues that are not suitable for minors must not be set up in the vicinity of schools; appropriately handle disputes related to school safety incidents in accordance with laws and regulations, truly safeguarding the lawful rights and interests of students and teachers. Deepen governance of all types of extra-curricular training, strictly prohibit social institutions carrying out extra-curricular training activities under the names of research practicums, summer (winter) camps, and so forth, and resolutely investigate and address conduct that violates laws and regulations.

V. Strengthen implementation safeguards

13. Strengthen organizational leadership. Each region and relevant department should take building mechanisms for the collaboration of schools, families, and society in education as a major political task in implementing the arrangements and allocations of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, strengthening Party leadership and government planning, including it in the schedule of important work, strengthening organizational coordination and joint departmental action, improving safeguards for funding, to actively promote the completion of mechanisms for the collaboration of schools, families, and society in education. In accordance with the “PRC Law on the Promotion of Family Education, people's governments at the county level or above should determine the family education guidance institutions for that area and organize the establishment of a proffessional corps for family education guidance services. Government bodies for women and children are responsible for organizing, coordinating, guiding, and urging the completion of efforts on family education; education departments are responsible for guiding schools in giving play to their primary role in coordinating eduation, strengthening close communication and coordination with families and society; the Communist Youth League and young pioneers organizations are responsible for widely developing practicum activities in schools and society; Women's Federation organizations, and civil affairs departments are responsible for establishing community family education guidance stations; and other relevant departments are responsible for efforts to coordinate society on education within the scope of their duties. Make the success of collaborative education by schools, families, and society an important part of evaluations of governments’ fulfillment of education duties and evaluations of education quality, and include it in evaluation systems for activities on creating civility and efforts on the ideological and moral establishment of minors and the protection of minors.

14. Strengthen professional support. Promote theoretical and practical research on collaborative education by shcools, family, and society carried out by schools of higher learning, research institutions, and professional groups, strengthen the theoretical establishment and the cultivation of professional talent, and actively advance the establishment of a cops of family education guidance professionals. Improve the curriculum for training students of teaching schools, make family education guidance an important part of training for normal school students and teacher’s professional training, and strengthen training for the staff of urban and rural community family education guidance service stations, to truly increase the level of teachers’ and communities' family education guidance services. Schools of higher learning are encouraged to establish elective courses in family education for college students. Support relevant research establishments and all levels and types of schools in actively carrying out the establishment of a course system on family education guidance, develop and aggregate exceptional resources on family education, continuously expand the national primary and secondary school smart education platform and the national online parenting school service functions, set up online open public interest courses on family education aimed at parents broadly, and promote the joint establishment, sharing, and wide usage of exception family education resources.

15.Create a positive environment. Each region should actively explore, continuously aggregate, and vigorously promote effective models of collaborative education by schools, families, and society; innovate methods and advanced experiences; actively advance the establishment of experimental regions for collaborative education to truly give play to the role of modeling and guidance. Give full play to the role of mainstream media, actively use all kinds of broadcast platform to thoroughly publicize policy measures, real successes, and model cases of collaboration on education by schools, families, and society; widely transmit the scientific conception of education and correct methods of family education, strengthen positve publicity and public opinion guidance, and vigorously create a positive environment in which all aspects of society are concerned with collaborative education.

Ministry of Education, Publicity Department of the CCCPC, Cyberspace Administration of China

Civilization Office of the CPCC, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Civil Affairs

Ministry of Culture and Tourism, State Cultural Relic Bureau, General Office of the State Council Working Committee on Children and Women

Communist Youth League Central Committee, All-China Women's Federation

China Committee for the Next Generation, China Association for Science and Technology

January 13, 2023