GXNU President Liang Hong’s Address
Dear Secretary-General Zhu Muju, Honorable Chairperson of this Conference,
Dear Ms. Anne Luwema, Consul-General, Our Respectful Friend,
Dear Mr. Arkker, Director general of the SLO
Dear Mr. Shen Jiliang, Vice Director of Department II of Basic Education, Ministry of Education of China
Dear Mr. Tian Huisheng, Director of NCCT
Dear Mr. Gao Feng, Chief of the Education Department of Guangxi Government
Distinguished guests, experts and all the participants at the forum
Good morning, everyone!
Today we’re very happy to meet each other in Guilin, a world-famous city for her attractive landscape, for the Third Chinese-European Conference on Curriculum Development of Basic Education. On behalf of Guangxi Normal University, I extend my heart-felt congratulations on the successful opening of this conference. On this occasion what I’d like to say first is, a warm welcome to you all, distinguished guests, experts and participants. Thank you for your joining us in this meeting. I’d also like to say hello to all the working staff for their remarkable efforts they have offered at the preparatory stage of this conference.
As one of the institutions of higher education in China that have a long history in teachers-training, our university was set up in 1932. With a history of 80 years’ development, our university has grown into a key university in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, distinctive in its teachers-training, overall academic disciplines and strong course-offerings oriented to basic natural science and liberal arts. Our university now has three campuses, namely, Wangcheng, Yucai and Yanshan. On the three campuses there are 27 colleges or schools. We have over 2200 staff members and more than 24000 full-time students. As a normal university with the mission and commitment related to training teachers for schools, our university has always kept an orientation to the basic education and always concerned itself with the education reform and development in school levels. Having served and explored the basic education for long in school running, our university has trained more than twenty-one hundred thousand qualified teachers and professionals in some other fields. We are proud of the fact that we’ve fulfilled the mission that a teachers-training university must take in an outstanding way and we’ve realized our ideal and achieved what we’ve pursued as a teachers-training university. According to the incomplete statistics, over 70 percent of the special-grade high school teachers, over 80 percent of the principals of the model high school and over 60 percent of the chiefs of the education department at city-level or county-level are graduates from our university.
In the process of promoting the school curriculum reform, our university has gathered and brought into full play the professional strength inside and outside the university. Indeed, our university has taken an active part in the researches and innovation activities related to the basic education reform and in addition, our university has offered various technical supports to the curriculum reform associated with the basic education in Guangxi and to the teachers who are engaged in the school curriculum reform. Ever since its establishment in 2001, The Center for School Curriculum Research & Development of Guangxi Normal University authorized by Ministry of Education of China has played a leading role in the area of academic research and practice innovation for the National Curriculum Reform. The feedback from the society is quite favorable for what it has done. Authorized by the Department of Education of Guangxi Government, the project entitled “Model Platform Construction for Innovative Physics & Science Teachers Education”, of which our university is in charge, is now well under way. This project, with disciplines as carriers and as the access for breakthrough, and with teaching teams as the main force, has scored some obvious prophase achievements in building up a new system of direct contact between teachers-training institutes and schools. The university has integrated its academic advantages of pedagogy, psychology, education technology and preschool education. Besides, it has been exerting its efforts in the research on how to train qualified professionals in basic education and how to make an integral education of teachers pre-service and in-service in the field of basic education. It has also organized and put into effect the most influential projects of teacher-education in Guangxi, such as “The 21th Century Gardener Project of Guangxi”, “Workshop for Special Grade School Teachers in Guangxi”, “Project for Training Star School Teachers” and “Project for Training Outstanding School Principals”. Our university is gradually becoming a think-tank to prop up the innovative development of the basic education and the education of teachers in region of Guangxi.
It is a great honor for our university to sponsor this conference. Here, first and foremost, I’d like to extend my special thanks to the NCCT of Ministry of Education and to the SLO Netherlands for their trust and guidance. My thanks are also extended to the Education Department of Guangxi Government for their great help and support to our university. I sincerely hope that all the experts and participants at this conference will share without reserve with us their wisdom and invaluable experience. I am expecting that our university will see this conference as a new starting point on our way to seek for more partners and cooperative opportunities in the area of school curriculum development and some other related areas so as to join our efforts together to make newer and greater contributions to the school curriculum reform in Guangxi, in China and even in the international range.
Enjoy your stay in Guilin!
May the conference be a great success!