ABSTRACT
Since the early 1980s there have been a series of social and economic reforms in China. In the school curriculum, many efforts have been made to promote an ‘all-round’ education—this means pupils are more comprehensively trained and teaching covers moral, mental and physical education, labour skills, aesthetic education, and many other aspects. While in the policy there is emphasis on being ‘all-round’, in practice, teaching and learning in many schools merely focus on what is to be examined in public examinations. In this chapter, the main features and background of school education reforms and the new focus in the curriculum policy in China are introduced, with analyses of how and why teaching and learning is against all-round education. Potential solutions are discussed.
