ABSTRACT
The adoption of a small class teaching policy in China started in Shanghai, the most economically developed city in the country. In 1997, the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission invited ten primary schools from different districts to join an experimental scheme in small class education (SCE), with class sizes of 30 or below. From the outset, the SCE policy aimed to provide equal access to quality education and to alleviate the impact of the rapid decline in school enrolment (Galton, Lai, and Chan, 2015). It also symbolized a desire to offer high-quality basic education during the city’s rapid economic growth in the 1990s (Dong, 2001).
