In international football, the Japanese football team recently won a brilliant victory, defeating the strong enemy in North America with a remarkable advantage of 4-1, which not only showed their strong strength in both offensive and defensive ends, but also highlighted their tacit teamwork. This victory is not only a recognition of the Japanese team, but also an affirmation and encouragement of the strength of the whole Asian football.

The reason why Japanese football can stand at the peak of world football today is largely due to the profound changes in the youth training system of the Japanese Football Association. They have absorbed the advanced concepts and training methods of international football and cultivated many players with comprehensive skills and strong tactical awareness. On the court, these players built an almost impeccable defense line with their unparalleled teamwork and mutual understanding.

Furthermore, while actively participating in international competitions, the Japan Football Association has also conducted extensive cooperation and exchanges with other football powers. Facing the world-class opponents, Japanese players not only honed their own skills, but also learned valuable experience by analyzing the opponent’s tactical layout, thus constantly improving their own tactical system. It is this international vision and open attitude that makes Japanese football more and more dazzling on the international stage.

As an important representative of Asian football, this leap of Japan is not only their own, but also a remarkable proof of the strength of the whole Asian football. Their success showed the world the rapid progress and unlimited potential of Asian football and won more respect and praise for Asian football.

However, behind all these achievements, it is the result of the long-term unremitting efforts and exploration of the Japanese Football Association. They constantly reformed and optimized the youth football training system, focused on cultivating players’ basic skills and diversified abilities, and established a scientific and efficient youth training model, which provided a solid cornerstone for the rise of Japanese football.

Behind such dazzling achievements in Japanese football are the contributions of many people who have paid silently. From coaches to club staff, from the parents of players to loyal fans, everyone’s efforts and support are an important part of the glory of Japanese football. To sum up, the Japanese football team’s great victory not only demonstrated their excellent ability and team spirit at both ends of the offensive and defensive, but also further consolidated their position in the world football. The continuous reform and optimization of the Japanese Football Association, coupled with extensive exchanges with international football, have created a team with exquisite skills and mature tactics. Their success is not only the recognition of a single team, but also an affirmation of the strength of the whole Asian football.

"The collapse of the county" and the difficulty in introducing excellent educational talents … As an underdeveloped prefecture-level city located in the southwest of Hunan Province, the regional GDP ranking is not in the top of the province. In the past few years, the overall level of basic education development in Yongzhou City was still hovering in the middle and lower reaches of Hunan Province.

How to achieve a higher level of education development?

"Adhere to the priority development of education, implement the strategy of building a strong city through education, and play a’ combination boxing’ around promoting high-quality and balanced development of education, improving teaching quality, and narrowing the educational gap between the north and the south, so as to promote the high-quality development of education in the city!" Zhu Hongwu, secretary of Yongzhou Municipal Party Committee, said.

With the attitude of striving for the first place, Yongzhou handed over an "answer sheet" for the development of education at a higher level. From 2020 to 2021, Yongzhou’s education work won the encouragement and praise of Hunan provincial government for its hard work supervision twice; In 2022, it was awarded "excellent" in the evaluation and assessment of municipal and state governments’ educational responsibilities … What is behind this to promote the change?

Promote at a high level to solve the "collapse in the county"

The quality of high school education and teaching in Daoxian, ningyuan county and other counties is not high, which was once a pain point in Yongzhou.

In 2023, the secretary of Yongzhou Municipal Party Committee and the mayor successively organized special investigations to gain an in-depth understanding of the development of county-level ordinary high schools, and proposed to carry out the assistance and co-construction of Yongzhou No.1 Middle School and Yongzhou No.4 Middle School in Ningyuan No.1 Middle School and Daoxian No.1 Middle School, so as to promote the high-quality development of county-level high schools in the city.

"Twinning to help county-level ordinary high schools, the county party committee and the county government bear the main responsibility, and the city and county-level supervision offices have been keeping an eye on it for a long time …" Zhu Hongwu said that Yongzhou promoted twinning to help county-level ordinary high schools as a major educational reform.

In September, the counterpart support team entered Daoxian No.1 Middle School and Ningyuan No.1 Middle School to carry out their work, and started with the establishment and improvement of various school management systems to help the school improve the scientific and standardized management level.

Yongzhou City and Helping Counties set up a special fund of 10 million yuan for the aided schools every year, and establish and improve the incentive mechanism for work evaluation. Every year, the local county party committee, county government and the Municipal Education Bureau organize the performance evaluation of cadres and teachers sent by the municipal high schools, and those who pass the examination will be rewarded by the county where they are located every year.

"The municipal and county finances have also set up special funds for our school to ensure that we and the cadres and teachers sent by the municipal high school will carry out all aspects of teaching, research and education reform in a normal way." Mary, a teacher from Daoxian No.1 Middle School, said.

"The quality of high school education is one of the important indicators to measure the quality of education and people’s satisfaction in a region. We will continue to increase urban planning and help nanbu county, such as Ningyuan and Daoxian, get out of the dilemma of’ collapse in the county’. " Chen Ailin, deputy secretary of Yongzhou Municipal Committee and mayor, said.

It is reported that the city has invested 1.77 billion yuan to build six public ordinary high schools with high standards, and invested more than 500 million yuan to rebuild and expand nine public ordinary high schools. In the past five years, the city has added nearly 50,000 high school places.

Optimize and improve quality to solve the problem of "more but not better"

Jump rope happily for 10 minutes between classes, and have the same music class with the students who help rural schools … Recently, children are enjoying a happy campus life at the teaching point of Shankoupu Village, Tuojiang Town, Jianghua Yao Autonomous County.

In the past, there were many teaching points in Yongzhou, accounting for a relatively large proportion in Hunan Province. Rural education was "big but not strong" and teaching points were "many but not excellent". Sprinkling pepper noodles is not only difficult to see obvious results, but also wastes resources.

In the spring of 2020, Yongzhou Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government took the lead in exploring the optimization and upgrading reform of rural small-scale schools in Xintian, and achieved more than expected results. "Xintian Experience" was also selected as "100 Cases of Exploration of Grassroots Reform in Hunan".

Based on the "Xintian Experience", in 2021, Yongzhou continued to make efforts to optimize and upgrade small-scale rural schools as an important measure to promote the balanced development of urban and rural education and boost rural revitalization, and comprehensively promote the optimization and upgrading of teaching points in the city. In the past three years, Yongzhou has embarked on a path that can be replicated and popularized in the optimization and upgrading of rural teaching points.

Up to now, the number of rural teaching points in the city has been optimized and upgraded to 353, 236 left-behind Children’s Home schools have been established, and 535 online joint schools have been built. All small rural schools in the city have achieved full coverage of the Internet and Banbantong.

"Let every rural child enjoy a better education, which is the solemn commitment of the municipal party committee and the municipal government to the people of the whole city." Huang Zanxiao, Party Secretary and Director of Yongzhou Education Bureau, said. Through continuous efforts, Yongzhou has basically realized the transformation from "small and weak" to "small and beautiful" and "small and excellent".

Bringing education together to solve the "teacher dilemma"

Yongzhou’s economy is underdeveloped, and its attraction to talents is limited. At one time, it faced the difficult problem of teachers’ "attracting, cultivating and retaining". How to break the game?

In recent years, Yongzhou Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government have issued "Implementation Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the System and Mechanism of Talent Development" and "Article 36" of the New Deal for Talents, etc., in order to attract and retain talents for the city’s education system.

Since 2018, the city has introduced more than 800 high-quality education talents. In 2023, the city introduced 175 outstanding educational talents. Up to now, the number of primary and secondary school teachers in the city has increased by more than 20% year-on-year, the number of deputy senior judges has nearly doubled year-on-year, and the actual number of deputy senior judges has increased by 192% year-on-year, effectively stimulating the enthusiasm of teachers.

To build a high-quality and professional team of high school teachers is inseparable from the guidance of famous teachers. Yongzhou has written the construction of "famous teacher project" into the government work report for three consecutive years, taking it as an important starting point for strengthening the city through education.

In recent years, Yongzhou organized and selected 40 "Yongzhou Chief Teachers", built 100 county-level famous teacher studios, and promoted the professional growth of more than 5,000 young and middle-aged outstanding backbone teachers.

At this year’s Teachers’ Day Celebration Conference in Yongzhou, the main leaders of Yongzhou Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government awarded licenses to 20 newly established municipal famous teacher studios. "These famous teacher studios are like entrepreneurial teams, and all teachers, young and old, are full of passion." Wen Jiayou, a researcher at Yongzhou Academy of Educational Sciences, said.

The introduction of talents, the project of famous teachers, and the promotion of teachers’ abilities … Yongzhou is taking a series of reform measures to solidly promote the construction of "three teams" of principals, class teachers and teachers, constantly stimulate the initiative and creativity of teachers, and consolidate the foundation for the high-quality development of Yongzhou education.

China Education News, 1st edition, November 29th, 2023.

Author: Special correspondent Li Qing Our reporter Yang Xiye

Climate change is the most urgent and complex global crisis facing mankind, and coping with climate change has become a top priority for mankind. What can education contribute to human response to climate change? How to play the role of education to slow down and adapt to climate change?

Recently, at the Sixth World Education Frontier Forum with the theme of "Climate Education and Learning: Turn the tide and Start with Me", experts and scholars from home and abroad discussed these issues in combination with the latest research results in climate change education.

What can education do for climate change?

Ma Fengqi, dean of the School of Education of Guangzhou University, believes that in the face of the increasingly severe challenge of climate change, what human beings can do is to start from me, from now on, from everyone’s daily life, and education is duty-bound.

Yin Houqing, vice-president of the 8th Council of China Education Association and president of Shanghai Education Association, conducted a survey on 236 primary and secondary schools in Shanghai. He found that the surveyed schools designed 400 scientific projects in project-based learning, and the environment-related projects accounted for about 20%, which was a high proportion in general. However, the projects related to climate change account for 2.5%, which is very low.

Yue Wei, a professor at the School of Education of Huazhong Normal University, believes that tackling climate change is not only a scientific and social issue, but also an educational issue, and education must take active action. The value orientation of education in coping with climate change lies in slowing down and adapting to climate change.

"For a long time, education has always followed the modern development paradigm centered on economic growth. This is undoubtedly aggravating the survival crisis of mankind and the earth. " Yue Wei said that in order to alleviate, adapt and even reverse climate change, education itself must be changed, and its important direction is its own ecologicalization.

In addition, an evaluation survey of international students by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development shows that young people generally have a good understanding of climate change. Among the students surveyed, nearly 80% said they knew or were very familiar with climate change and global warming.

Deborah Nusa, a senior analyst of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, believes that the education system plays an important role in climate change by influencing the way of thinking, behavior and life choices. At the same time, climate change provides an opportunity for education: to help young people improve their thinking skills and accept complexity better.

What challenges does climate change education face?

In East Asia, a region with a strong atmosphere of exam-oriented education, how can we carry out an education that seems to be not directly related to further studies and exams? Li Shengbing, dean of the School of Education Science of South China Normal University and executive director of the Hong Kong and Macao Research Center, pointed out that the implementation of climate change education is indeed a big problem.

Pei Qing, an associate professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, has long been engaged in research on climate change education. In his teaching practice, he found that when talking to students about global climate change, students usually feel very far away from themselves. When studying climate change, it is difficult for students to feel the traces of climate change.

Pei Qing believes that how to close the distance between students and climate change education, effectively promote climate change education, and enhance young people’s scientific literacy and humanistic feelings are issues that need to be considered in climate change education.

"At present, in some countries, school science teaching has not changed much in the past ten years, becoming more and more outdated and out of touch with real scientific practice in the real world." Deborah Nusa believes that school science education plays a vital role in cultivating future scientists, so attracting and supporting students to further their studies in the STEM field is the key to strengthening green development.

Teachers are the key to the implementation of climate change education, but teachers around the world generally lack the necessary knowledge, resources and teaching training related to climate change education, and cannot effectively implement climate change education in the classroom. A recent survey conducted by UNESCO on 58,280 teachers in 144 countries shows that less than 40% teachers are confident to teach climate change knowledge.

How to carry out climate change education?

Gong Peng, vice president of the University of Hong Kong and professor of global sustainable development, pointed out that many climate change problems are not profound, and climate change education should start with dolls.

He believes that the relevant knowledge of climate change should be designed in the basic education system, from kindergarten to high school, giving priority to the knowledge of climate change on health threats, starting with the simple knowledge of coping with high temperature and heat waves, and gradually increasing the systematic knowledge of coping with climate change.

Climate change education involves meteorology, geography, physics, chemistry, sociology, economics, politics and other disciplines. Yue Wei pointed out that the implementation of climate education should move from a single discipline to a multi-disciplinary integration, and the unique advantages of different disciplines should be brought into play to achieve the effect of collaborative education.

Li Xingwei, president of Macau University of Science and Technology, an academician of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering, believes that the government can use the database to carry out popular science activities and cooperate with secondary schools and universities to improve students’ awareness of climate change. The development of climate change education needs interdisciplinary thinking. At the university level, tourism industry, environment, economy and other disciplines all intersect. He hopes that the construction of these related subjects in China can form an all-round talent training system from undergraduate to doctoral level.

Yue Wei believes that student-centered experiential teaching and inquiry learning are the most effective for climate change education. These teaching methods can make students connect with the real world, give full play to their creativity, and then find solutions to problems from different angles.

Yin Houqing also believes that climate education is not only to teach people the skills to cope with climate change in their lives, but also to enable students to form the values they need to adapt to climate change, thus driving behavioral changes. In the construction and implementation of the climate change education curriculum, the thematic learning mode promotes learners from knowledge learning to understanding learning, and then connects with life, so as to improve the quality of ecological civilization.

The "World Education Frontier Forum" is a cross-disciplinary international education exchange platform founded by the China Education Thirty Forum, with the aim of "leading the trend and creating the future". The forum aims to promote the international exchange of the latest educational ideas and models, promote the application of the latest educational technology, and realize the all-round development of education in the future. The forum was hosted by the China Education Thirty Forum, in cooperation with the Education Policy Research Center of the University of Hong Kong, and co-organized by Tian Jiabing Foundation, the National and Regional Research Base of the Ministry of Education, the Hong Kong and Macao Research Center of South China Normal University, and the School of Education of Guangzhou University.