Exploring Policy Tools for Enhancing Teacher Education Synergy in Zhejiang Province, China

• In Event: Improving teacher education programs: Insights for better preparing future teachers

Proposal

Abstract:
The current core orientation of teacher education development in China revolves around "high quality" and "equity." In this context, regional teacher education collaborative development serves as a systematic approach to "enhance quality" and "promote equitable development." This research aims to build upon existing studies and investigate the problem domain of teacher education collaborative development at the provincial level in Zhejiang. It seeks to identify the policy instruments to address these issues and explore how to effectively utilize the policy toolbox to tackle various types of teacher education collaborative development challenges.

Introduction:
Zhejiang Province, situated in the developed eastern coastal region of China, centers its teacher education collaborative development on the core values of "high quality" and "equity." Teachers and teacher education institutions are not merely passive recipients of policies but active participants in policy implementation. The policy-making process should encompass democratic participation, target achievement, implementation effectiveness, and alignment with the intentions of policy executors and stakeholders. Establishing a feedback mechanism is essential to ensure that teacher education policies are both ambitious and practical. To achieve successful policy implementation, this research proposes improving the governance system, promoting bidirectional coupling of top-down policies and bottom-up public opinions, strengthening the self-renewal and self-improvement capabilities of teacher education systems, and streamlining policy implementation to reduce inefficiencies.

Research Objectives:
This research is primarily focused on the following key aspects:

Analyzing and optimizing the problem domain of teacher education collaborative development in Zhejiang Province. Optimizing the problem domain involves identifying new questions, expanding the scope of problems, structuring priority issues, and conducting logical analyses of the relationships, causes, and effects of these issues. This not only enhances the understanding of the research problems in a systematic and structured manner but also offers valuable insights for policy development and implementation.
Analyzing the policy toolbox to address teacher education collaborative development challenges in Zhejiang Province. The policy toolbox consists of a collection of diverse policy instruments adopted by the government to address educational issues and achieve policy objectives. As the problem domain evolves and priority issues change, the policy toolbox should be continuously enriched, improved, and customized to match the problems efficiently.
Research Methodology:
Grounded in the "evidence-based practice" concept of policy research, this research will provide the best evidence for policy-making and planning by investigating and analyzing the problem domain and policy implementation process of provincial teacher education collaborative development. The evidence will be categorized into descriptive evidence, research evidence, situational evidence, and audience evidence. By analyzing and validating different types of evidence, the research will identify the institutional challenges and critical issues hindering teacher education collaborative development in Zhejiang Province. Based on this, the research will explore feasible policy tools to advance provincial teacher education synergy.

Research Area and Data Collection:
The research will focus on the capital city of Zhejiang Province and three major cities with prominent teacher education institutions: Hangzhou, Jinhua, and Huzhou. The research institutions will include, but not be limited to, the Zhejiang Provincial Education Department (Research Office, Teacher Work Division, etc.), the education bureaus of Hangzhou, Jinhua, and Huzhou (Research Offices, Teacher Development Departments, etc.), relevant education administrative departments, provincial, municipal, and county-level teacher education institutions (Teacher Training Schools or Teacher Education Colleges), and the three major provincial teacher education institutions: Hangzhou Normal University, Zhejiang Normal University, and Huzhou University. Data collection methods will primarily involve physical collections (texts, archives, images, and audiovisual materials), survey questionnaires, participatory observations, semi-structured individual interviews, and focus group discussions.

Author

• Luan Gao, Huzhou University