Translating global policy into local reality: tensions and challenges in implementing key competencies-based education reform in China

• In Event: Case studies in educational policies: adult learning, data science, EdTech and competencies-based reform

Proposal

Introduction

With the expansion of the global knowledge economy, educational goals and policy discourses in many countries have turned to competency-based education (CBE), making it a “global education policy” (GEP) (Tromp, 2018, p. 162). China is among the countries implementing CBE. China’s CBE reform emerged in response to global education reform trends (Deng and Peng, 2021; Lin, 2016), which is a transferred policy. China has implemented CBE reform in general high schools since September 2018 and extended it to elementary and middle schools starting in September 2022.
Despite the increasing international and national promotion of CBE, empirical research on its local re-contextualisation and implementation remains limited (Ryan and Cox, 2017; Scheopner Torres et al., 2018; Tromp, 2018). Tan (2016) pointed out that when global symbols are transferred to a new context, it is necessary to analyse how they present different connotations and generate new combinations, connections, and meanings. Anderson-Levitt (2017) highlighted that the implementation of CBE policies is not well understood, encouraging other researchers to trace the details of their local implementation, and their outcomes.
Steiner-Khamsi (2014) suggested reviewing foreign policies five or ten years after their introduction. Given that China’s CBE reform has been implemented in high schools for six years, this study focuses on the reform at the high school level. The main research questions guiding this study are: what are the tensions and challenges of the implementation of CBE in China? what are the mediating factors affecting the implementation of CBE in China?

Educational Transfer and Contextual Factors

Understanding the interaction between local contexts and transferred policies is the crux of the educational transfer puzzle (Rappleye, Imoto and Horiguchi, 2011). Verger, Altinyelken and Novelli (2018) provided four perspectives to explain the re-contextualisation of GEPs: material, institutional, cultural, and scalar contexts. First, the material context refers to the economic, resource, and technological elements supporting the operation of the education system and policy implementation within the local context. Second, the institutional context includes various social institutions, including political systems, influencing the adoption and adjustment of global policy models by nation-states. Third, cultural context, as attitudes, values, beliefs, assumptions, and behaviours shared by a group of people (Tan, 2016), plays a fundamental role in educational transfer. Finally, scalar contexts emphasise how policies transfer, adapt, and implement across different levels (global, regional, national, or local). These four main contextual factors impact on the re-contextualisation and internalisation of GEPs.
Although re-contextualisation involves local actors’ adaptive modifications of GEPs, people cannot know in advance whether it will suit the local context until after policy implementation and the internalisation process is examined. Therefore, the examination of the challenges faced by GEP transfer is retrospective, reminding us that the true challenge lies in the internalisation process and is inherently embedded in the stages of cross-national attraction and decision-making.

Methods

This study combines document analysis and semi-structured interviews. The data mainly comes from three provincial-level administrative regions in China, namely Shanghai, Sichuan, and Henan. These three provinces represent different socio-economic regions in China, with per capita GDP levels at high, medium, and low levels, respectively. First, we collected and analysed documents related to CBE from the official websites of the Chinese central government, the MoE, and the three sample provinces to understand the specific policy content, and the attention and implementation of CBE at the national and provincial, and municipal levels in China. Next, we interviewed 54 teachers (19 from Shanghai, 19 from Sichuan, and 16 from Henan) from 35 high schools, 33 recently graduated high school students (11 from each of Shanghai, Sichuan, and Henan) from 28 high schools, and 19 teaching-reseach officers (7 from Shanghai, 7 from Sichuan, and 5 from Henan) from 14 teaching-reseach institutions. We conducted interviews with the participants either via WeChat, by phone, or in person, with each interview lasting 1.5-2 hours. The interviews were recorded with the consent of the interviewees and transcribed into interview materials. The interviews focused on the implementation of the CBE reform and the challenges encountered.
This study used thematic analysis to analyse the data. Prominent themes in the data were identified using Braun and Clarke’s (2021) reflexive thematic analysis, which comprises six phases: familiarisation; coding; generating initial themes; reviewing and developing themes; refining, defining, and naming themes; and writing up.

Findings and Discussion

This study finds that CBE faces significant policy-implementation gaps. According to respondents, the CBE reform encounters four main challenges: a) fear of reform: national college entrance examination(Gaokao) system’s constraint on CBE reform; b) difficulty in reform: teachers’ lack of capacity and motivation for implementation; c) resistance to reform: parents, society, and schools’ lack of collective effort; d) lack of resources for reform: insufficient and uneven distribution of resources. CBE has been interpreted, modified, and resisted by key actors at different levels, with material, institutional, cultural, and scalar contextual factors mediating its translation into Chinese classrooms.
This book reveals that in centralized educational systems, the implementation of transferred educational policies encounters significant socio-cultural and administrative pressures. CBE reform faces dual tensions: a) tensions between global policy and national realities, manifested in conflicts between prioritising knowledge versus prioritising competencies, student-centred versus teacher-centred approaches, and multiple assessments versus high-stakes testing; b) tensions between national policies and local practices, evident in the dual challenges faced by top-down educational reforms, namely the divergence between central and local levels and the disconnection between policy texts and practice. The success of translating GEPs from global to local, and from policy to practice, depends on the size of the gaps in these two tensions.

Conclusion

This study indicates that schools and teachers encounter multiple challenges in implementing CBE reform. Multiple socio-cultural contextual factors have influenced the implementation of the transferred CBE policy within the nation-state. This study suggests that successful educational transfer requires consideration of contextual factors and the voices of policy implementers. Educators and policymakers can use this study to understand the key features of the reform and the obstacles that may arise during implementation, and to consider directions for improvement.

Author

• Li Deng, East China Normal University