What We Do and Why:
UNICEF CHINA Education and Child Development
CHILD-FRIENDLY, EQUITABLE AND
QUALITY BASIC EDUCATION: 6–12 YEARS
WHAT IS CHILD-FRIENDLY AND
EQUITABLE BASIC EDUCATION?
A child-friendly school revolves around the goal of
making the basic education experience engaging and
stimulating for children aged 6–12 years. The goal
also requires schooling to be of good quality and
accessible to all children. These principles are the core
of the UNICEF child-friendly school education model
because they:
• ensure inclusive enrolment and equal treatment
© UNICEF China
of all school-aged children in safe, healthy,
protective and positive environments;
• promote learning and the acquisition of
knowledge, capacities and attitudes through
relevant curriculum and effective teaching and Though separate elements, all three elements of the
learning; and UNICEF basic education model are symbiotic: Child-
friendly learning is recognized globally as the key
• strive for democratic participation of all students, to delivering quality education to all children. Child-
teachers, families and the local society, making friendly, equitable and quality basic education helps
the school a harmonious learning community develop well-rounded children in terms of physical,
with strong leadership from school managers. moral, social-emotional and intellectual well-being.
KEY ELEMENTS FOR QUALITY BASIC EDUCATION
INPUT PROCESS OUTCOME
• Good school infrastructure • Effective teaching and learning • All children reach or surpass
expected teaching and learning
• Qualified teachers • Effective school management
achievements
• Stimulating teaching and learning • Creating a positive, safe, protective
• All children have the knowledge,
materials and inclusive environment
skills and attitudes linked to
(classroom and school)
• Relevant curriculum national goals for education and
• Creating positive relationships positive participation in society
• Healthy, well-nourished children
with and involvement of parents
• Supportive supervision by the in children’s education
Ministry of Education
• Ongoing teacher professional
support
Children who are enrolled in a good-quality, child-friendly primary school are likely to complete the full schooling cycle, achieve
or exceed expected learning outcomes and successfully transition to secondary school.
UNICEF CHINA
What We Do and Why: Education and Child Development
CHINA’S INVESTMENT IN BASIC
EDUCATION EQUITY AND QUALITY
China has made amazing progress in expanding
access to education, with a 99.8% enrolment rate in
primary school (2014) and policies that universalize
© UNICEF China/2013/Jerry Liu
nine years of compulsory basic education.
Challenges remain in reaching the remaining 0.2%,
who represent a significant number and are mostly
concentrated in poor rural areas of western and
central China, not only with access to schools but also
schools delivering good-quality education.
Government commitment to equity and quality in
basic education
EDUCATION REFORMS TOUGHER WHERE
The Ministry of Education’s Education Reform EDUCATION DISPARITIES REMAIN
and Development Plan (2010–2020) reflects the
Government’s commitment to equity, with a focus on Disparities in education quality manifest typically
rural, left behind, and ethnic minority children and
between urban and rural communities and between
special education to:
rich and poor households. Children in disadvantaged
• make equal access to a basic state policy, based groups enrolled in schools, whether affected by
migration, ethnic minority status or residence in the
on equal rights; and
most poor and remote areas, tend to receive the
• give preferential resource allocation to rural poorest quality education. Their schools may lack
impoverished remote and border areas and
essential resources that would enable an optimal
ethnic autonomous areas.
teaching–learning environment.
In 2014, the Ministry of Education announced that
its policy on suzhi jiaoyu, or quality education, is not Teachers in those areas need additional support
only about achieving high grades but also about the to carry out the national education reforms, which
way that students learn, the environment they learn in call for interactive teaching that leads to improved
and how they apply what they have learned. learning outcomes.
Despite traditional value systems that look favourably
BASIC EDUCATION ACCESS IN CHINA, upon education, poor-quality learning can ‘push’
ACCORDING TO THE NUMBERS students out of the school system. Other factors
also ‘pull’ students away: poverty and the need to
For China’s 94.5 million primary school-aged contribute to household income as well as health and
children attending school (2014), approximately:
psychosocial issues.
• 68.9% were registered in rural schools
(including townships);
• 11%, or 10.3 million, were ethnic minority
children;
• 10%, or 9.6 million, were migrant children
from families of migrant workers;
• 15%, or 14.1 million, were children left
behind in rural areas by migrant parents;
they remained in the care of one parent
or other caregivers, such as grandparents;
approximately 733,000 of them (aged 6–12)
lived alone (based on the 2010 census);
© UNICEF China/2013/Jerry Liu
• 10.9%, or 10.2 million, were enrolled in
urban and rural boarding schools; and
• 5.6 million teachers taught them in
201,400 primary schools.
Source: Ministry of Education; UNICEF Children in China:
An atlas of social indicators 2014 update, Beijing, 2014.
Available from www.unicefchina.org/en/indexphp?m=
content&a=lists&catid=60
UNICEF PARTNERING WITH CHINA TO Where UNICEF works in China on basic education
DELIVER CHILD-FRIENDLY, EQUITABLE projects
AND QUALITY BASIC EDUCATION
UNICEF works with the Ministry of Education and
partners to help schools with the most disadvantaged
children, especially in rural areas, integrate child- Xinjiang Inner Mongolia
Gansu
friendly policies, standards and curricula.
Ningxia
Qinghai
The Child-Friendly, Equitable and Quality Basic
Education Programme contains four components: Tibet
Sichuan
Chongqing
1. A model and guidelines for developing a
child-friendly school in disadvantaged areas Guizhou
Yunnan
that enables schools to follow the Ministry of Guangxi
Education’s management standards. The model
covers components 2–4 plus:
• sports, music, dance and drama Teacher support and effective teaching and learning
Child Friendly Schools and Social and emotional learning
• boarding schools for children affected by Boarding School standards tested
migration Teacher Support and effective teaching and learning/boarding school standards tested
Social and emotional learning
• climate change and disaster risk reduction
education
Component 1. A model and guidelines for schools on
• school management implementing child-friendly education
• special education needs
Using our ‘muddy boots’ approach of testing practices
• engagement with communities and parents and concepts in specific areas that ideally will lead to
• provincial and county Education Commissions’ national application, UNICEF since 2001 has worked
support and supervision with the Ministry of Education on developing child-
friendly schools in China.
• education planning and use of statistics.
Achievements to date:
2. Social and emotional learning and mental health • Based on evidence that emerged from the pilot
education. sites, the Ministry of Education in 2009 issued
standards for child-friendly schools to be applied
3. Professional support for teachers and effective universally across the country.
teaching and learning.
• In 2013, those standards were transformed into the
4. Water, sanitation and hygiene in schools (see Child-Friendly School Management Standards
separate briefing note). for the nine years of compulsory basic education.
© UNICEF China/2013/Jerry Liu
© UNICEF China
UNICEF’s Programmes and The Ministry of Education’s Child-Friendly School Management Standards
• Teaching and learning and
• Sports and physical education
teacher education
• Social and emotional learning Pillar I: Pillar II:
• Migrant, left-behind and ethnic
• Community, families, schools People-oriented Promote minority children
• Climate change and disaster education and equality and
• Disability
risk reduction education all-round improve quality
development • Boarding schools
Pillar III: Pillar IV:
• Safe schools Safe, School operation in
• School management
• Water, sanitation and hygiene harmonious and accordance with
energetic learning the law and • School supervision
in schools
environments scientific • Provincial and county support
• School and classroom environment
management
Note: Red text refers to programmes that have been or are being tested (piloted). Black text refers to the focus areas in the UNICEF Country
Programme 2016–2020.
Future plans: Component 2. Children’s social and emotional
• UNICEF will continue its work with the Ministry of learning and mental health development
Education in areas in red text and begin working
on areas in black text, all of which will inform In 2011, UNICEF began working with the Ministry of
the devising of a costed model of a child-friendly Education and Beijing Normal University on the social
school and guidelines that enable administrators and emotional learning (SEL) component of child-
in disadvantaged areas to successfully implement friendly schools. The five primary elements of social
the four pillars of the Ministry’s national Child- and emotional learning – self-awareness, managing
Friendly School Management Standards. The feelings, motivation, empathy and social-skills –
model will include the guidelines and teacher are included in the Ministry’s 2012 Mental Health
training and teaching and learning materials Education Guidelines.
available to any school or teacher through the
Ministry’s cloud-based educational platform. UNICEF and the Ministry of Education have targeted
UNICEF will also complete an ongoing evaluation 2017 for reaching 100,000 primary school children
study over the five-year programme cycle to in 250 pilot schools in poor communities with social
demonstrate the link between child-friendly and emotional learning (including teacher training).
schools and improved learning outcomes. The lessons from that experience will be the basis
for a comprehensive model of social and emotional
• UNICEF and the Ministry of Education will work learning and mental health education that can be
on developing supervision standards, standards rolled out to other schools in the pilot counties
for rural boarding school principals and school and provinces by 2020 and aim to then inform the
supervision and modernization indicators, which Government’s education policy and practice.
will encompass child-friendly school standards.
Achievements to date:
• Expertise of China’s SEL experts team developed
with ongoing capacity strengthening by
international experts.
• A self-review instrument and teaching and
learning materials developed.
• Training of local trainers and school leaders on
children’s rights, concepts and approaches of
child-friendly schools and social and emotional
learning.
© UNICEF China
• Essential equipment provided to improve school
and learning environments for children.
• Teachers in the 250 pilot schools in five
disadvantaged counties trained in 2014 on
the SEL curriculum, which they began piloting
in classrooms.
• A SEL conference organized in 2014 in China to
share experiences and learn about programmes
from international SEL experts.
Future plans:
• Finalizing simplified tips for teaching SEL in
all classes, with tips for principals and SEL for
children left behind by migrant parents.
• Developing additional resources, including a
© UNICEF China
digital application for parents or caregivers of
children affected by migration on developing
their children’s social and emotional learning.
• Training and ongoing support for teachers and
principals.
Component 3. Professional support for teachers and
effective teaching and learning
To improve classroom teaching and learning, UNICEF
works with the Ministry of Education to create a
learner-centred, participatory learning environment
that sparks creativity, encourages a love of inquiry
and helps the most vulnerable children in China
pursue their learning excellence.
© UNICEF China
Achievements to date:
• An on-site teacher training and support system
through resource teachers has been piloted by
UNICEF and the Ministry of Education since
2007, including the introduction in 2009 of a
A BOTTLE OF SODA SPARKS mobile educational training and resource unit
UNDERSTANDING OF SOCIAL AND in earthquake-affected areas, which the Ministry
EMOTIONAL LEARNING AMONG RURAL will further develop. The model involves resource
CHILDREN teachers travelling to schools, observing teachers
to identify their strengths and weaknesses and
Zhong County, Chongqing Province: A bottle of
helping them improve through training courses.
fizzy cola in hand, Julie Casey, senior director
of SEAL consultancy in the United Kingdom, Influenced by this model, the Government
started her social and emotional learning published the Plan for Supporting Village School
demonstration with a story. “I woke up terribly Teachers (2015–2020), with building up teachers’
late this morning because of the jet lag.” capabilities through a continuous support
She shook the soda bottle. “I feel extremely system designated as a fundamental strategy.
nervous because this is my first lesson in
China,” she continued, shaking the bottle really • Creating teacher guidelines on inquiry-based
hard. “Tell me what will happen if I open this learning for teaching Chinese, math and science
soda bottle?” and developing online training programmes
and videos. Teachers have responded positively
“It will explode!” the children screamed when to watching stronger teachers implementing
Julie started to twist the cap. “That’s right. It’s new methods. Since 2010, a UNICEF-supported
okay if we feel sad or angry. But if we let our project has helped more than 10,500 Chinese,
negative feelings and emotions build up, it will math and science teachers in grades 3–5 improve
eventually explode like this soda. So we need their teaching skills. The project introduced
to understand our feelings and learn how to materials for individual and group learning
manage them.”
games for inside and outside the classroom that
See the full blog by Fu Ning, UNICEF China research
reinforces the application of difficult concepts
assistant, at http://www.unicef.cn/en/index.php?c=index&a= and the idea that ‘learning
show&catid=51&id=4223 is fun’.
• A set of training resources for physical education
teachers in primary and junior secondary
schools to improve teachers’ skills and the role
of play, physical education classes and sport in
rural child-friendly schools. The model includes
demonstration of good sports facilities and
equipment and promoting organized sport
activities in schools. As of 2015, 1,050 physical
© UNICEF China
education teachers from 342 rural primary
and secondary schools in eight provinces had
attended national and county training workshops
on the resource package.
Future plans: GAMES FOR LEARNING IN THE
• Refining the on-site teacher professional support CLASSROOM
system with a focus on improving teaching
Games for students and teachers to
and learning, and continuing to demonstrate
understand and explain key concepts in
innovative teaching and learning and teacher
Chinese, math and science have transformed
training models to inform national professional classroom learning activities. Through Ministry
standards for teachers and training programmes of Education and UNICEF collaboration, 22
and implementation of the National Educational games are being developed to help students
Informatization Plan 2011–2020. The plan aims and teachers grasp potentially challenging
to narrow the digital divide between rural and concepts and to apply them to real-life
urban schools, make resource teaching and situations, such as fractions, percentages,
learning materials available online, especially measuring areas and word building. To date,
to schools in disadvantaged rural areas, and to kits that include 14 games have gone out to all
enable teachers to use technology to facilitate schools in the child-friendly school project in
changes in their rote teaching and learning five western region provinces, reaching more
practices. The UNICEF programme will work with than 68,000 primary school students in grades
the National Center for Education Technology to 3–5 and more than 10,000 teachers (see
develop the digital training materials, including http://cdepen.eduyun.cn/tmgnjy/1687.jhtml).
video programmes on generic teaching skills The remaining eight games and support
and best practices, and a mobile teaching tips activities will be finalized in 2015.
application. The mobile resource teacher model
will be further refined.
“Social and emotional learning is the process
UNICEF ADVOCATING FOR EDUCATION through which children and young people…
GLOBALLY AND SOUTH-SOUTH acquire knowledge, attitudes and skills to
PROGRAMMES recognise and manage emotions, set and
achieve positive goals, demonstrate care and
UNICEF will continue working with partners in China concern for others, establish and maintain
on ensuring education is a central pillar of the post- positive relationships, make responsible
2015 development agenda and promoting more child- decisions, and handle interpersonal situations
friendly school environments to improve conditions effectively.”
and make schools and learning more appealing for Durlak et al., The Impact of Enhancing Students’ Social
children. UNICEF will also share the many good and Emotional Learning: A meta-analysis of school-based
practices from China’s disadvantaged schools with universal interventions, Child Development, 2011.
schools in developing countries in Asia and Africa.
About UNICEF: UNICEF promotes the rights and well-being of every child, in everything we do. Together with our partners, we
work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most
vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere. For more information about UNICEF and its work visit:
www.unicef.org
Visit UNICEF China website: www.unicef.cn
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Wechat: unicefchina
For further information, please contact: Shantha Bloemen, UNICEF China, +8610 85312610, [email protected] or
Liu Li, UNICEF China, +8610 85312612, [email protected]
UNICEF China
12 Sanlitun Lu
Beijing 100600
Beijing, People’s Republic of China
