Reforms and Responses to the Internal Governance Structure of Primary and Secondary School in the Context of High-Quality Development in Mainland China

Abstract

In the wake of the focus on improving the quality of education in the international community, the development of the cause of education in mainland China has entered the stage of high-quality development. Currently, the construction of internal governance structures for primary and secondary schools in mainland China exhibits three areas of difficulties and problems: In vertical governance structures, the configurations are overly hierarchical, and there is a high cost of communication and coordination, and difficulty forwarding reforms and innovations; in horizontal governance structures, professional organizations do not have high status, there is a low degree of coordination, and efforts for oversight and assurance are inadequate; in integrated network governance structures, there is a weak basis for consensus and low responsiveness, and the degree of coupling needs improvement. In order to adapt to the needs of high-quality development, primary and secondary schools in mainland China must make reforms to and tackle several aspects of their internal governance structures, vertically adhering to the logic of management reform, to improve the rationality of decision-making and promote flattening of vertical structures; horizontally adhering to the logic of intrinsic development, to improve the status, authority and influence of a school’s professional organizations; and integratively abiding by the logic of systems integration, to build deliberative democratic network governance structures on the foundation of a consensus of ideas.

KEYWORDS:

• Governance structure
• high-quality development
• internal governance of primary and secondary schools
• mainland China
• reforms and responses

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Junyang Su

Junyang Su is a professor at the School of Education Management at Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.

Shi Si

Shi Si is a doctoral student majoring in Education Economics and Management at the School of Education Management at Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.

Sun Fang

Sun Fang is an associate professor at the School of Educational Science at Harbin Normal University, Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, China.