Abstract

This paper is a review of the education reform of Asian countries in the 90s. In short, the problems raised by the Asian countries in their recent education reforms have many common features. For instance, the ossified education system fails to meet the demands of rapid social development; the exam-led teaching mode fails to promote creativity and self-actualizing among students; the inflexible teaching process fails to adjust according to individual needs; the boundary of traditional subjects fails to incorporate new knowledge of the new society; the predominantly intelligence-based education fails to multiply and diversify learning experiences from a single monotonous form; the mechanic perception of learning objectives lacks humanitarian perspectives and fails to trigger the inner drive of lifelong learning. To address this whole series of problems, the Asian countries have made clear in their education reforms that the focus should be put on fostering the creativity of the new generation, the development of individual students' personality and their aptitudes to adjust and adapt flexibly to the ever-changing society, etc. The adaptability of the new society could be nurtured, as Asian countries coincidentally agreed, by placing the stress on the new education reform development towards multi-dimension, globalization and resilience. In addition, amidst the rapid change of the new age, students are required to acquire life-long learning attitudes and aptitudes so as to keep abreast of times, adapt to new things and constantly contribute to the ever-changing world. Therefore, teachers, when facing the new education arena, have to acquire new teaching attitude and ability. This paper particularly points out that teachers of the new age have to be aware of their roles not only as facilitators in teaching, but also as learners themselves. More importantly, in the new age, both teachers and students have to become creators of knowledge and should not play a passive role in teaching and learning process. Only in this way we could genuinely nurture the creativity needed for this age.

[Full text in Chinese. Please refer to the Chinese website of JQSE]

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