During this year's National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, General Secretary Xi Jinping visited the members of the Democratic League, the Democratic Progressive Party, and the education sector who participated in the third session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and emphasized at the joint meeting that building a high-quality education system and providing satisfactory education to the people fundamentally lies in deepening comprehensive education reform. General Secretary's important statement provides fundamental guidance for us to deepen comprehensive education reform and accelerate the construction of a strong education country. We need to deeply understand the significance of deepening comprehensive education reform for the construction of a strong education country, and accelerate the deployment of pilot projects for comprehensive education reform.

On March 27th, the Ministry of Education held a meeting to promote the comprehensive reform pilot deployment of the three-year action plan for building a strong education country, marking the official launch of the reform pilot for building a strong education country. The meeting emphasized the need to elevate the political stance and lead the comprehensive reform of education with General Secretary Xi Jinping's important discourse on education and the spirit of the National Education Conference; We must adhere to the goal and problem orientation, and promote substantial results in key areas and critical links; We need to strengthen organizational leadership and implement reforms with a nail in the nail spirit. All regions and schools should attach great importance to the special role of pilot work, and steadily promote comprehensive education reform by taking the lead in trial and error.

Raise the political stance and align the political direction of the pilot work for comprehensive education reform. From an education powerhouse to an education powerhouse is a systematic leap and qualitative change, which must be driven by reform and innovation. Pilot work is an important path and form of exploring reform, playing an important role as a "light cavalry" and "pathfinder", and should promote reform through pilot work. Whether the pilot can take a step forward and pave the way directly affects the effectiveness of the reform. The pilot work encourages grassroots to take the lead and explore boldly, in order to form more replicable and promotable experience models. But the premise of innovation is to uphold integrity, and there must be a clear main line and a safe bottom line. We should firmly grasp the political, people and strategic attributes of education, follow the dual logic of strong comprehensive strength of education and strong leadership in supporting Chinese path to modernization, and unswervingly follow the path of socialist education with Chinese characteristics. We must adhere to the centralized and unified leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in further comprehensively deepening reforms, continuously improve the education leadership system of unified leadership by the Party committee, joint management by the Party and the government, and each department taking its own responsibilities, to ensure that all pilot work progresses in an orderly manner and takes dynamic steps forward.

Adhere to goal orientation and focus on the key tasks of the pilot work of comprehensive education reform. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Ministry of Education has launched pilot projects in various fields such as curriculum reform, teacher training, digitalization of education, and artificial intelligence education, using pilot small incisions to drive global changes in education and steadily promote comprehensive education reform. 2025 is the starting year for the implementation of the "Outline of the Plan for Building a Strong Education Country (2024-2035)" and the three-year action plan for building a strong education country. We should take the pilot program of comprehensive education reform as a key lever, stimulate the initiative of pilot units, encourage grassroots to exert their pioneering spirit, and bravely explore more new paths. In this way, the maximum release of reform effects will provide a solid guarantee for the high-quality completion of the first phase of the goal of building a strong education country. Only by driving reform, implementation, and progress with goals can reform and development be interconnected and work in the same direction. From 2025 to 2027, we must comprehensively lay a solid foundation for building a strong education country and make substantial progress in key areas of reform. To promote the solid implementation of the fundamental task of cultivating morality and talents, strengthen the supporting role of education in technology and talent, improve the quality and level of public education services, cultivate and cultivate a high-level teaching team for the new era, and accelerate the construction of an important education center with global influence. In these "five major tasks", it must be deeply recognized that the top priority is to promote the solid implementation of the fundamental task of cultivating morality and talents. This is the first project of building a strong education country and the fundamental standard for testing all the work of schools. To implement key tasks well, we also need to put in hard work and make great achievements in mechanism construction. This is a key breakthrough point for the work of each pilot unit and a glorious mission entrusted by the Party and the state. For example, in strengthening the supporting role of education in technology and talent, we should actively explore mechanisms for collaborative work between industry, academia, and research, as well as mechanisms for optimizing and adjusting disciplines and majors; In terms of improving the quality and level of public education services, we need to explore mechanisms for monitoring and early warning of school-age populations, improve mechanisms for promoting high-quality and balanced compulsory education, and innovate mechanisms for collaborative education between families, schools, and communities. The formation of replicable and scalable mature experience in mechanism construction will be conducive to more efficiently driving global reforms and effectively exerting the great effect of pilot "small incisions".

Actively and steadily advancing, ensuring that the pilot program for deepening comprehensive education reform achieves the expected results. On the road to promoting comprehensive education reform, we must inevitably face stubborn and chronic problems. We not only need to bravely shoulder heavy responsibilities and demonstrate our sense of responsibility, but also have working methods to solve thorny problems. Investigation and research are the foundation of planning and the way to success. The pilot work of comprehensive education reform is a challenging exploration journey. For things that are uncertain at the moment, it is necessary to conduct thorough investigation and analysis, and analyze possible uncertain factors to ensure that everything is under control. We need to do a good job in closed-loop management of the pilot work of comprehensive education reform, from schedule arrangement and expected results to process monitoring, effect evaluation, and supervision and inspection. We need to carefully arrange and design to ensure that the relevant work is carried out in an orderly manner. Seeking truth from facts is an important weapon for our party and country to continuously achieve victory in their cause. We should objectively analyze and truthfully reflect the contradictions and problems that may arise in the pilot work of comprehensive education reform, avoid formalism, do a good job in promoting and interpreting education policies, and gather a wider range of reform consensus and support.

Today, the road to building a strong education country has unfolded a magnificent picture and presented a brilliant prospect. The road ahead requires us to explore, explore, and forge ahead. Let us persistently promote reform, conscientiously carry out the pilot work of comprehensive education reform with swift and decisive actions, overcome difficulties, and achieve good results, inject strong momentum into the construction of a strong education country, and submit a report worthy of the times.

Source | China Education Daily, March 28, 2025