Chinese Comparative Education Council

After the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Conference of the Chinese Communist Party (CCPC) in 1978, the “reform & open-door” policy began to be launched in China. As one of the windows of opening to foreign countries and international exchange, it is also urgent for education in China which is isolated from education in the other parts of the world to break the deadlock. In doing so, what is inevitable is to take the experience of the educational reforms in other countries as reference and at the same time, to accelerate the pace of reforming so as to orient itself to the need of the building of socialist modernization. Under such a situation, in 1979, Chinese Comparative Education Society was set up on the basis of 5 comparative education organizations including the International & Comparative Educational Institute of Beijing Normal University, the International & Comparative Educational Institute of East China Normal University, the International & Comparative Educational Institute of Northeast Normal University, the Japanese Educational office affiliated to the Japanese Issues Institute of Hebei University and the Comparative Educational Office of National Educational Science Institute.

So far, it has developed into the only comparative educational academic society in China with hundreds of members and major comparative educational institutes.

Organization:

The Society has Board of directors and Standing Board of directors. The directors are recommended by the member units according to the given number. The Standing Director, President, Deputy Presidents, Secretary-general and Deputy Secretary-general are elected by Board of Directors.

The President:Gu Mingyuan (the International & Comparative Educational Institute of Beijing Normal University).
    The Deputy Presidents (in the order of the strokes of their surnames):
                                        Zhou Nanzhao (the Central Educational Science Institute)
                                        Liang Zhongyi (the International & Comparative Educational Institute of Northeast Normal University)
                                        Liang Zhongyi (the International & Zhong qiquan (the International & Comparative Educational                                                               Institute of East China Normal University)
     The Secretary-general:Zhan ruiling (the Central Educational Science Institute)
     The Deputy Secretary-general: Li Shoufu (the International & Comparative Educational Institute of Beijing Normal                                                                    University).

Academic Activities:

Since the foundation of Chinese Comparative Education Society in 1979, a national annual conference has been being held every other year. So far, 9 annual conferences has been held respectively in Beijing, Baoding, Shanghai, Changchun, Wuhan, Tianjin, Jinan and the city of Huangshan. The theme of the 8th annual conference was “the Comparative Education Facing the 21st Century”, while the theme of the 9th annual conference was “Cultural Tradition and Educational modernization”.

The Society also non-periodically holds or sponsors some academic conferences. For example, in October, 1998, the Society sponsored “the 2nd Annual Conference of Comparative Education Society of Asia” which was organized by the International and Comparative Educational Institute of Beijing Normal University. Over 200 representatives attended the conference. Besides the comparative educational scholars from Asian countries and areas, some scholars and experts from the United States, France, German, Mexico, Australia, Canada and Britain were present on the conference, too.

The International Exchange :

Chinese Comparative Education Society has exchange relations with many international academic organizations and the comparative educational organizations in other countries and areas. The present president of the Society---Mr. Gu Mingyuan, who is a professor of the International and Comparative Institute of Beijing Normal University, was ever one of the two presidents of the International Comparative Education Society. What’s more, the Society keeps friendly contacts with the comparative education societies and comparative educational scholars & experts in Japan, Korea, the United States and Britain, etc. Every year a lot of comparative and educational experts from all over the world come to visit and give lectures in the Society and its affiliated member units. Meanwhile, the members in this Society also have considerable opportunities to foreign countries to exchange academic ideas with the scholars there.

Academic Publications:

The primary journal of Chinese Comparative Education Society was Foreign Education sponsored by the National Educational Science Institute, which later stopped publication. At present, Comparative Education Review sponsored by the International and Comparative Institute of Beijing Normal University is concurrently the journal of the Society.

Besides, there are some other academic journals sponsored by the member units such as Joural of Foreign Education Studirs of East China Normal University and Foreign Education Research of Northeast Normal University.