At 9:00 am on November 27, 2014, the opening ceremony of 2014 CAFA “National Training Plan” was held at Building 7 at CAFA. Party Secretary Gao Hong together with other leaders had a photo taken with all the trainees. The opening ceremony was presided over by Professor Yu Ding, Head of the School of Art Administration and Education (preparing), Su Xinping, Vice President of CAFA, Yang Li, Deputy Director of the National Committee for Arts Education of the Ministry of Education, Wang Xiaolin, Director of the Department of Educational Administration, Wang Shujie, Head of the School of Continuing Education, CAFA, Huang Xiao, Deputy Director of Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House, Professor Chen Shuxia, Director of CAFA “National Training Plan” and Deputy Director of the Department of Art Education of the School of Humanities, CAFA, as well as all the teachers and students of the Department of Art Education, gathered together to welcome nearly 200 backbone art teachers and teaching and research staff from 28 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities across the country.

After the opening ceremony, the trainees began the study of a 9-day course, to finish a 60-hour collective training from 4 modules, including professional ideas and morality, professional knowledge, professional capability, educational communication and visits.

CAFA “National Training Plan” in its’4th Year

“National Training Program for the Teachers of Primary and Secondary Schools”, is called “National Training Plan” for short, fully implemented by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance in 2010, which is an important measure to improve the overall quality of the teachers of primary and secondary schools, especially in the rural areas. CAFA undertakes the training task of the backbone art teachers, teaching and research staff of the secondary and high schools.

Since 2011, relying on the academic resources and teaching achievements, CAFA has successfully finished three years of “National Training Plan”, trained nearly 600 outstanding backbone art teachers and teaching and research staff. The training arrangement, in addition to a team of teachers and postgraduate students from the Department of Art Education who have always whole-heartedly devoted themselves to the project, there are 4 counselors who also join the team. They were once the trainees of the “National Training Plan”, and now participate in the training, tracking the trained students and constructing the platform for communication, to advance the spread and continuity of the training.

The “National Training Plan” course, on the one hand, presents art education policies, standards in art courses, aesthetic education, appreciation education, and other core issues of basic education, by combining conceptual analysis and teaching cases; on the other hand using conversion between artistic practice and teaching, art developmental psychology, intangible cultural heritage and folk art resources, educational resources of the art museum, interdisciplinary courses and teaching of creativity, which have gradually become the research focus and mainstream thread in the education and teaching practice in recent years whic henriches the entire training course. While the thematic discussion and case analysis of the divisions of teachers and teaching and research staff, offers a valuable opportunity to the trainees. These front-line educators from around the country do not only learn from other experiences, but also share their insights and experiences in education and teaching. So the curriculum of CAFA “National Training Plan” really helps trainees to broaden their horizons, to convert their ideas, and introduces research thinking and working methods.

In addition, practicality is also a focus of the teachers’ education. Their understanding of the current situation of contemporary art and cultural environment is deepened when they are in the process of visiting 798 Art District, National Art Museum of China, National Museum of China, and other cultural facilities, it also uses practical classes of on-site teaching in Chinese painting, as well as visiting various studios of CAFA, the Department of International Preparatory Course, the art museum, and so on, visiting the teaching sites of a variety of art categories, to develop their professional and cultural horizons.

Undertaking the national project of the “National Training Plan” offers an original aspect and reference materials to the academic research of art education of CAFA.Trainees’ information and teaching cases which were collected before the training, as well as the achievements through the communication meetings during the training period, will be considered as materials by the Department of Art Education to research current basic art educational situations with everything being collected under the consent of the trainees. After they are screened and sorted by the Department of Art Education, the materials will play a very important role in writing teaching materials, the course setting, the arrangement and organization of the training, etc.

The education of teachers is the key for educational reform, it is a key section of deepening quality-oriented education and promotes the practice of curriculum reform. By virtue of the professional standard and academic influence, CAFA sums up experiences while perfectly finishing the training task, and makes a contribution to improving the quality of the teaching team inbasic art education, and the reform of basic art education.

Text by Mao Tianchen and Zhang Yang, translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO

Photo by Zou Bin