Our reporter Zhou Yimei - Yesterday, the Ministry of Education introduced the revision background and new changes in the new curriculum standards. This revision adheres to the principle of keeping course content up-to-date, adding "new achievements since the 16th National Congress," such as physics adding knowledge related to "space exploration," "China's manned space program," and "new energy."
Reducing the burden by deleting overly difficult content, the excessive burden on middle and primary school students has always been a social concern. The Ministry of Education stated that this revision of the new curriculum standards strives to scientifically and reasonably arrange the courses based on the characteristics and needs of children's physical and mental development. In terms of controlling course capacity, most subjects have further selected content and reduced the number of subject content items. In terms of controlling course difficulty, some subjects directly deleted overly difficult content.
This revision added "new achievements since the 16th National Congress," such as physics adding knowledge related to "space exploration," "China's manned space program," and "new energy." Some real-world issues were also included as course content, such as chemistry including knowledge about "protein content in infant formula" and "ozone holes and ozone layer protection."
Physics requires students to complete 20 mandatory experiments. The cultivation of Chinese students' innovative spirit and practical abilities is relatively weak. Therefore, this curriculum standard revision particularly emphasizes capability training. For example, addressing teachers' feedback on difficulties guiding "inquiry-based learning," the basic steps and general methods of "inquiry-based learning" were distilled to strengthen guidance for capability training. Additionally, science courses reinforced experimental requirements. For instance, physics explicitly listed 20 mandatory experiments for students, and chemistry required students to independently complete eight experiments to enhance hands-on ability.
The total amount of characters to be recognized remains unchanged in primary school. In response to media reports about reducing the character recognition volume for lower grades in primary school, relevant officials from the Ministry of Education responded that the total amount of characters to be recognized and written throughout the primary school stage remains unchanged. Based on the language development characteristics of students at different ages during the primary school stage and the survey results of primary school Chinese character recognition and writing teaching, the revised Chinese curriculum standard appropriately adjusted the amount of writing for students in different grades to better follow the gradual progression of character recognition and writing. After adjustment, the writing volume was appropriately reduced for lower and middle grades, while it was correspondingly increased for higher grades. The total amount of character recognition and writing throughout the primary school stage remains unchanged, still requiring the recognition of approximately 3000 commonly used Chinese characters, with the ability to write 2500 of them. (Beijing Times) Related thematic articles: Cologne International Football Database Tencent Sports