The knowledge-based versus student-centred debate on quality education: controversy in China’s curriculum reform

Chinese education scholars Cesan Wang and Qiquan Zhong led a debate over knowledge centredness versus student centredness in China’s ongoing pre-collegiate curriculum reform. The debate was considered the most influential academic event in the past 30 years in the field of education in China. Employing a Critical Discourse Analysis approach, this paper examined the power dynamics in the reform reflected through the debate texts and interview transcripts from a group of teachers. The party-state remains dominant in China’s education system. Both sides respect China’s ancient educational traditions. The two scholars articulated their own ideas and criticised the other’s by drawing on international literature and cases and contemporary education traditions. Teachers’ perspectives were neglected at the early stage of the debate but teachers may be the main force in reform implementation. This paper provides a case of how the global curriculum reform trends were negotiated and reconciled in a specific jurisdiction.