Expert Interpretation of the Eighth Five-Year Plan for Publicity and Education of the Rule of Law in the National Education System
What is the purpose of increasing the proportion of knowledge of the rule of law in the high school entrance examination
□ Our reporter Chen Lei
Recently, the Ministry of Education issued the "Eighth Five-Year Plan for the Publicity and Education of the Rule of Law in the National Education System (2021-2025)", proposing to give full play to the role of the main channel of classroom teaching, promote the increase of the proportion of legal education class hours, and appropriately increase the knowledge of the rule of law The proportion of content in the high school entrance examination and college entrance examination, etc.
In youth legal education, how can we give full play to the role of the main channel of classroom teaching, what problems need to be solved, and how can we achieve standardization and normalization?
Focusing on these issues, reporters from the Rule of Law Daily interviewed Yuan Zhijie, deputy dean of Beijing Normal University Law School and deputy director of the Rule of Law and Education Research Center, Qin Shuo, head of the Juvenile Court of the People's Court of Haidian District, Beijing, and Wang Yunhui, an associate researcher of the Henan Academy of Social Sciences.
Not included in the national education system
Lack of teachers and textbooks when absent from class
Reporter: The Ministry of Education has issued the Eighth Five-Year Plan for the Publicity and Education of the Rule of Law in the national education system. Why does it propose that the rule of law education for teenagers should give full play to the role of the main channel of classroom teaching?
Yuan Zhijie: In recent years, the rule of law education in primary and secondary schools has made considerable progress, but there are still some shortcomings.
On the one hand, the effectiveness of juvenile legal education has not been significant; on the other hand, according to the White Paper on Juvenile Procuratorial Work (2014-2019) issued by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate last year, the number of juvenile crimes has begun to increase since 2017. The rule of law education puts forward higher requirements.
It is worth noting that in our country, parents of teenagers rarely take legal education seriously. It is difficult to compare legal education with art and talent education. Therefore, it is not realistic to promote legal education through extracurricular education.
Under such a background, it is undoubtedly worthy of recognition to strengthen the role of the main channel of subject teaching.
Wang Yunhui: As early as the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Central Committee proposed that "incorporating education on the rule of law into the national education system, starting from teenagers, and establishing courses on the rule of law in primary and secondary schools."
At the end of last year and the beginning of this year, the central government successively issued the "Plan for the Construction of the Rule of Law in China (2020-2025)" and the "Implementation Outline for the Construction of a Rule of Law Society (2020-2025)", all of which put forward requirements for strengthening the rule of law education for young people.
At the same time, in recent years, juvenile delinquency has become a problem that must be addressed and solved urgently. The strengthening of legal education for young people, especially classroom education, has naturally been valued and put on the agenda.
Reporter: At present, in our country’s youth legal education, in terms of giving full play to the role of the main channel of classroom teaching, what are the problems that need to be solved?
Yuan Zhijie: The current difficulties faced by the rule of law education in primary and secondary schools are mainly three points.
First, there is a shortage of teachers.
After all, legal education has certain requirements for professionalism. Traditionally, the "Ethics and Rule of Law" courses in primary and secondary schools are taught by teachers who teach ideological and moral courses. These teachers basically have no professional study of law, and it is difficult to be competent.
Second, there is a lack of legal books suitable for elementary and middle school students.
In order to solve this problem, my colleagues and I teamed up to form a team of Dr. Lu Dou, and created the "Jiyi Island Children's Rule of Law Education Picture Book", which was officially published in 2018, trying to fill the gap in this field.
Later, we created "Constitution from Elementary School" and "Different Civil Code Cartoons", but there are still too few such books on the market.
Third, legal education has not attracted enough attention.
Neither the school nor the parents fully understand the significance of legal education.
Whether it is the construction of a country under the rule of law, a government under the rule of law, or a society under the rule of law, they are all built on the basis of the construction of citizens under the rule of law.
Without citizens who are aware of the rule of law, the rule of law is a tree without roots.
Qin Shuo: The biggest problem at present is that the rule of law education has not been incorporated into subject education, nor into the national education system.
Teachers' lack of legal education ability is also one of the problems.
Although front-line teachers have a wealth of teaching experience, they have certain lack of mastery of legal theory, legal knowledge, and application ability. It is difficult for students to truly understand the law, apply the law in a simple textbook teaching, and form a rule of law thinking.
Wang Yunhui: How to realize the rule of law classroom education with time-specific courses, special teaching materials, and professional teachers are all the current difficulties.
For example, setting up a full-time course will inevitably reduce the time of other courses. How to be independent from the original moral education course or ideological and political course, and to weigh with other traditional disciplines is a problem to be considered.
Special teaching materials must be compiled according to different age groups' cognition and acceptance of the rule of law.
Let's start all the rules of law
Legal education is more important
Reporter: In the specific measures, why "appropriately increasing the proportion of knowledge of the rule of law in the high school entrance examination and college entrance examination" has attracted the attention of the society?
Yuan Zhijie: The fundamental reason why schools and parents don’t pay attention to rule of law education is certainly related to the lack of understanding of the inherent meaning of rule of law education, but there are also formal reasons, that is, exam-oriented education. As long as the exam is not taken, the school does not pay attention to it, and the parents do not care. .
Therefore, an appropriate increase in the proportion of the content of the rule of law knowledge in the middle school entrance examination and the college entrance examination will inevitably strengthen the importance of the rule of law education in the whole society.
However, the rule of law education is not a simple instillation of knowledge, but to guide students to understand the core concept of the rule of law.
For example, awareness of compliance with rules, awareness of basic rights, etc.
The true rule of law education must be to popularize the rule of law awareness education, not the rule of law knowledge education.
Qin Shuo: This kind of clear and specific guiding policy can cause schools, parents and students to pay attention to the rule of law education at different levels, and can also comprehensively increase the importance of school hours and content arrangements in classroom teaching.
At the same time of co-education at home school, it also allows students to have enough time to learn legal knowledge, just like studying physics, chemistry, and history, turning the mastering of legal knowledge into "children's skills."
Wang Yunhui: If the teacher only pays attention to teaching the knowledge points of the high school entrance examination and the students also memorize for high scores, it will be difficult for the young people to absorb the spirit of the rule of law and establish a belief in the rule of law.
Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the implementation of this regulation through a reasonable and scientific evaluation system through teaching and learning, and achieve practical results, and cultivate students' law-abiding consciousness and usage ability.
Reporter: How to implement "giving full play to the role of the main channel of classroom teaching" to promote the standardization and normalization of youth legal education?
Qin Shuo: It is necessary for the education administration department and the school to work together to improve the system and formulate a plan to incorporate youth legal education into the national education system.
For example, the compilation of special teaching materials for the rule of law education, combining different fields such as law, pedagogy, psychology, and sociology, to formulate teaching content that is suitable for students to learn and integrates with real life, and promotes the development of the rule of law in universities, middle schools and primary schools. Educational courses promote the standardization and normalization of youth legal education.
In the teaching process, front-line workers with experience in juvenile justice are introduced to carry out case teaching to improve students' interest in legal education and their ability to understand legal knowledge.
At the same time, to allow students to enter the real legal environment, schools or education committees can link up with judicial organs to establish more legal education bases, and regularly carry out legal practice activities, so that students can experience the exercise of citizens' rights and obligations, and feel the progress of the country’s legal construction .
Yuan Zhijie: First of all, we must comprehensively improve the quality of classroom teaching and improve the knowledge of the rule of law of the teachers.
Through programs such as the National Training Program for the Rule of Law, we will comprehensively train all ethics and rule of law teachers across the country.
Secondly, the system of vice-principals under the rule of law should be fully implemented and the school leadership should pay more attention to it.
If the school does not have the awareness of the rule of law, then it is difficult to promote the rule of law education.
Primary and secondary schools should promote classroom teaching by purchasing social services.
Finally, legal education for young people is a long-term undertaking, which also requires the full participation of major law schools and the obligation to send more teachers with solid legal knowledge to primary and secondary schools.