Since the beginning of the 21st century, the world has witnessed continuous advancements in multipolarity, economic globalization, social informatization, and cultural diversification. The green industrial revolution, driven by technological breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, robotics, graphene, virtual reality, quantum communication, controlled nuclear fusion, clean energy, and biotechnology, has propelled human society into a broader and more comprehensive new era. Rapid technological revolutions and profound changes in the global landscape have strengthened interdependence among nations and regions, leading to increasingly frequent exchanges in social, economic, and cultural spheres. Educational reform and development, addressing the ever-changing needs of the future society, have received widespread attention and high regard.
History of Educational Development:
Slave Society Period:
- Ancient Egypt: Court schools, monastic schools, official schools, and scribe schools, with monks and officials serving as teachers.
- Ancient India: The caste system, ancient Confucianism.
- Ancient Greece: The harmony and courage of Athens, the militarization of Sparta.
- Ancient Rome: Rhetoric, Quintilian.
A History of the Evolution of Education Systems Around the World
- Britain: Public schools, the mentorship system, and the Education Act of 1944 laid the foundation for modern British education.
- France: The Ferry Act and the university district system promoted the development of French education.
- Germany: The establishment of schools like the Pan-Aix School, secondary schools, and the University of Berlin enabled Germany to achieve 100% primary education enrollment, profoundly influencing the development of higher education in other countries.
- Russia: Its education policies were somewhat extreme, sometimes emphasizing knowledge and sometimes labor, resulting in limited progress.
- Japan: Japan achieved rapid development in a short period, which is remarkable.
- United States: The public school movement, the Morrel Act, the junior college movement, the National Defense Education Act, and the implementation of livelihood education shaped the unique American education system.
Modern Education
- Personalized Education
Students are the main body of learning. Therefore, contemporary education needs to overcome the problems of traditional education, such as its focus on knowledge, emphasis on commonality over individuality, and emphasis on summative assessment. It needs to reform the uniform, dogmatic, and authoritarian style of education, establish a people-oriented educational philosophy, advocate democratic, egalitarian, and value-based views in education, and focus on cultivating non-intellectual factors to promote student development and enable students to learn how to learn and adapt to change. In the educational process, it emphasizes human emotions, values, dignity, and potential, advocating for mobilizing the independence, initiative, and creativity of learning, and helping each individual reach their best potential. People differ in intelligence, emotion, and physiology; educators should adopt targeted education based on each student's characteristics to cultivate talent, achieving individualized instruction. Education in agricultural societies was personalized, but only suitable for a minority of groups. In industrial societies, large-scale centralized education and standardized talent cultivation models have been adopted, producing a large number of standardized talents, but neglecting the development of individual personality and stifling human creativity and potential. With the development of the times and the advancement of science and technology, the infrastructure of computers, the internet, and other related fields is becoming increasingly sophisticated. The application of technologies such as big data, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing in education contributes to the personalized cultivation of students, enabling their comprehensive and harmonious development. Educators, through professional analysis of big data, can understand students' learning interests, motivations, hobbies, strengths, and personality traits, helping them to pinpoint their direction and provide effective guidance tailored to each student's specific situation. In China, one-on-one tutoring emerged in the late 20th and early 21st centuries to meet the diverse needs of students and parents, and its development has evolved beyond traditional home tutoring models. One-on-one tutoring is an important supplement to classroom teaching, and effective interaction between teachers and students contributes to better teaching outcomes. Customized personalized plans can fully address students' individual needs and focus on solving their specific problems. Nowadays, online one-on-one tutoring is also available, utilizing online video lessons. This online one-on-one education model is gradually gaining widespread recognition and acceptance.
- Educational Diversification Public and private education are interdependent, complementary, and mutually reinforcing, jointly meeting people's growing educational needs. Private education is gaining increasing importance in most countries around the world today, showing a continuous growth trend. Private education has a long history; in the West, ancient Greece saw the emergence of schools such as the School of Rhetoric founded by Socrates, the Academy of Agademi (Plato's Academy) founded by Plato, and the Lyceum founded by Aristotle. The Lyceum was a formal, typical Greek-Athens-style private school.