Guests
Du Linlin and Ji Mingze
Interview Background
The year 2026 marks the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan period. At this new stage of development, how will Jing'an anchor itself to the goal of "International Jing'an: An Outstanding Urban Area" and take the lead in contributing to Shanghai's "Five Centers" initiative?
Host:
The year 2026 marks the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan period. At this new stage of development, how will Jing'an anchor itself to the goal of "International Jing'an: An Outstanding Urban Area" and take the lead in contributing to Shanghai's "Five Centers" initiative? This interview features two guests: Du Linlin, deputy president (presiding over daily work) of Shanghai Jing'an Institute of Education, and Ji Mingze, former deputy director of the Teaching and Research Office of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission. They will hold an in-depth dialogue on Jing'an's overall educational positioning during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the implementation of scientific education reform, the safeguarding of students' physical and mental health, the two-way development of international education, the development of a tiered faculty team, and the enhancement of inclusive education across all stages of life.
Du Linlin:
Hello, everyone.
Ji Mingze:
Hello, everyone.
Host:
Education is of fundamental importance to the country and the foremost public concern. It represents the most enduring competitiveness and the warmest soft power of an urban area.
Du Linlin:
Committed to the philosophy that education ignites the vitality of every individual, Jing'an leverages the resource endowment of the central urban area to pursue high-quality, balanced, connotative, open, and integrated education development, steadily consolidating a modern education system featuring inclusive preschool education, high-quality compulsory education, diversified senior high education, integrated vocational education, and lifelong education. By the end of 2025, the district's overall educational strength had ranked among the top tier of central urban areas, with a steady rise in the public's sense of gain and satisfaction with education.
Host:
During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the Education Bureau of Jing'an District aligns with the district's overall development priorities, targets the core positioning of an education benchmark for an international urban area, pursues the four major goals, and advances the six core tasks to foster a new pattern of high-quality development across the board. Could you elaborate on the four major goals?
Du Linlin:
First, Jing'an will build a high-quality education hub that meets people's expectations. The district will consolidate the foundation of fostering virtue through education, uphold the "health first" philosophy, improve the integrated framework for all-round moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic, and labor education, and enhance faculty and brand strength. By 2030, it will rank among the top three in central urban areas for leading educational talent, and the number of pioneering educational brands will increase by 50 percent compared with that of the 14th Five-Year Plan period. Second, the district will build a source of innovation spearheaded by the transformation of learning methods. The district will deepen curriculum and instructional reform, strengthen scientific education, achieve an Educational Creativity Development Index score of 75, promote the deep integration of AI with education, and establish around five schools of the future. Third, the district will build an international education exchange hub driven by openness and mutual learning. It will enhance students' global competence, jointly establish an international classroom analysis alliance powered by AI, build a multilingual communication platform to tell stories of Chinese classroom teaching, add one or two international research platforms for basic education, and continuously expand global influence. Fourth, the district will develop modern schooling conditions tailored to the population size, establish a dynamic coordination mechanism, and optimize educational resource allocation across all age groups. By 2030, the student-teacher ratio across all stages of basic education and the public operating expenditure for education per student will both rank among the top three in central urban areas.
Host:
Thank you. Could you elaborate on the six core tasks?
Du Linlin:
First, the district will forge inner strength through Party building, consolidate the underlying foundation of educational development, and enhance ideological and political education as well as family-school-community synergy. Second, the district will uphold equity and quality to build a benchmark public education service system spanning preschool, compulsory, senior high, vocational, and lifelong education. Third, the district will tackle problems in key areas by deepening curriculum and instructional reform, building an education system driven by sci-tech innovation across all stages, unlocking students' creativity, and creating a high-quality education hub. Fourth, the district will drive digital and intelligent innovation by integrating smart technology with education, developing clusters of schools of the future, and creating new competitive edges in education. Fifth, the district will empower education through talent development, improve mechanisms to attract, cultivate, retain, and effectively utilize educators, optimize professional development systems, build an echelon of leading educational talent, and solidify quality support. Sixth, the district will promote global integration and mutual learning, strengthen international cooperation and outreach, and enhance the global influence of Jing'an's basic education.
Host:
During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Jing'an makes scientific education a key reform priority—covering all students, embedding it in daily teaching, and integrating it across all educational stages—to build a new district-wide ecosystem for sci-tech innovation education.
Du Linlin:
Exactly. Forging ahead with empowerment through science and education, Jing'an has established an overall "1+1+N+N" framework for regional scientific education. One overall goal: The district will cultivate students' well-rounded scientific literacy and continuously unlock their creativity to serve the national strategy of building an education powerhouse and support students' lifelong development. One main path: The district will make preschool, primary and secondary schools the primary implementers, take high-quality implementation of the national curriculum as the fundamental path, and hold fast to the classroom as the primary front. N sets of activities and methods: The district will advance thematic scientific education, innovative experiments, venue-based practice, project-based learning, and interdisciplinary thematic study. N layers of support and safeguards: The district will promote space development, resource supply, faculty growth, teaching improvement, digital and intelligent platforms, and evaluation reform to provide full-chain support.
Ji Mingze:
In recent years, Jing'an has advanced high-quality scientific education through key initiatives: reshaping the scientific education ecosystem by launching the city's first digital map for scientific education, integrating scattered resources, and utilizing AI to tailor personalized learning paths; strengthening teacher training by establishing a tiered research and training system and leveraging the Integration and Innovation Center to enhance teachers' science teaching and digital skills; promoting practical education by using authentic tasks to drive "learning by doing" and spur students' inquiry and innovation capacity; and improving classroom quality and efficiency by focusing on regular classes and applying evidence-based research and digital platforms to optimize teaching practices and outcomes.
Host:
Students' physical and mental health is both the baseline of education and a key public concern. Prioritizing health, Jing'an has built a systematic, full-chain, digital and intelligent support system to safeguard students' physical and mental well-being and foster their healthy growth. Could you introduce how Jing'an builds this new comprehensive health support system?
Du Linlin:
Jing'an has built a mental health support system. The district has established a four-in-one closed-loop mechanism and leveraged the Jing'an digital home-school platform to monitor students' mental health and issue early warnings; staffed schools with full-time mental health teachers and offered mental health courses; and deepened medical-educational coordination and rolled out initiatives such as "Jing'an Mental Well-being" and "Jing'an Inner Strength" to weave a tighter care network. Moreover, the district has promoted physical fitness and health. It strictly enforces the class-hour requirements for physical education courses and long break activities to ensure students have two hours of daily physical activity. The Jing'an Smart Cloud Sports Platform has been developed to profile students' physical fitness digitally, generate personalized exercise recommendations, and foster scientific fitness and healthy growth. The district has also deepened the integration of moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic, and labor education. Aesthetic education, labor education, mental health and physical exercise have been integrated into the whole education process. The district upgrades the family-school-community collaborative education network through seven major initiatives, including scientific parenting guidance, medical-educational coordination, and sports-education integration, to cultivate well-rounded personalities in students.
Host:
To set an education benchmark for an international urban area, Jing'an pursues a qualitative development path that balances bringing in and going global. It advances reform through opening up, drives development through cooperation, and amplifies its voice by sharing best practices, thereby expanding its global educational influence.
Du Linlin:
Yes. In deepening the introduction of international resources, Jing'an benchmarks against world-class concepts, curricula, and models, brings in high-quality educational resources, deepens international cooperation, and develops global competence courses. Leveraging AI and transnational classroom analysis research platforms, it draws on top global teaching paradigms—such as partnering with East China Normal University to launch the AI International Classroom Analysis Practice Alliance—to analyze classroom teaching, precisely diagnose and optimize instruction, and align Jing'an classroom teaching with international frontiers. In sharing its educational experience abroad, Jing'an remains confident and open. It has shifted from learning from others and quantitative expansion to qualitative output and brand building, and has systematically shared its successful practices, models, and stories with the world. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the district plans to co-establish one or two international educational research platforms with the participation of multiple countries or regions and strengthen strategic cooperation with international organizations such as the OECD and UNESCO.
Host:
Jing'an's 15th Five-Year Plan outlines a dedicated program to cultivate leading educational talent. The program centers on a tiered, categorized, full-cycle and progressive training system that supports the step-by-step growth of backbone teachers, master subject teachers and leading principals to solidify the faculty foundation for Jing'an's high-quality education.
Ji Mingze:
Jing'an will forge an elite teaching force to solidify the foundation of high-quality education.
Du Linlin:
The district will establish a "five-stage, five-tier" training system. It will ensure that standards are set during induction, competence is built in early careers, breakthroughs are fostered during development, benchmarks are established at maturity, and master teachers are cultivated through accumulated experience. Targeting teachers with 5‒15 years of teaching experience, the innovative 515 Project tackles professional burnout and cultivates backbone educators through subject training bases, self-directed research teams, and micro-credential certification. The district will build a "Ten-Hundred-Thousand" talent hub. Efforts focus on three core groups: backbone teachers, master subject teachers and leading principals. For backbone teachers, cross-school teaching research and cross-district training will be conducted to build growth platforms. For master subject teachers, innovative teaching research studios will be established, key research projects launched, and academic publication and research supported to cultivate special-grade teachers and professor-level senior teachers. For leading principals, a selective training program will be implemented, secretary and principal studios established, and advanced training organized to foster visionary, influential school leaders. The district will improve three major talent support mechanisms. Integrating the recruitment and cultivation of high-end talent, the district opens fast-track channels, implements the "Morning Star" program for outstanding graduates, and establishes tailor-made, end-to-end mechanisms for high-level talent. The district rolls out full coverage of AI literacy and scientific literacy training for all teachers. It also provides supportive measures covering housing, allowances, academic support and healthcare to enhance teachers' sense of belonging and happiness.
Host:
Education is the most fundamental and inclusive public benefit. How can education for public well-being be delivered effectively to improve full-lifecycle educational supply?
Du Linlin:
The 15th Five-Year Plan for education development centers on optimizing educational services for all age groups across the full lifecycle—from infancy through lifelong learning—to enable every Jing'an resident to access equitable, high-quality education nearby. The district will advance the integration of childcare and preschool education. It will vigorously advance the "Sprout Project" 1+X nursery services, opening all eligible kindergarten daycare classes and achieving full childcare coverage for children aged 0‒3 with flexible, temporary and diverse options. It will set up an integrated education-childcare-medical research group to improve care quality through medical-educational synergy. The "Baby Care Center" brand will be upgraded from the city's first community-based temporary nursery into mobile parenting lounges in business districts and office buildings, to build an all-scenario, inclusive childcare system. The district will promote balanced, high-quality compulsory education. It will ensure every neighborhood school delivers quality education by refining dynamic resource allocation mechanisms, expanding district-based and group-based schooling, developing close-knit education groups, and facilitating flexible teacher exchanges and resource sharing. It will deepen small-class, project-based and STEM education, consolidate the gains of initiatives launched to relieve students of excessive burdens from homework and off-campus tutoring, and upgrade after-school services to ensure students learn thoroughly and reassure parents.
Ji Mingze:
Jing'an will enhance the quality of senior high and vocational education. It will pursue diverse, distinctive and high-quality development for senior high schools by piloting scientific high schools, strengthening connotative development, establishing math and science academies, implementing the "Fertile Ground Plan" to broaden collaborative resource networks, and rolling out the "Standout Plan" for long-cycle cultivation. For vocational education, the district will closely align with local industries, strengthen specialty groups to match industrial clusters, expand integrated pathways, and promote order-based classes and apprenticeships to integrate general and vocational education and enable every student to excel. The district will expand the supply of lifelong education. Under the Silver Age Learning Support Plan, it will add 6,000 new places for senior education, and develop tailored courses in technology, health and wellness. It will also set up learning sites in communities, office buildings and neighborhoods to weave an eight-minute smart learning network. It will improve the credit bank system and facilitate the conversion of learning achievements, so that seniors can access learning opportunities, young people can upgrade their skills, and all citizens can learn anytime. This will build a ubiquitous and accessible lifelong education system.
Host:
Education in Jing'an is leaping from balanced, high-quality development to exemplary and pioneering development, upgrading from the consolidation of connotative development to quality enhancement, and advancing from local development to openness and integration.
Du Linlin:
During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, guided by the vision of becoming an education benchmark for an international urban area, Jing'an targets four top-tier goals: first-rate school facilities, first-rate educational quality, a first-rate innovation ecosystem, and first-rate global influence. Through high-quality, balanced development across all school stages, systemic reform and innovation, all-round digital and intelligent empowerment, and multi-dimensional open cooperation, education in the district will become the warmest, most solid and most distinctive hallmark of "International Jing'an: An Outstanding Urban Area".
Host:
Thank you both for your insightful sharing. That brings our interview to a close! Thank you.
Du Linlin:
Thank you, everyone! Goodbye!
Ji Mingze:
Thank you, everyone! Goodbye!