Teacher allocation as a global concern: China’s policy experience over nearly three decades

Abstract

Ensuring a sufficient supply of high-quality teachers at the compulsory education stage is a globally shared concern. To achieve this goal, countries worldwide have adopted various intervention measures for teacher allocation, in addition to market mechanisms. As a centralized country, China has assumed a more prominent role in teacher allocation than many Western countries, accumulating a wealth of policy and practical experience that remains underexplored internationally. Therefore, this study employs policy text analysis to reveal China’s teacher allocation policies and practices over the past three decades at the compulsory education stage, aiming to offer insights for other contexts. The study finds that China has implemented various teacher allocation measures, which can be categorized into four stages, each reflecting the key educational priorities of its period: 1) the quantity supplementation (1998-2005) ; 2) the quality development stage (2006-2013) ; 3) the stage balancing quality and equity (2014-2020) ; and 4) the strong teacher stage for further promoting high-quality education development (2021–present) . The policy experiences identified in this study may inform other countries seeking to adapt effective approaches to their unique developmental needs and stages.

Document Type: Original article

Cited as:

Zhang, M., Jiang, Q. H., & Fang, T. T. (2025). Teacher allocation as a global concern: China’s policy experience over nearly three decades. Education and Lifelong Development Research, 3(2): 103-113. https://doi.org/10.46690/elder.2025.03.02

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