Brief Introduction
　　　　　　　　On the Community Education in Zha’bei District

　　Zha’bei district, 29 square kilometers, 8 subdistricts, 4 towns, 780,000 resident population, 100,000 external population. The original foundation of its economy, culture and education was vulnerable, but the job of community education originated early, ranging from 1980’s to now, three stages.
　　The first stage: 1980’s. Impinged by the idea “relying people for education, developing education for people”, Zha’bei district began to initiate the community education, mainly depending on the community, centering on “moral socialization”, and the whole model to educate had taken shape, integrated with school, family as well as society. Simultaneously, the social power had been invoked to support the school to enhance the schooling conditions. The educational resource of school was open to society and the relationship between community and school had become increasingly close in light of their mutual cooperation, mutual benefit along with mutual aid. The grade-2 committee of community education: district –subdistrict, district-town, had been established in order to propel its forward.
　　The second stage: 1990’s. The district committee and the district government persisted in attaching strategic importance to giving priority to the improvement of education, put forward the thought of “developing the education, promoting the overall ” and applied for the action programme of “enhancing the quality education as a whole, producing the top education with full strength”. Every subdistrict and town had set up the “weekend school” “resident school” in succession, and regarded developing community education as the key factor to improve the quality of district people and the degree of community culture. The community education which used to put stress on the youngsters had been converted into the stereoscopic education to the community members with all people、all course and all position.
　　The third stage: 2000 to now. In April, 2004, Zha’bei district had been listed as one of the eight pilot urban districts of community education by the national education department, and the new era that expedited our district to step into the learning community had come into being. Under the guidance of the experts, we have engaged in a series of theoretical exploration and practical investigation.
I. To strengthen the leadership with overall planning, to probe the management model of community education:
　　The district government has made a host of efforts to channel the community education into “the fifteenth project on the development of national economy and society in Zha’bei district”; to formulate “the plan of experimental work on the community education in Zha’bei district, Shanghai”; to found the leading group of the experimental work ,head of district assuming the office of chairman; to sign the responsibility contract with 29 departments、subdistricts、towns as well as enterprises to advance the goals of constructing the learning city through launching the movement of community education ;to earmark a fund of 500,000 for its specified purpose annually to carry out the experimental work of community education; to invite the committee of consultant and appraisement, constituted by the professor 、expert along with the leader concerned, to supply every subdistrict and town with the comprehensive guide and evaluation. Owning to the overall consideration and fine coordination of the government as well as the intimate cooperation of the proper unit, the favorable situation of supervising in concert has evolved.
II To consummate the education internet, to form the pattern of community education with effective mutual collaboration:
　　According to the guideline “Students get chances to study and teachers can exert their capabilities,” we regulate resources, and establish one community institute (Shanghai XingJian Vocational Institute), 9 community schools, 71 branches, and 278 teaching areas. Hereafter, we set up a community education website which crisscrosses and covers the whole community, and in which the community institute is put in the first place, the community school is regarded as the backbone, and the primary and middle school compliments the website well.
　　The community institute was established in September 2001, invested by the district government. It covers 100 acre. The institute carried out adult education, so as to meet the requirement of the community member to study further and get formal teaching. Also, it established community education research center and guiding center for citizens. Both of them undertook theory study, information communication, and the development of teaching materials, and also they were the guiders of community school and train core members of the community.
　　The community school of the residential district and the county develops various kinds of educational training in accordance with district characteristics and the demand of residents.
　　All schools and enterprises governed by the district should open their educational resources to the community, in order to provide convenience for residents, to share the resources and exploit studying channel and space.
III. Strengthening Team Building
　　It founds the foundation for community education.
　　Four community educational teams consist of full-time faculty, part-time teachers, volunteers and scholars. They are responsible for the task of teaching, administration, organization, coordination, guidance and research, which play great role in community education.
IV. Conducting Innovation Activities
　　It promotes the whole development of community education. We carry out it by setting up models, propagating widely, promoting communication, and evaluating accurately. We also encourage community members to establish studying organization.
　　We mainly foster models of this organization including families, building groups, enterprises, etc. when their experience is promoted; we get the effect of demonstration and guidance.
　　Teaching Festival is considered as the propaganda day of communication education. On 9th, October, we establish community educational website, carry out activities, propagate community education and long-life studying idea, build studying atmosphere, stimulate studying awareness and enthusiasm in residential district, neighborhood committee, small residential area.
　　At the same time, by exchanging working experience, presenting achievements, and discussing seminar, we promote community education effectively.
　　According to the assessment quota issued by the Education Department and in the light of the practice of our district, in 2003 the community education assessment group worked out the overall assessment plan towards the streets and towns. The plan sums up the past experience, seeks problems, defines the future working orientation, and promotes deepening community education development.

V. Develop training patterns
　　Meet a variety of learning needs of community people
　　Our training tries to be diversified in form, rich in contents; it puts emphasis in developing new education fields suitable for the needs of community people in order to satisfy different types of people. The training includes preschool education, juvenile education, old people’s casual education, the adults’ cultural and professional skills education, and re-employment training, the living skills for disabled people and the training for the outside population living in cities, etc.

VI Strengthen scientific research
　　Enhance working consciousness of community education
　　The Education Department asks to work combining with our practical situation and to experiment, probe and sum up progressively. According to these requirements, we develop our research from the three attitudes of community education theory, curriculum establishment and teaching materials development.
　　During the community education experiments, each street and each town grasps hot and important issues to expand research, probes rules, promotes theory levels and writes research papers. We’ve organized a topic research group to undertake the research duty of the Education Department’s member topics and subsidiary topics such as “ Shanghai Zhabei District Promoting Community Education Development Experiment Research”, “Research on the Development, Integration and Use of Community Education Resources” and so on. We’ve cooperated with the Vocation and Adults Education Research Institute attached to East China Normal University o make research on the curriculum development of community education. The courses have developed from the initial single casual entertainment courses for old people to the present five types of courses inclusive of knowledge, job skills, scientific technology, law and arts. The subjects have reached dozens of them. Besides, we’ve compiled three special teaching materials for community schools: “Home Living Guides”, “Citizen Ethics Cultivation Book”, “Psychological Health Education for the Adults and the Old People”. Our scientific research of the community education has made the tentative effect; but it also lacks system and science, and it needs to be improved and perfected.
　　Our experimental work has achieved some success, but it’s far from the requirements of building a learning town. In the future, we might face many problems, but we must abide by the important thought “establish a national and lifelong education system, build a learning society” issued from the third Session of the sixteenth CPC National Congress, and strengthen further theory research and practical exploration.