Guiding and Facilitating Teacher Development

Historically, the Chinese nation had a tradition of respecting teachers and valuing education. For example, Confucius as the typical and outstanding representative of ancient Chinese educator has been respected for thousands of years in China.

that is, the professional title system for China s teachers is formulated in accordance with the provisions of the RHD in 2015 (see Figure 6.1). The Professional Title System for Teachers is more than a seniority-based, but the sys job performance. Obtaining the titles of third-grade teacher and second-grade teacher are basically based on teachers seniority. All teachers who are qualified to teach can successively acquire these two titles within three to five years. Nevertheless, individual teachers cannot rely only on their seniority to obtain the last three titles (from the first-grade teacher to the top-grade teacher ) because there is a quota system for these three titles. Moreover, the higher the title is, the smaller the quota is. For example, the statistics in 2017 showed that there were 12 million teachers working at the primary and secondary schools of China (MOE, 2017), but the quota in 2018 for top-grade teacher was 2,604, accounting for only three in ten thousand of the total number of teachers ( MOHRSS and MOE, 2018). In fact, essential characteristic of the

Professional Title System for Teachers
competitive . According to Mr. Lei, the head of task Professional Title System for Teachers of the SEC, the significance of establishing professional rank system for teachers lies in abolishing teacher's tenure system and introducing competitive mechanism when teachers climb up their career ladder (Zhang and Lei, 1998). It is believed that the Professional Title System for Teachers, particularly the competitive mechanism in the title system has played, over the past three decades, an active role in stimulating teachers' motivation for their continuing professional learning and performance improvement (Chen and Peng, 2016). Concomitantly, the social status of teachers has also been improved because the Title System for Teachers highlighted the professionalism of the teaching profession (Li, 2005; Zhou,

Key Terms 101
Professional group on 2012). However, debates have been accompanied by the Professional Title System for Teachers since it was created. Some researchers criticized that the quota of teachers' professional titles often led to fierce competition among teachers, which resulted in disharmony within teacher teams (Zhou, 2012;Shi et al.,2016). Other critics pointed out that the evaluation in the accreditation of teachers professional titles often involuntarily paid too much attention to the quantifiable part of teacher (e.g. their students achievement, their publications, outcomes of scientific research, praises for their open lessons, etc) and neglected the teachers' love for students and their commitment to ordinary daily work which were hardly observed and evaluated by the expert panel of accreditation (Li, 2005;Zhou, 2012;Chen and Peng, 2016).

Honorary Titles for Teachers [JIAO-SHI-RONG-YU-CHEN-HAO]
Honorary  Table   4.1). Basically, the Honorary Titles for Teachers in China can be classified into two categories.
One is given to educators for their comprehensive achievements and performance (usually described as high integrity, lofty ideals, profound knowledge and kind hearts and so on), and the other is conferred on teachers in recognition of their subject-based contributions (e.g. the contribution to Math teaching as well as the contribution to Math teacher mentoring and coaching). is placed at the top of backbone teacher levels (see Figure 4.2). Compared with the awardees of the first category, the awardees of the second category have a larger number (e.g. the quota for Superfine Teacher is -of the total number of teachers), and they have made a more direct and substantive contribution to the curriculum reform and the teaching quality improvement of China s primary and secondary schools (Wang and Cai,2005;Ma, 2009;Huang, 2013;Li, 2016). proper, appropriately qualified and competent to teach after a five-year period of time, can be continuously employed as teachers in China . Those in-service teachers who fail to meet the registration renewal requirements or fail to register within the time limit shall not engage in the work of teaching staff (MOE,2013). Chinese educational researchers generally believe that this policy is of profound significance to promote the CPD for in-service teachers and improve teacher professionalism (Ran, 2013;Liu, 2016). Moreover, a mechanism for eliminating the  Table 4.2) set by the MOE (Wang, 2017). Also, we can obtain additional information from Table 4.2. The first information is that the policy of PRTQ actually gives schools the power, though it is indirectly, to dismiss those in-service teachers who are judged unsuitable for teaching or have serious misconduct in interaction with their students because the policy set the condition of passing annual appraisal at school as one of key prerequisites to pass the PRTQ (Wang, 2017). Secondly, the code of professional ethics and conduct is most valued in contrast to other renewal requirements of the PRTQ. It is described in China s educational context as the , that is, if a teacher has serious misconduct or morally corrupt which violates the Code of Professional Ethics of Primary and Secondary School Teachers, no matter how well he or she does in other aspects, he or she will not be able to pass the PRTQ (Ran, 2013).

Teachers who meet the following requirements can pass the PRTQ:
Complying with the national laws and regulations and the Code of Professional Ethics of Primary and Secondary School Teachers, meeting the criteria of teacher ethics appraisal stipulated by provincial education authority.
Obtaining qualified level or above in each annual appraisal at school.
Completing no less than 360 CPD hours stipulated by the MOE or provincial education authority within a five-year period of time.
Being health physically and mentally and having competence to take on the role of an educator.
Additional conditions stipulated by provincial education authority.

Teachers under one of the following circumstances should be suspended their PRTQ:
Failure to complete mandatory CPD hours stipulated by the MOE or provincial education authority within a five-year period of time.
The suspension of educational, teaching and administrative work for more than one semester, except participation in training programs, academic exchanges, or sick leave and maternity leave approved by the school management or local education authority.
Failure to pass school's annual appraisal once in the last five years.
universities/colleges for all local teachers. Thirdly, it was so hard for schools to reconcile the conflict time between teachers' daily work and teachers' learning if schools sent their teachers to take the CPD programs in normal universities/colleges. Finally, policy makers as well as school principals realized that the hands-on workshop held in schools was more conducive to linking with the teachers' work in real classrooms and thus would be more beneficial to address the existing challenges in teaching and learning of the schools. Thus, a CPD pattern with the characteristics of "[training] in the school", "[based-on the current situation] of the school", and "for the school [development]" was widely favored in China in the late 1990s. It was the pattern that was so-called school-based teacher development (Li and Li, 2003;Feng and Meng, 2005;Long, 2013;You and Zhang,2014). In November 1999, the MOE issued the RHD titled Opinions on implementing "Continuing education program for primary and secondary school teachers". In this RHD, the MOE defined primary and secondary schools themselves as one of key bases of CPD for teachers, and called for local governments to provide necessary support for school-based teacher development in primary and secondary schools and give full play to the role of primary and secondary schools in CPD for teachers. Meanwhile, the MOE clarified in the RHD that the school principal was the primary person responsible for CPD of the teachers at their schools (MOE, 1999), which was consistent with "guiding and facilitating teacher development", one of key leadership practices set by the MOE in 2013 and 2015 (MOE, 2013(MOE, , 2015. Over last twenty years, the school-based teacher development has become the dominant CPD pattern for school teachers. Diversified types of programs to carry out the school-based teacher development have created and developed during the same period of time (Liu, 2003;Pei, 2005;Zhang and Lai, 2016).
Although researchers have no consensus at the moment on the dimensions or functions of the leadership for school-based teacher development, some principals have outlined several ones drawn from their successful leadership practice in leading and facilitating school-based teacher development. From their perspectives, the leadership functions include, but are not limited to (Yuan, 2011;Ma, 2014;Jin, 2015): establishing the leadership group headed by principal to make decision on and allocate resources for school-based teacher development.
establishing a task group headed by middle management (e.g. the director of the office for teacher development) to develop work plan for school-based teacher development.
having the task group working with external experts to develop school-based training programs which closely associate with teachers practice.
incentive for the participants of school-based development to encourage teachers pro-actively participating in the school-based training programs.
Evaluating the effectiveness of school-based training programs periodically, and improving the management of programs implementation in terms of the results of the evaluation.

Construction of Teacher Ethics [SHI-DE-JIAN-SHE]
The How to support and assist the beginning teachers who have little hands-on experience of teaching in real classrooms to link what they learned from their university courses with the real situation of classroom instruction.
How to support and assist the beginning teachers to boost their knowledge base regarding teaching and learning and to enrich their hands-on experience by observing and commentary on the beginning beginning teachers with opportunities to exemplary lessons.
How to facilitate beginning teachers to master the fundamental teaching methods in a relatively short period of time by scenario mentoring.
The effectiveness of CHUAN-BANG-DAI has been widely acknowledged and adopted by schools in mentoring beginning teachers in the past decades (Beijing Dongzhimen High School, 1984;Zhang, 1996, p. 61;Li, 2000;. However, the CHUAN-BANG-DAI is not the only type of beginning teacher mentoring in China (Zhang, 2000).
In practice, principals tend to use the CHUAN-BANG-DAI together with other training strategies to guide and facilitate beginning teacher development and growth.

Key Terms
The Backbone Teacher school context usually refers to those teachers who have earned the respect of their students and colleagues because of their high integrity, sound content knowledge of the subject they teach and profound understanding of subject-based didactics, and can take on leadership roles in school-based curriculum reform and teacher development (Feng and Xu, 2005;Guo, 2006). Backbone Teacher as a term was first used in a policy document of the MOE in 1962(MOE, 1962, but

Action plan for the promotion of education in the 21st century Backbone Teacher
Backbone Teacher (MOE, 1998. Feng, et al., 2002. Teachers can be different from province to province and even different from district to district. However, the problem-based learning, project-based learning, themed workshop, peer networking and classroom observation and commentary have been recognized as the most popular and effective approaches in different provinces in the last decades (Wang, 2005;Wang and Song, 2013;Huang, 2016;Qin and Li,2018). Since almost without exception the learning under above-mentioned training approaches happens at backbone teachers workplaces, the effective backbone teacher training is most likely to be a kind of school-based and practice-oriented learning and exploration.
Given the Backbone Teacher grow up from the school practice, it is no doubt that the principal leadership must have an impact on their development and growth. Indeed, the findings of an empirical study revealed that one of the factors that have the greatest impact on the growth of Backbone Teachers is principal leadership (Zhou, 2012). The results of some other studies also suggested that the professional growth of Backbone Teachers depends not only on their intrinsic motivation and talents, but also on appropriate external factors (e.g. the principal's distributed leadership perspectives, the school's encouraging evaluation policy, the positive team cooperation atmosphere, etc.). In terms of such empirical findings, it is regarded that one of responsibilities that a principal must assume is to foster a cohort of Backbone Teachers who are teaching in various subject areas and programs at school (Qiu,2015;Shen and Yin, 2016).

Summary and Discussion
In this chapter the author focused on seven key terms connecting with ladder of teaching profession in China. It is largely a performance-related promotion mechanism, rather than a seniority-based system of career development.
to change the phenomenon that some teachers just kept muddling along at the time, and also to backbone teachers at all levels) are most likely to make greater contributions to the classroom instruction and the guarantee of the quality of school education. The third term explored in this chapter is about the policy of Periodical Registration of Teacher Qualification promulgated in 2013. One of the highlights of the policy is that the schools get the de facto power to dismiss their teachers. The head of the Department of Teacher Affairs of the MOE confirmed in 2015 that more than two thousand in-service teachers had failed to passed the Periodical Registration of Teacher Qualification since the policy came into effect in 2013 (Wang, 2017). Two thousand is a small number in contrast to the total number of 12 million teachers in China, but it is a considerable policy change in teacher management anyway. Yet the policy of periodical registration has been accompanied with much debate since it was promulgated in 2013. The key issues of the debate include that who will be the qualified Judger to judge whether a teacher is qualified or not in the periodical registration? Should school leadership, parents, or other stakeholders act as judges? Is it necessary to establish a third-party hearing committee to arbitrate disputed cases? (Luo and Wei, 2016) These questions remain to be answered.
In a sense, the first three terms present the China's policy background of this chapter whereas the next four terms revolve around the key leadership practice of "guiding and facilitating teacher development". From the fourth and fifth terms, one can understand how Chinese government to keep the reputation of teaching profession and to ensure quality of CPD for in-service teachers by requiring principals to take the responsibilities in Construction of Teacher Ethics and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (2017). What do we know