Educating for Wholeness, but Beyond Competences: Challenges to Key-Competences-Based Education in China

Abstract

Purpose: This article aims to conduct a critical analysis of key-competences-based education in China today by revealing three main challenges that Chinese educational practitioners, researchers, and policymakers might face. Design/Approach/Methods: Against the backdrop of international and Chinese policy and the practice of key-competences-based education, this article focuses on a critical discourse analysis of this educational movement in China. Findings: China places great emphasis on the personal, cultural, and moral dimensions in generating a framework of competences, paying considerable attention to the well-being of children; hence it currently endeavors to provide a consistent educational framework to educate the young for the all-round development. However, three challenges are salient: the dilemma between Core-Suyang (Core-Competence) and the education for all-round development of the young, the limitations of design of “subject core-competences,” and a lack of consideration of subjectification as purpose of education. Originality/Value: Education which merely focuses on a list of key-competences might not only exclude non-key-competences but also exclude something unforeseen and unknown in the process of educational adventure. It is therefore suggested that a holistic education needs to be engaged in with an encompassing and dynamic view of purpose(s) of education, in which the education for subjectification is at stake in our educational endeavor.