Recently, the Ministry of Education announced the certification results of the first batch of national counties (cities, districts) for high-quality and balanced development of compulsory education in 2025. Longhua District of Shenzhen, together with 6 other administrative districts in the city, was included in the list. This marks that Shenzhen has taken the lead in the province to pass the national acceptance inspection for high-quality and balanced development of compulsory education in the whole city, and Longhua’s education has officially stepped into a new journey of high-quality development.
Since the comprehensive launch of the creation work in 2020, Longhua District has faced the practical challenges of “weak foundation of educational resources, rapid growth of degree demand, and high cost of land preparation”. Anchoring the goal of “every school and every item meets the standards”, it has broken through difficulties with the “Six Persistences”, and taken a combination of measures including expanding supply, establishing mechanisms, strengthening the teaching staff, improving quality, promoting innovation and advancing reform, thus blazed a path of high-quality and balanced development of compulsory education with Longhua characteristics.
Consolidating the Foundation for Educational Development
Party building leadership is the “root” and “soul” of high-quality educational development. Longhua District has set up the Education Leading Group of the District Party Committee, constructed an educational leadership system under the unified leadership of the Party committee, with the Party and government working together and departments assuming their respective responsibilities. It has incorporated indicators such as Party building and school-running quality into the debriefing, evaluation and assessment system for Party organization secretaries of schools. The principal responsibility system under the leadership of Party organizations in primary and secondary schools has been fully implemented. For 75 eligible schools, full-time and competent Party organization secretaries and deputy secretaries have been assigned. The innovative “Foundation Consolidation and Quality Improvement Project” has been carried out, 137 middle-level Party building cadres have been selected, and a total of 11 sessions of the “Red Navigation” special training have been held, covering nearly 700 people. At the same time, it has continuously polished the brand of First Secretaries, dispatched a total of 143 First Secretaries to private schools in 7 batches, creating a new paradigm of Party building in private education; promoted the “Cohesion Action”, strengthened the brand activities such as “Gathering Knowledge and Connecting Hearts” and “Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Youth Growth Summit”, and led the high-quality development of education with high-quality Party building.
Strengthening the Underpinning for Educational Development
With a high-level planning, Longhua District has issued a special implementation plan, forming a pattern of advancing the work in a unified way across the district; it has strictly implemented the two “only increase but not decrease” requirements for educational investment, with a total educational investment exceeding 49 billion yuan completed. The educational investment in 2024 reached 11.02 billion yuan, more than three times that of 2017, with an average annual growth rate of 17%. In terms of degree supply, Longhua District has deepened the supply-side structural reform of academic degrees, simplified the approval process and guaranteed construction funds. In six years, 75,700 new public compulsory education degrees have been added, effectively resolving the contradiction between supply and demand of degrees, and laying a solid resource foundation for the high-quality and balanced development of regional education.
Longhua District adheres to the combination of “attracting, cultivating and retaining talents” to build a high-quality teaching staff. It has carefully attracted talents, introducing 177 high-level talents such as renowned teachers at or above the provincial level, and recruiting 8,582 outstanding graduates, among whom 65.8% have a master’s degree or above; it has meticulously cultivated talents, setting up 152 district-level renowned teacher studios, selecting 1,334 backbone teachers and young promising teachers, establishing a “PhD Elite Group” with 19 PhD workstations, implementing the “Future Educator Project 2.0” to build a five-stage training path, and promoting training through competitions such as the “Longjiao Cup”; it has sincerely retained talents, taking the lead in launching a three-year action plan to enhance the sense of happiness of young teachers, building service positions and carrying out warm-hearted activities covering more than 1,500 young teachers, enabling teachers to teach with peace of mind and enthusiasm.
Highlighting the Essence of High-Quality and Balanced Development
Longhua District has fully implemented the “simultaneous promotion of moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic and labor education”, and created characteristic education brands. It has strengthened the construction of “comprehensive ideological and political courses”, with Party and government leaders, school secretaries and principals giving regular lectures for more than 1,500 sessions. The “mobile ideological and political courses” have covered public and private schools, and 3 cases have been selected as national typical experiences. In terms of enlightening wisdom and pursuing truth, it has taken the lead in realizing full coverage of science vice principals, and Zhili High School has won the championship, runner-up and third place in a single event at the World Robot Olympiad; in terms of strengthening physical fitness, it has implemented the policy of “one PE class every day”, and the pass rate and excellent rate of students’ physical fitness tests have ranked first in the city for four consecutive years; in terms of nurturing the soul through aesthetics, it has implemented the “Aesthetic Education Star River Plan” and built the Guanlan Ancient Market Aesthetic Education Research and Study Base; in terms of diligence and pragmatism, 3 schools have been rated as provincial-level characteristic schools for labor education. Meanwhile, Longhua District has deepened the implementation of the “double reduction” policy, promoted the school-running group system, established 31 education groups to achieve full coverage of streets, improved the special education service system, and pioneered the “3+3+N” education assistance model, which has been rated as a national excellent poverty alleviation case.
Looking forward to the future, taking this successful creation as a new starting point, Longhua District will continue to deepen the comprehensive reform of education, strive to ensure that every child enjoys equitable and high-quality education, and contribute more Longhua wisdom and strength to the high-quality development of Shenzhen’s education.
