China’s educational science emerged and developed simultaneously with China’s modern education system. After abolishing the imperial examination and establishing schools in the early 20th century, China introduced the Western academic system and also introduced Western courses. Educational science was born in China with the establishment of Chinese normal education. In 1920, Beijing Normal University first established the Graduate School of Education, specializing in educational theory and cultivating bachelor's degrees in education. It offered 24 courses in education, psychology, philosophy, aesthetics, history of education, principles of teaching methods, and education practices. In 1932, Beijing Normal University established the Institute of Education, specializing in educational research and cultivating educational research talents. In the 1920s and 1930s, as American scholars such as Dewey and Monroe came to China to give lectures, Chinese education research flourished. After liberation, our country implemented a one-sided policy of learning from the Soviet Union. Educational science was modeled on the Soviet Union, and all Western educational theories were critically abandoned. From then on, Soviet pedagogy dominated the world. In 1958, he began to advocate the establishment of China's own pedagogy and criticized Soviet pedagogy (commonly known as Kailov pedagogy). However, due to the interference of "left" ideas, China's own pedagogy was never truly established. After the end of the "Cultural Revolution", under the premise of ideological emancipation, the educational theory circle set things right, and China's educational science ushered in the spring, and educational science was rebuilt and flourished. Over the past 30 years of reform and opening up, the development of education science in our country has generally gone through the following stages. The first stage was from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, which was a period of bringing order out of chaos. On May 24, 1977, Deng Xiaoping proposed to "respect knowledge and talents" when talking to Wang Zhen, Deng Liqun, and Yu Guangyuan; on March 18, 1978, Deng Xiaoping pointed out in his speech at the opening ceremony of the National Science Conference, "Science and technology are productive forces" and intellectuals "are already part of the working class itself"; on April 22 of the same year, in his speech at the National Education Work Conference, Deng Xiaoping criticized the "Two Estimates" (the "Jianguo Project" concocted by the "Gang of Four"). In the next seventeen years, the education front was ruled by the black front and intellectuals were bourgeois intellectuals" (estimated), [1] and the educational community was liberated. In 1978, Yu Guangyuan, then vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out at an education symposium that although the educational phenomenon contains a superstructure, it cannot be said that education is the superstructure. Later, his speech was published in the 1978 issue 3 of "Academic Research" under the title "Research on Emphasis on Cultivating People". This triggered a big discussion about the "nature of education". This discussion was first launched in "Educational Research" and lasted for more than ten years. More than 300 papers were published, and many important articles were published in this journal. Although this discussion did not reach a unified understanding of the essential attributes of education, it greatly liberated our minds and gave us a more comprehensive understanding of education. For a long time, education has always been used as a tool of class struggle and political struggle. Through discussions, we gradually realized that education is an activity that cultivates people, a necessary condition for human development, and a need for people’s own development; education plays a vital role in society , not only has political functions, but also economic functions, national defense functions, cultural functions, etc. Education must serve the material civilization of society as well as the spiritual civilization of society. Therefore, education has two major functions: promoting human development and promoting social development. Education promotes social development by promoting human development. Only when individuals are developed can they serve social development. The essence of education is to inherit culture, innovate knowledge and promote human development. Of course, this understanding is not readily accepted by everyone. In 1980, the author gave a speech at a summer lecture for college cadres jointly organized by the Chinese Education Society and the Beijing Higher Education Bureau. The title was "Modern Production and Modern Education" and proposed that "Modern education is the product of modern production, and education and The combination of production and labor is a universal law of modern education." This view was still criticized in articles until 1991. At that time, it was mentioned that education should promote human development and was criticized as bourgeois "humanism." This shows that changing educational concepts is not easy. However, in the first stage, under the background of national ideological emancipation, it broke through the shackles of ideas and laid the foundation for the subsequent prosperity of educational science. The establishment of the Office of the National Educational Science Planning Leading Group, the founding of the Chinese Education Society, and the restoration of the Central Institute of Educational Sciences marked that my country’s educational sciences have embarked on a planned and organized development track. The second stage was from the 1980s to the mid-1990s, which was the period of introducing and drawing on Western educational theories and experiences. Reform and opening up is like waking up, opening the window, and discovering that the world outside is so colorful. The 1960s was a time of great development and reform in world education, and an important historical period when world education entered modernization. It is a pity that our country was undergoing the "Cultural Revolution" at that time and was completely ignorant of the major changes in world education. After the reform and opening up, our horizons were opened, and we began to actively introduce foreign educational concepts, educational content and educational methods. One of the earliest books introduced was the education report "Learning to Survive - Educating the World Today and Tomorrow" published by UNESCO in 1972. The book proposed that due to the rapid development of science and technology after the Second World War and the social changes caused, human beings Beginning to enter a learning society, lifelong education has become a necessity for people's survival.

The views of this book were not taken seriously by China's educational circles at first. It was not until China's economic transformation period in the 1990s that it was recognized and valued by people, and was included in the "Outline of China's Education Reform and Development" and "The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference". *In the Education Law of the People's Republic of China. In fact, "lifelong education" is not only an important educational trend, but also an inevitable trend of modernization and human development. Why is our understanding 30 years later than that of developed countries? This is because our country was basically still in the era of small-scale peasant economy in the 1970s. Coupled with the planned economic system, it has not experienced changes in large-scale industrial production, so it is difficult to understand lifelong The importance of education in modern society. Until the mid-1990s, my country's industrial modernization had greatly improved, the planned economy had transformed into a socialist market economy, and production technology had continued to change. Only then did the educational community pay attention to the idea of ??lifelong education. Comparative educators play an important role in introducing foreign educational experience. In August 1977, the Ministry of Education held a symposium on foreign education in Beidaihe to discuss the development of foreign education research and formulate plans. From July 5 to 15, 1978, the first National Academic Symposium on Foreign Education was held at Beijing Normal University. This can be said to be the first academic conference held in the education sector after the reform and opening up. Under the impetus of this conference, a number of books introducing foreign education experiences were published. The more important ones include "Foreign Education Series" (35 volumes), "Overview of Education in Six Countries", "Overview of Education in Twenty Countries", "Today's Education" American Education” etc. In 1980, with the approval of Vice Premier Fang Yi of the Tongwei Yuan, "Foreign Education Trends" (later renamed "Comparative Education Research" magazine) was publicly released. This period mainly introduced the educational systems and reform and development experiences of six developed countries, the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan, and introduced various educational ideas. The most popular educational ideas in our country are the educational ideas of four scholars, namely the Soviet Zankov's developmental teaching theory and Suhomlinsky's "harmonious education" ideas, the American Bruner's structuralist educational theory and Bloom's Mastery Learning Theory. In addition, the Swiss psychologist Piaget's theory of developmental psychology is also introduced extensively. The most noteworthy thing about the introduction of advanced educational content from abroad is Deng Xiaoping’s instruction in 1977 that “foreign teaching materials must be introduced and the useful things in foreign teaching materials must be absorbed.” When foreign exchange was in short supply at that time, with the approval of Deng Xiaoping, the central government allocated US$100,000 to purchase a large number of teaching materials from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan and other countries, which effectively promoted the modernization of my country's curriculum and teaching materials. [2] The third stage is after the mid-1990s, when the Chinese education community began to independently go its own way and create an educational theoretical system with Chinese characteristics. In 1983, Deng Xiaoping wrote an inscription to Beijing Jingshan School: "Education must be oriented to modernization, the world, and the future." The inscription points out the direction for the development of education in our country. In 1993, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Outline for China's Education Reform and Development", which clearly stated the need to build a socialist education system with Chinese characteristics. Under the guidance of the "three orientations" policy, the national education community has carried out theoretical research and various experimental studies. During this period, educational theoretical circles focused on discussions on the relationship between education and the socialist market economy, the reform of educational structure, the reform of the educational system, educational modernization, quality education, and student-centered education. In educational practice, many regions and schools have conducted experimental research on "three aspects" of comprehensive reform, happy education, harmonious education, successful education, subject education, new education, and new basic education, and have achieved fruitful results. Educational science made important developments during this period. Education began to differentiate into many sub-disciplines, such as pre-school education, primary education, special education, higher education, adult education, vocational and technical education, etc. based on various levels of education; from the education process Based on the problems in education, curriculum theory, teaching theory, moral education theory, etc. have been established; the combination of education and other disciplines has produced many new disciplines, such as educational economics, educational sociology, educational technology, educational management, etc. Educational science is no longer a single pedagogy that dominates the world, but forms a group of educational disciplines, presenting a colorful situation in which a hundred schools of thought contend and a hundred flowers bloom. It is worth mentioning here that the magazine "Education Research" founded in 1979 at the initiative of Dong Chuncai, the old director of the Central Institute of Educational Sciences, has played an important role in promoting the development of education and scientific research in our country and the growth of educational and scientific research talents. It can be seen from the three stages of the development of educational science in the past 30 years of reform and opening up that ideological emancipation is always the prerequisite for the development of educational science, and the change of educational concepts is the driving force for the development of educational science. From "education is a tool of the dictatorship of the proletariat" to "rejuvenating the country through science and education" and "education first"; from "education is a tool of class struggle" to "people-oriented" and "education equity is the basis of social equity", this change in concepts It has greatly liberated the minds of educational theorists and promoted the prosperity of educational science.