China’s Educational Vision Takes Center Stage: Unpacking the 2024 National Education Conference’s Strategic Rhetoric
The 2024 National Education Conference in China has emerged as a landmark event signaling profound shifts in the nation’s educational policy and strategic positioning on the global stage. Unlike conventional policy documents and white papers, the speeches delivered by state leaders during this conference offer a unique window into China’s evolving ambitions, ideological foundations, and discursive methods for mobilizing national consensus around education reform. Through a nuanced content analysis, recently published research sheds light on how these speeches function not only as conveyors of policy but as meticulously crafted political discourse that underpins China’s quest to transform into a world-leading education powerhouse by 2035.
Historically, China’s policymaking apparatus has privileged formal textual documents in articulating governance priorities. However, the rhetorical power of oral political discourse—especially speeches during pivotal conferences—remains underexplored. The latest study, led by Yansi Hou of East China Normal University and published in the ECNU Review of Education, systematically analyzes the 2024 National Education Conference speeches, revealing subtle yet significant shifts in policymaking tone, structure, and content. These speeches foreground long-term strategic goals rather than piecemeal reforms, reflecting a departure from earlier conferences toward visionary ambition.
The conference itself represents only the sixth in a series established since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Yet, it is the fifth conference in 2018 and the sixth in 2024 that are seen as transformative. Together, they have established a comprehensive roadmap that moves beyond immediate problems and aims to build a holistic, innovative, and internationally competitive education system. The emphasis on a systematic blueprint underlines the leadership’s commitment to propelling China from a “major education power” to a “world-leading education country,” echoing broader national modernization goals.
A critical insight from Hou’s research is the identification of five central policy tasks that shape this transformation. These tasks include cultivating virtue through education (lide shuren), a core Confucian-inspired ethos emphasizing moral formation, ensuring equitable access to educational resources across the diverse regions and social strata, integrating education closely with advances in science, technology, and human talent development to fuel innovation, strengthening the quality and professionalism of the teaching workforce, and promoting greater openness in education, fostering international collaboration and exchange.
What distinguishes these policy speeches is their distinctive four-part rhetorical architecture. Each speech begins by invoking historical context, situating current educational challenges and goals within China’s long legacy of educational thought and reform. This is followed by a segment dedicated to theoretical innovation, where new educational ideas and frameworks are introduced, blending Marxist principles with contemporary pedagogical strategies. The third segment provides a candid assessment of current realities, acknowledging both achievements and persistent challenges. Finally, the speeches culminate in a forward-looking articulation of concrete policy tasks and goals that form the strategic agenda for the coming decades.
This four-part structure, while formulaic on the surface, is far from ceremonial. Instead, it acts as a discursive device that reinforces ideological coherence and strategic clarity. By embedding policy directives within a narrative arc that connects past, theory, present status, and future objectives, the speeches operate as rhetorical blueprints that align disparate policy initiatives under a unified vision. In this way, political speeches at the National Education Conference serve not just as communications but as instruments of governance shaping national identity and developmental trajectories through education.
The emphasis on “fostering virtue through education” underscores the integration of traditional cultural values within modern educational reforms. Through this lens, education is conceptualized not merely as knowledge transmission but as moral cultivation—a foundational pillar in sustaining social harmony and political stability. This ideological commitment weaves seamlessly with the broader goal of educational equity, ensuring that this moral cultivation and access to quality education are not privileges of elite urban centers but extend to rural and disadvantaged populations.
Further, linking education with science, technology, and talent development responds to the urgent imperative of technological innovation in a global knowledge economy. China’s leadership is acutely aware that maintaining competitiveness requires harnessing human capital through education systems that are adaptive, interdisciplinary, and aligned with cutting-edge research. This task demands reforms in curricula, pedagogies, and institutional structures tailored to skill sets relevant for the future workforce.
Strengthening the teaching workforce emerges as another linchpin of the broader reform agenda. Recognizing teachers as agents of change, the speeches advocate for systemic improvements in teacher recruitment, training, and professional development. These measures are designed to enhance educators’ capacity to implement innovative curricular changes, engage diverse learners effectively, and embody the moral virtues central to the educational mission.
The final policy task—advancing educational opening-up—reflects an increasingly globalized vision of China’s education system. Rather than retreating into insularity, the leadership frames openness as essential for attracting international collaboration, talent exchange, and benchmarking Chinese education against global best practices. This approach acknowledges that education modernization is inseparable from global knowledge flows and cooperation, even as it retains distinct national priorities.
Hou’s meticulous content analysis clarifies how these policies are embedded within a political discourse that serves multiple functions: legitimizing current leadership strategies, cultivating a shared national purpose, and providing a coherent framework for institutional action across China’s vast and diverse educational landscape. The study’s findings illustrate how rhetorical strategies shape both the substance and reception of educational reforms, ensuring they resonate politically and socially.
By focusing on conference speeches rather than solely on textual policy documents, this research highlights an influential yet often overlooked dimension of policymaking in China. Speeches encapsulate leadership intentions, ideational shifts, and governance styles in real time, offering a rich corpus for understanding how policy priorities evolve and are communicated to multiple stakeholders. This discursive approach complements traditional policy analysis by foregrounding the performative and symbolic aspects of governance through language.
In sum, the 2024 National Education Conference symbolizes a momentous step in China’s education policymaking trajectory. It marks a transition from reactive and fragmented reforms toward a strategic, ideologically grounded, and globally oriented agenda designed to transform China’s educational system by 2035. As China continues to envision its place as a global leader in education, the potent combination of structured political speeches and coherent policy frameworks revealed by this study will undoubtedly remain pivotal in steering both public expectations and institutional practices.
The implications of these findings extend beyond China, offering valuable perspectives for the global education community on how high-level political discourse shapes national education strategies. They underscore the importance of attending to rhetorical form and content in addition to policy substance when analyzing educational reforms in any context. The Chinese case exemplifies the intricate interplay between narrative, ideology, and governance in the ongoing global quest to redefine education for the 21st century.
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Subject of Research: Not explicitly specified
Article Title: China’s National Education Conference Matters: Major Education Discursive Blueprinting in 2024
News Publication Date: February 6, 2025
Web References: https://doi.org/10.1177/20965311251318367
References:
Hou, Yansi. (2025). “China’s National Education Conference Matters: Major Education Discursive Blueprinting in 2024.” ECNU Review of Education, published online February 6, 2025. DOI: 10.1177/20965311251318367
Image Credits: “Paper Weaving” by FeatheredTar
