Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China

The Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China (MOE) is the highest educational administrative body and is in charge of:

Implementing relevant laws and regulations, and principles and policies;

Defining specific educational policies;

Preparing and coordinating educational development plans;

Coordinating education-related work of all departments in the country; and

Providing guidance to the reform of the education system.

A comprehensive list of the Ministry’s missions can be found here. In addition to the MOE, governments at the central, provincial, municipal and county levels each have departments of education responsible for the administration of education. The current Minister of Education is Yuan Guiren

Mission:

1. To draw up strategies, policies and plans for educational reform and development; and to draft relevant rules and regulations, and supervise their implementation.

2. To take charge of the overall planning, coordination and management of all forms of education at various levels; to formulate, in collaboration with relevant departments, the standards for the setting-up of schools of all types at various levels; to guide the reform of education and teaching methods; and to take charge of the statistics, analysis, and release of basic educational information.

3. To promote all-round development of compulsory education and equitable education; to take charge of the macro-guidance and coordination of compulsory education; and to direct the regular senior secondary education, pre-school education, and special education.

To lay down requirements for and basic documents for teaching in elementary education; to organize the examination and approval of unified course materials for elementary education; and to carry on quality-oriented education in an all-round way.

4. To provide guidance for the supervision over education nationwide, organize and direct the inspection and evaluation of the implementation of the nine-year compulsory education and the literacy campaign among the young and the middle-aged, and to monitor the quality and level of the development of elementary education.

5. To provide guidance for the development and reform of employment-oriented vocational education; to formulate the curriculum catalogues for secondary vocational education, documents for the guidance of teaching, and standards of teaching assessment; to enhance the compiling of teaching materials for secondary vocational education and to improve the occupational counselling.