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Article information:
To cite this document: Mian Wang Yajing Feng . "Special Education Today in China"
In Special Education International Perspectives: Practices Across the Globe. Published
online: 08 Oct 2014; 663-688.
Permanent link to this document:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/S0270-401320140000028030
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INTRODUCTION
As one of the fastest economically growing nations in the world over the
last two decades, China has become a primary contributor to the global
economy. Enormous changes along with such glamour of economic growth
and prosperity have struck dramatically this worlds most populous country
socially and politically on almost every aspect. However, as a sharp contrast
to the image of an emerging economic giant, China is still shy away from
having an advanced progressive education system of equality that can ensure
education rights for all children, especially those with disabilities. Special
education in China, a so-called step child of the whole Chinese education
system, is at a new crossroad for development and reform.
The earliest idea about disability in China can be traced back to ancient
time when Chinese people began to notice the existence of people with
obvious disabilities (Deng, Poon-Mcbrayer, & Farnsworth, 2001; Piao,
1992). In a quite vague fashion, Confucius introduces the idea of equally
treating people with exceptionality with respect and dignity in his writing
of Liji (Book of Rites) in the early Chun Qiu period (770 476 BC), which
is the first recording of people with disabilities in Chinese ancient literature.
Despite this generic moral call for sympathy toward people with disabilities, there was no formal social support and education system to support
people with disabilities at the time, and people with disabilities remained at
the lowest social status in the hierarchic feudal system over the long
Chinese history. It was not until the late 19th century that the embryo of
special education was developed in China with the assistance of American
and European missionaries (Deng et al., 2001).
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In 1887, American missionaries Charles and Annetta Mills started the first
school for blind and deaf students in Dengzhou, Shandong. Braille and
sign language were introduced to China at that time, and students with
visual and hearing impairments benefited from learning basic and religious
knowledge and life skills through formal school education (Epstein, 1988;
Yang & Wang, 1994).
The first special education school founded by Chinese people was actually in the early 20th century when an industrialist and philanthropist,
Zhang Jian, established a special school for blind and deaf students in
Nantong, Jiangsu, in 1916. This special school emphasized vocational
training and learning of general ad basic knowledge (Yu & Zhang, 1994).
The first Chinese government-run special education school, the Nanjing
Municipal School for the Blind and Deaf, was established in 1927. The
school provided junior and senior high school level education as well as
vocational training to students. In addition, a number of private special
schools, including teacher training schools, were established. By the end of
1948 before the Communist Party came into the power, there were a total
of 42 special schools in China serving more than 2,000 students with visual
and hearing impairments. However, education for children with intellectual
disability or other disabilities was not available.
The foundation of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949 brought
fundamental changes to education in the country, and as a result all private
schools were taken over by the government and merged into the public
education system (Ellsworth & Zhang, 2007). Ever since then, special
education became part of government-supported affairs and the Chinese
government took advantage of the Socialist system to build many special
education schools in a relatively short period of time. By 1960, there were
479 special education schools enrolling 26,701 students with disabilities in
China. The special education system was deeply influenced by the Soviet
Union model (Editorial Department of Year-Book of Education, 1984).
Another notable achievement was the establishment of the first special education school for children with intellectual disabilities in Dalian, Liaoning,
in 1959 (Ye & Piao, 1995).
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persons with intellectual disabilities was influenced by the lower IQ cut off
score used in 2006 to classify persons with intellectual disabilities. In terms
of the distribution of disabilities by age (see Table 2) almost half (45.20%)
of all people with disabilities are over 65 years while the proportion of
children with disabilities from birth to 14 years old is only 4.66%.
Interestingly, the incident of disability for school-age children (i.e., 6 14
years old, an age range covered by the Compulsory Education Law), reveal
a surprising low figure (2.46 million children) (CDPF, 2006). As shown in
Table 3, children with intellectual disability are the most prevalent group
(30.89%), followed closely by those with multiple disabilities (30.49%) suggesting a substantially different distribution of disability when compared
with the entire population. Surprisingly, children with mental disorders
(2.44%) account for the least proportion of the population with disabilities
even when compared to traditionally low incidence special education
populations such as those with visual impairments (5.28%) and those with
hearing impairments (4.47%).
Table 1.
Disability Category
Number (Million)
Percentage
Physical disability
Hearing impairments
Multiple disabilities
Visual impairments
Mental disorders
Intellectual disability
Speech impairments
24.12
20.04
13.52
12.33
6.14
5.54
1.27
29.07
24.16
16.30
14.86
7.40
6.68
1.53
Total
82.96
100
Number (Million)
Percentage
0 14
15 59
60 64
65 and above
3.87
34.93
6.61
37.55
4.66
42.10
8.04
45.20
Total
82.96
100
670
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Number (Million)
Percentage
Physical disabilities
Hearing impairment
Multiple disabilities
Visual impairment
Mental disorders
Intellectual disability
Speech disability
0.48
0.11
0.75
0.13
0.06
0.76
0.17
19.51
4.47
30.49
5.28
2.44
30.89
6.91
Total
2.46
100
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673
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people with disabilities in 2005. While this is a positive aspect, these services
and supports place more rehabilitative emphasis on health and medical
welfare services rather than educational, vocational, and psychological
interventions.
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increasingly promoted in China, there is a dire reality that there are not
enough highly qualified special education teachers in special education and
regular schools who are knowledgeable about utilizing the best inclusive
educational practices. This shortage of highly trained teachers is partly due
to the dearth of special education graduate training programs. It is strongly
recommended by the authors that both preservice and in-service preparation and training programs need to be reformed to meet the rapid growth
of students with special needs who are being placed increasingly into inclusive education programs. If special education undergraduate and graduate
training programs at comprehensive universities are not reformed and
allowed to embrace research evidence and best practices, the special education needs of the students will not be met.
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Chinas generic disability and education laws, there are no clearly defined
disability identification and classification mechanisms, no specified range of
services that children with disabilities are entitled to, and no legal consequences specified for schools if they violate the rights of children with disabilities and/or families. Due to these aspects, there is no clear regulatory
or executive mechanism existing for enforcing implementation of statutes
related to special education system and practices. Thus, a system barrier
exits which prevents the full and meaningful education of students with
special education needs. This system barrier correlates with access to the
right to education for hundreds of thousands of Chinese children with disabilities (especially those with severe needs and/or from rural and remote
areas). Further, it interferes with the development of any formal special
education system channel which could provide a remedy and enforceable
provisions to educate all children with disabilities.
684
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CONCLUSION
In conclusion, this chapter has painted a portrait of Chinas special education through describing its origin, evolution, and progress from a legal,
family, and service aspect as well as discussing issues and challenges.
Despite a short and disrupted history, special education has gradually
evolved over a century, particularly in the last three decades. Although
685
steady progresses are made, special education in China still has a long way
to go as it has to face a myriad of challenges and meet the growing needs
of the largest disability population in the world.
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