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School-based curriculum development has been a highlight of China's new curriculum reform since 1999. This reform introduces a curriculum policy change towards devolving partial power in curriculum decision-making to teachers, and invites their active involvement in transforming their role from being book-knowledge transmitters to curriculum developers. This paper describes an action-research project based on a school-university collaborative effort to build teacher's practical, personal reflective experience, and understanding of both the new concept of school-based curriculum development and the wider curriculum reform. How such Western concepts as school-based curriculum development and reflective practice can be adapted and transformed in the Chinese context is examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curriculum developers and scholars in China are facing a set of inter-related issues around the goals and the strategies of curriculum reform. This paper argues that there are, as in every process of curriculum development, seven goals to be addressed within China's curriculum reform: (1) the establishment of a new curriculum philosophy or ideal; (2) the development of educational objectives; (3) the renewal of educational content and experience; (4) the reconstruction of a model of curriculum organization; (5) innovation in curriculum materials; (6) the establishment of an active mode of teaching and instruction; and (7) the establishment of a new system of curriculum evaluation. Six strategies are needed for China to reach these goals: (1) improving the system of curriculum management; (2) redeveloping the mechanisms of curriculum reform; (3) promoting school-based curriculum development; (4) integrating information technology with curriculum; (5) emphasizing teachers' professional development; and (6) encouraging the whole nation's participation in the reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]