From July 2 to 4, 2025, the 2nd International Symposium for Primary and Secondary School Principals, hosted by UNESCO Teacher Education Centre and Shanghai Teacher Education College (Teaching Research Office of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission), opened at Shanghai No.3 Girls' High School. Professor Zhang Minxuan, Director of the Centre, presided over the opening ceremony. Ye Linlin, Deputy Director of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, and Zhao Xin, Deputy Director of the Department of Teacher Work under the Ministry of Education, attended the conference and delivered speeches.
(Professor Zhang Minxuan, Director of the Centre, presided over the opening ceremony)
The theme of this symposium is Promoting Teacher Evaluation Reform and Stimulating the Innovative Vitality of Teacher Teams. At the opening ceremony, Professor Zhang Minxuan, Director of the Centre, proposed that teachers in the new era should be evaluated in accordance with the educational goals of the new era. Teacher evaluation is one of the key and difficult issues in the construction of teacher teams in the new era. Also at the opening ceremony, Li Yongzhi, Party Secretary and President of the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, and Andreas Schleicher, Director of the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills, respectively exchanged views and conducted thought-provoking discussions on the global trends of AI redefining teachers and reconstructing teachers' professional development.
(Li Yongzhi, Party Secretary and President of the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, shared at the conference)
(Andreas Schleicher, Director of the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills, shared at the conference)
At the conference on the afternoon of July 3, Yuan Wen, President of Shanghai Normal University, delivered a keynote speech entitled Three Cases on Teacher Evaluation, introducing the university's practical exploration in developing an intelligent teacher training platform to explore AI-assisted teacher evaluation and the cultivation of normal university students.
On the afternoon of July 4, at three parallel forums themed Teacher Evaluation Standards and Policy Formulation, Technology Empowering Teacher Evaluation, and Application of Teacher Evaluation Results, foreign participating principals including Brian Lagman Ang, Vice Principal of Raffles Institution (a top school in Singapore), Amber Houston, Principal of Oxford High School (a top high school in California, USA), and Elizabeth Robinson, Principal of Hobart College in Tasmania, Australia (known as a cradle of the Rhodes Scholarship, dubbed the Nobel Prize for Global Youth), engaged in dialogues and sharing with outstanding principal representatives from across the country and Shanghai, including Beijing Daxing District No.1 Middle School, High School Affiliated to Fudan University, and Hangzhou Public Welfare Middle School. The discussions focused on AI empowering teacher evaluation, teacher learning, and professional development.
(Amber Houston, Principal of Oxford High School in California, USA, speaking)
(Brian Lagman Ang, Vice Principal of Raffles Institution in Singapore, speaking)
(Ruochen Li, Head of the TALIS Project at the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills, chaired a sub-topic of the conference)
In addition, on the morning of July 4, the conference organized school visits. With the support and careful planning of the Education Bureaus and Education Colleges of Changning District, Hongkou District, Jing'an District, and Pudong New Area in Shanghai, key participants of the conference visited Yan'an Junior High School, No.1 High School Affiliated to East China Normal University, Affiliated School of Jing'an Education Institute, and Bingchangtian Kindergarten respectively. They observed AI-assisted classroom teaching diagnosis for teachers, conducted Sino-foreign teaching research discussions on mathematics classes, and had an immersive experience of Chinese intangible cultural heritage skills.
Professor Xu Jinjie of the Centre presided over the experience exchange session of the school visits at the closing ceremony on July 4, conveying the Centre's willingness and best wishes to continue building a platform for exchanges and deepened cooperation among Chinese and foreign principals as a bridge.
This symposium brought together 39 outstanding principal representatives and teacher policy makers from 10 countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Norway, and Singapore, as well as international organizations such as the OECD, the International Confederation of Principals (ICP), and the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE).。
Volunteers from the TEC also contributed their hard work and efforts to the success of this symposium.
