1. Aims and Objectives

Editor Notes: Students are expected to be high quality educational researcher with the following qualities and attributes.

The main aim of the programme is to train high quality educational researcher with the following features: complying with Chinese laws and regulations, committing to the education profession, having strong awareness of taking social responsibilities, honest, having international viewpoints and able to communicate internationally, solid foundation of pedagogy knowledge, strong ability in research and innovation, and qualified to teach, research and management issues. In detail, students are expected to have the following qualities and attributes:

1.1 an attitude of conducting scientific research with rigorousness and truth-seeking, a conscientious and responsible research ethics, a research spirit of knowledge-seeking and innovation, and a research character of cooperation and inclusion,

1.2 a broad theoretical foundation and a systematic and profound understanding of pedagogy knowledge, mastering the frontier of educational development and theories in the education field, proficient in research methods in the Comparative education programme,

1.3 able to conduct research projects independently and having innovative research product in the Comparative education programme;

1.4 strong ability to conduct teaching and to apply educational theories/research to serve for educational reform and practice; and

1.5 proficient in a foreign language, able to skillfully search international literature, to write essays with foreign languages to participate in international academic communication and to use ICT.

2. Research Areas

Editor Notes: This program has three research areas, namely African education studies, international education studies and comparative studies on educational strategies and policies.

The Comparative education programme has three research areas: African education studies, international education studies and comparative studies on educational strategies and policies.

The Comparative education programme is distinctively featured by African education studies, which mainly focus on exploring the reform and development of all forms of education at all levels in Africa, the path and strategy of Sino-African educational exchanges and cooperation, etc. We are at the domestically leading level and have great influence on African education and research teams, research projects and achievements, policy advisory and services, talent training and so on.

In addition to African education studies, the Comparative education programme mainly involves the studies in the following fields in developed countries considering the orientation of education strategy and policy comparison:teacher education studies, great-power education strategy and exploration, studies on research-oriented university, research on higher vocational colleges, research on educational equity, STEM education research and so on.

3. Studying Duration

Editor Notes: This program is normally completed within 4-7 years.

The Ph.D. in Comparative education programme takes four years of basic study,  but no more than seven years. Full-time PhD students take no more than one year for course studying, and 2 to 3 years for their PhD thesis. It is allowed that excellent students could have the viva in advance and graduate earlier than the prescribed time if they complete the course work, earn the credits, complete their research tasks and PhD thesis, given that they get the permission from the chief supervisor(s) and head of the Comparative education programme.

4. Curriculum and Credits Requirement

Editor Notes: Students need to complete at least 19 credits, including degree-based courses, non degree-based courses and compulsory academic activities.

Doctoral students' courses are consisted of three parts: degree-based courses, non degree-based courses and compulsory academic activities (see the curriculum schedule for details).

The minimum study credit is 17, of which degree-based courses weigh 15 credits. The credits of degree-based courses is 13, including 5 credits of general degree-based courses, 4 credits of degree-based platform courses and 4 credits of particular subject courses. The credits of non-degree based courses(including oriented optional courses and interdisciplinary optional courses) weight 2 credits at least. The compulsory academic activities weighs 2 credits, and they are the necessities of the viva of PhD thesis, which include attending academic seminars/conferences, educational service practice, literature review and research proposal reporting, mid-term examination, mid-term progression report of PhD thesis, and mock viva of PhD thesis.

If you are accepted on a basis of undergraduate programme or equivalent qualifications, you will have to take two extra master's courses whose credits don't count in.

The assessment is consisted of examinations and checking, of which the compulsory and optional academic activities are based on examinations and the checking is for general subject courses, particular and optional subject courses. Students' marks could employ different formats, 100 per cent, with 60 per cent as a pass and five-grade marking system (excellent, good, intermediary, pass and fail). In detail, degree-based courses should be marked based on the 100 percentages approach, with 40% in regular grades and 60% in final examinations, whereas the compulsory academic activities employ the five-grade marking system(excellent, good, intermediary, pass and fail). While checking is based on the requirements of the courses and the lecturers, it could take forms like essay, reading report, investigative report, research projects or academic presentations.

The Curriculum Schedule of Doctoral Students in the Comparative Education Programme

5. The Training and Management

Editor Notes: The traning and management embodies 9 parts, and the detailed information of each part have shown below.

5.1 Principal supervisor and supervision panel mechanism

The training of doctoral students practices the mechanism of a combination of principal supervisor taking the responsibility and collective supervision of the supervision panel (a group of supervisors).The training and guidance committee of doctoral students (TGCDS) should be established with the head of fist-level discipline as chairman and the head of different discipline directions as committee members, and be responsible for issues like admission, mid-term examination and viva. The College of Teacher Education takes the responsibility of daily management of doctoral students of grade one, and since grade 2 doctoral students are took charge of by their supervisors and the college where supervisor work in. Doctoral students' supervisors are responsible for doctoral students' training, making personalized training plan, organizing seminars, supervising the RPR and for advising research and PhD thesis. Under the leadership of the TGCDS and based on the research areas/interests, doctoral students' supervisors should establish the supervision panel that is consisted of 3-5 experts who hold PhD degrees and possess the title of associate professor (or equivalent) at least. By doing so, the advantage of supervisors' guidance and the supervision panel's collective training could be maximized.

5.2 Course Teaching

The course teaching mainly practices a combination of teacher's lectures and classroom discussion, supplemented by such methods as doctoral students' self-learning, topical discussion and academic presentations. The compulsory and optional courses for the programme tend to employ an approach characterized by main lecturers taking the responsibility and the course-teaching group participating in course delivering which is heuristic, rich in discussion and a kind of topical teaching. During the teaching process, lecturers should motivate doctoral students' activeness, autonomy and creation, make sure that doctoral students gain basic theories and professional knowledge and grasp basic methods and skills of conducting research scientifically.

5.3 Make personal Training Plan

 Within two months' enrollment, doctoral students' personal training plan should be made under the guidance of supervisors and the supervision panel, based on the requirement of the handbook of PhD in the programme, and linked to the research areas and doctoral students' personal features. The personal training plan should also be submitted to relevant schools/institutes for documentation. The personal training plan prescribes the requirement and progress of course studying, the compulsory academic activities, the mid-term examination, research, the research proposal reporting and PhD thesis. Once the personal training plan has made, it should be followed strictly. During the studying period, any changes of the personal training plan should be approved by supervisors and the school/institute where doctoral students register.

5.4 Course learning

Within the prescribed length of schooling, the first to second semester after postgraduate enrollment is the course learning stage, during which postgraduates are required to properly select courses online in a timely and earnestly manner and actively take postgraduate courses according to the training scheme of this discipline and the individual course learning plan. The courses included in the individual course learning plan must be taken to obtain corresponding credits (interdisciplinary students enrolled are required to take "make-up courses" without credits).

5.5 Mid-term examination

The mid-term examination is normally held at the beginning of the third semester after doctoral students complete their course studying and the RPR, which is organized by the CESG and led by the head of the CESG. The mid-term examination panel is consisted of supervisors and members of the supervision group, who mainly exam the following issues: course studying, doctoral students' understanding of the depth and width of the education subject, ability of conducting research independently, research quality, research ethics and research potential.

5.6 Literature review and research proposal report

Research proposal report (RPR) is a sort of academic document that is written by doctoral students, guided and approved by their supervisors. It normally takes place at the third semester. Based on a thorough review of relevant literature including at least 10 monographs and 30 peer-reviewed journal articles, doctoral students will then work with their RPRs and attend the RPR meeting organized by the committee of the education subject guidance (CESG) after being approved by their supervisors. When doctoral students get a pass at the PRP meeting and further revise their RPRs, they will then commence on writing up their thesis.

5.7 Mid-term progression report of PhD thesis

Doctoral students should attend the mid-term progression report of PhD thesis organized by the comparative education programme in the end of the fifth semester which aims to check the following points: Whether the PhD thesis is followed the original plan and time-line made in the RPR, the completed section of the PhD thesis, existing or possible problems, possibility of completing the PhD on schedule. Doctoral students should submit the progression report of their PhD thesis and the draft version of the PhD thesis.

5.8 Academic activities

5.8.1 Doctoral students should have formal records of attending academic seminars/presentations, of delivering academic presentations and of conducting academic exchanges in the education or relevant programmes for at least 15 times. Doctoral students should write at least 10 essays in relation to attending academic presentations, which should be approximately 1,000 words, kept by themselves and signed by their supervisors. The essays will be ultimately used as evidence for marking the course of 'Academic exchange and presentation' by their supervisors. Doctoral students will also need to participate in lectures of frontiers in other programs.

5.8.2 It is expected that doctoral students will have to attend national conferences twice at least during their study, to deliver at least one academic presentation at national or international conference.

5.8.3 It is required that doctoral students should have 1-3 months' studying/research experiences in another well-known university/research institute in China or abroad.

5.8.4  It is expected that doctoral students will actively take part in supervisors' research project or independently conduct the research project to develop the ability to research,especially the ability to have innovative research product.

5.9 PhD thesis

See Requirement of PhD thesis.

6. Requirement of Research Ability

Editor Notes: Students are required to meet the at least 7 kinds of research abilities in this program.

6.1 Doctoral students should read at least 20 monographs, 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and other learning materials suggested by their supervisors, and have a good understanding and reasonable analysis of the frontier of the Comparative education programme.

6.2 Doctoral students should be able to independently choose a research project that is of great significance and of a certain difficulty and to identity their break-through point and research design and methodology.

6.3 Doctoral students should have the ability of conducting research independently, identify the key points and difficult points of their research projects, implement and complete their research plans. They should have good reasoning, reliable research outcomes and write up high quality academic papers. They should also focus on a main research project and implement the research project step by step. In addition, doctoral students should also complete other tasks assigned by their supervisors.

6.4 Doctoral students should proficiently look up and read Chinese and foreign literature, and analyze, evaluate research materials in the education subject and other subjects. When they conduct some research projects (e.g., PhD thesis), doctoral students should not miss any important literature.

6.5 Doctoral students should familiarize and grasp academic regulations, get to know relevant research methods, comply with academic regulations when writing up. They should not mix their own research findings with other scholars' discoveries, arguments, data and materials, and they should respect others' work and present their own academic work honestly and scientifically.

6.6 Doctoral students should have innovative spirit and ability, be rich in academic courage and be sensitive to the academic field, and dare to challenge some complex research topics. They should also possess the ability of identifying research questions accurately and clearly, have a wide academic interest, and be good at learning and synthesizing a wide range of knowledge. In addition, they should be good at expressing academically and able to summarize their own discoveries and innovation which could be recognized by experts in the field or even a wider range of audiences.

6.7 During their studying period, doctoral students should complete at least two course essays and two year-essays with quality, of which, one should be relevant to their PhD thesis, and published on peer-reviewed journals that are indexed by Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index. What is more, the first author of the essay should be doctoral students themselves (including supervisor as the first author and student as the second), and Zhejiang Normal University should be as the corresponding institution.

7. Requirement of PhD Thesis

Editor Notes: The PhD thesis is approximately 100,000 words, and there should be no more than 0.3 ‰ of errors (based on the length of the PhD thesis) in terms of typos, errors in punctuation, errors in foreign language spelling,clerical error or errors in proofread.

7.1 Doctoral students should complete all the tasks regulated in this handbook, get the minimum credits, take the comprehensive examination and begin to write up their PhD thesis after getting a pass of the comprehensive examination of the Comparative education programme.

7.2 Under the guidance of supervisors, doctoral students should choose their research topics at the end of 2^nd semester or the beginning of the 3^rd semester. Upon choosing research topics, doctoral students should choose topics with great significance to educational reform and development which could emerge from the frontier of the Comparative education programme or from practical issues existed in China's education system. Doctoral students' research topics should be innovative and advanced, with considerable difficulty and relatively high academic value.

7.3 Doctoral students should spend at least 2 years to their research project and PhD thesis. Doctoral students' PhD thesis should have focused topics, clear research questions, detailed and accurate materials, and show that doctoral students have grasped a solid and wide theoretical foundation and systematic, in-depth professional knowledge. It should also show that doctoral students are proficient in looking up, reading, analyzing, reviewing and utilizing international literature in the Comparative education programme. It should be innovative in theories or in research methods, come out with innovative work that reaches first class level, nationally or internationally. What is more, it should be relatively applicable to the society. It should also show that doctoral students have possessed the ability of conducting research scientifically.

7.4 The length of PhD thesis is approximately 100,000 words. Main issues in the PhD thesis include: Chinese and English abstracts, literature review, main body, appendices, note, references and acknowledgments, of which, the main body (exclude literature review) section should be no less than 60,000 words.

7.5 The background knowledge, references cited and data used in the Ph.D. thesis should be accurate. Any concepts, terminologies, signs or formulas used in the Ph.D. thesis should comply with academic regulations. While in the PhD thesis, there should be no incorrect translations or doctoral students should not use wrong translations. Moreover, doctoral students should express their research questions clearly and completely, have logical reasoning, use appropriate keywords, employ a concise and refined language and word accurately. Their language used in the PhD thesis should comply with modern Chinese regulations. Additionally, there should be no more than 0.3 ‰ of errors (based on the length of the PhD thesis) in terms of typos, errors in punctuation, errors in foreign language spelling,clerical error or errors in proofread.

7.6 Doctoral students must attach great importance to academic integrity and academic norms, and all references to other research results and data must be marked in accordance with the standard of dissertation, and plagiarism is never allowed. The students who make fraud in the dissertation of the degree and ignore academic morality will fail the defense definitely.

8. Graduation and Degree-conferring

Editor Notes: When finishing courses, get minimum credits and pass examination, students can be awarded PhD degree.

8.1 The Academic Senate of the University is established with the head of the first-level-discipline education doctoral program as chairman and the participation of the supervisor and the head of relevant colleges in second-level discipline, and is responsible for issues concerned with PhD degree.

8.2 Doctoral students could graduate when they complete courses, get minimum credits, pass the examination of moral education, PhD thesis checking and of the viva. According to the Doctoral Degree Conferring Regulation of Zhejiang Normal University and other relevant regulations, the viva and degree-conferring should be organized. Once meet the degree-conferring standards and pass the audit of the academic senate of the university, doctoral students will be conferred with PhD degree in Education.

9. Introduction of Zhejiang Normal University

Editor Notes: ZJNU is one of the top 100 universities inChina. Chemistry, Physics and Engineering are the three top 1% disciplines in the world according to the ESI (Essential Science Index) global ranking.

Founded in 1956, Zhejiang Normal University (ZJNU) covers two campuses in Zhangjiang province. The main one is located in one of the four metropolitan areas in Zhejiang Province—Jinhua—Yiwu Metropolitan area. Jinhua enjoys very convenient transportation with 40 minutes to Hangzhou and 100 minutes to Shanghai by the high-speed rail. The branch campus is in Hangzhou, the capital of the province. Its green and beautiful campus furnishes an ideal place for living, study and work. Learn More>>

10. Campus Life 

Editor Notes: Colorful extracurricular activities are held in ZJNU every year.

 Renju Chess Experience Activity

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Chocolate Making Activity

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1. Applicant should be aged between 18 and 35 (born after September 1, 1983);

2. Applicant should be non-Chinese citizens with valid regular foreign passport and be friendly to China;

 *Residents of China who have emigrated to a foreign country and who are now applying to study in China as international students must have held a valid foreign passport for at least 4 years, and must have actually resided in a foreign country for at least 2 years in the past 4 years (as of April 30, 2023). (9 months of residence in a foreign country may count as a full year. The dates of the entry and exit stamps in the passport will be followed in the determination of the actual length of foreign residence).

3. Applicant should hold a master diploma with a satisfactory academic record;

4.Language requriement:

(1).applicants who apply for English tauht programs should have a TOEFL score above 80 or IELTS score above 5.5;

5. Applicant should have no criminal record and no drug addiction history;

6. Aplicant should be in good health and have no serious infectious diseases.

"*" means necessary documents that you must provide in your application.

*1. Application Form

Please upload your finished application form here.

*2. Registration photo

2-inch recent colored photo.

*3. Copy of passport

Provide the personal information page and the passport should remain valid at least on Oct 31,2023.

4. Cope of visa

Only for applicants in China now.

*5. Police Certificate

*6. English language proficiency certificate only for students whose native language is not English

*7. Copy of your master degree’s academic transcripts

Transcripts in languages other than Chinese or English must be attached with notarized Chinese or English translations.

*8. Copy of your notarized master degree certificate

Prospective students must submit official proof of student status by their current school. Documents in languages other than Chinese or English must be attached with notarized Chinese or English translations. Please take the original copy of your current highest diploma with you for registration.

*9. Two Recommendation letters

Signed by professors or associate professors, written in Chinese or English.

*10. ZJNU PhD Supervisor acceptance letter

Applicant should get the contact information of phd supervisors after they decide what program to apply, and contact the supervisor to get accepted by the supervisor and get the acceptance letter from the supervisor.

*11. Certificate of Your Mother's Nationality(ID card or passport)

*12. Certificate of Your Father's Nationality(ID card or passport)

*13. Physical examination record for foreigner

Complete it in Chinese or English, The physical examinations must cover all the items listed in the Foreigner Physical Examination Form. Incomplete records or those without the signature of the attending physician, the official stamp of the hospital or a sealed photograph of the applicants are invalid. Please select the appropriate time to take physical examination as the result is valid for only 6 months.

*14. Study plan

No less than 1000 words, applicants who apply for English taught program should write the plan in English, applicants who apply for Chinese taught program should write in Chinese.

15. Transfer letter

Applicants are already studying in other universities in China should submit.

16. Other supporting documents

Paper published, volunteering ertificates etc. if any.

*17. Bank Statement

To prove that the applicant has sufficient funds to cover his or her tuition, accommodation, living expenses and international travels during his or her study in China. Only applicant himself/herself or his/her family can act as a financial sponsor.

18. Supporting Documents: Certificate of Good Conduct

Provided by your current/previous school/company in Chinese/English to improve your success rate.

*19. A statement of no drug addiction history

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