On September 22nd, the National Academic Committee on Basic Educational Theory Summit Forum was held at HENU Jinming Campus. Vice President Xue Bo delivered a speech at the opening ceremony. More than 30 honorary members, members, and specially invited guests from universities such as East China Normal University, Northeast Normal University, Southwest University and Fudan University participated in the forum. Additional, this forum also received support from important academic journals like Educational Research. Some faculty and students from the Faculty of Education were also in attendance.

Xue Bo introduced the overview of HENU, its governance system, and the development of the education discipline. He pointed out that the purpose of the forum is to deeply study the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s speech at the National Education Conference and to fully implement the CPC Central Committee’s decisions regarding building a strong educational nation. He expressed the hope that the forum would serve as a new starting point, utilizing educational theory to lay a solid foundation for the modernization of Chinese-style education and steadily advance towards the goal of becoming a strong educational nation.

Professor Li Zhengtao, Vice President of the Chinese Society of Education and a professor at East China Normal University, delivered a speech at the opening ceremony of the forum. He expressed his best wishes for the development of the education discipline at HENU and looked forward to the conference reports. He pointed out that the purpose of the summit forum is to promote the development of basic educational theories and engage in in-depth dialogue centered around the goal of building a strong educational nation. He hoped that this opportunity would facilitate high-quality academic exchanges and advance the development of education in China.

The forum was themed Building a Strong Educational Nation: What is the purpose of education in China? and included keynote speeches and thematic discussions. Experts discussed the mission of Chinese education, theories of building a strong educational nation, the role and challenges of education in this process, as well as future development. Attendees provided comments and engaged in discussions on these topics.

Professor Feng Jianjun from Nanjing Normal University proposed in his concluding remarks that education scholars should deeply reflect on three questions. First, what is the essence of education and what are the characteristics of Chinese education? Second, how should we understand Chinese education? Third, what is the relationship between Chinese education and the construction of a powerful nation? He also emphasized the need to clarify how education can contribute to national strength, in what ways we can achieve this, and how these goals can be realized.