With the Instruction of East China Education Ministry, the Department of Education at East China Normal University was managed from August to September 1951, based on the primary department of education at Fudan University, the department of education, the department of educational psychology, and the department of social education at Daxia University , and the department of education at Guanghua University, the founding was formally announced on October 16, the day East China Normal University established.
Commissioned by the Ministry of Education, the Department of Education constantly ran the research classes of education, education history and psychology from 1953, which preceded the prologue of postgraduate education. The Educational Science Research Institution was established by teachers of the Department of Education in the early 1960s. However, we were impacted by the Cultural Revolution.
We restored the admissions in 1978, and established doctoral and master degrees. Approved by the Ministry of Education, the Educational Science College formally announced the foundation on October 6, 1980. It was the first one in the country.
Approved by the State Council, ECNU became one of the first doctoral and master degree granting institutions on November 30, 1981. Over ten professors from the Department of Education became the doctoral and master tutors. After that, more and more professors and associate professors were qualified as doctoral and master tutors. Fruitful years have passed by, a lot of masters who were cultivated by senior scholars have been the academic backbones and leaders in education subject.
From 1998, the number of masters exceed undergraduates. Department leaders put forward the idea of “from undergraduates-main to masters-main, from the policy of lay equal stress on teaching and research to the development of research-based”. It was approved by university leaders. From then on, we didn’t recruit undergraduates since 1999, and all the undergraduates of education graduated in 2002.
In the last 10 years of the 20th century, the Department of Education gained great achievement in educational research, which is called “golden years”. In the ten years, we undertook over 100 national and provincial academic projects, published many monographs and articles and lots of them won prizes over the provincial level which almost covered all the national educational science research prizes.
Enter the 21st century, the research environment and conditions were further improved. First, after ECNU being selected into 211 project, the education subject was listed as the key subjects in 211 project, and it gained special support after ECNU being selected into 985 project. Second, the Basic Education Reform and Development Research Institution which was established based on the teachers from the Department of Education, was succeed in the declaration of national key human social science research base. Third, the two main subjects, the Education Principle and Education History were granted as Shanghai key subject in 2001 and national key subject in 2002.
Approved by the Ministry of Education, the Department of Education set the subjects of Education Policy, Education Ethics and Relationship of Chinese and Foreign Education, which recruit masters and doctors. It opened a new world for the postgraduate cultivation.
