Towards an understanding of seminary leadership in mainland China

• Main Author: Ma, Shejun
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2022
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdd_elmd/15
• Institution: De La Salle University

Leadership plays a vital role in educational institutions in the 21st century. It is necessary to understand leadership practice within an organization for development. Moreover, building a high quality educational system specifically deepening educational reform and comprehensively improving the quality of higher education are emphasized in the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan for the National Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China and the Outline of the Long-term Goals for 2035 which was released by the National Development and Reform Commission of China (NDRC) on March, 2021. For doing this, educational leaders need to be more responsible in the process of the improvement of the quality of higher education. In the context of China, Catholic major seminaries are considered as Catholic higher educational institutions by the Chinese central government and the local government. In connection with this, seminary leaders such as rectors must carry the long-term goal out for developing the quality of Catholic education in China. However, there is a lack of scientific studies about the practice of seminary leadership by rectors in the Catholic seminaries in China. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to explore the understanding of seminary leadership among major seminary rectors in China and how the rectors practice seminary leadership in the seminaries to create a framework of seminary leadership. This study was a qualitative multiple-case study on seminary leadership practices of rectors in the Catholic major seminaries in China. In depth-interviews with seven rectors of the major seminaries were applied as the main research instrument for this study, and focus group discussion and documentations in each seminary were done for triangulation. The findings describe how the rectors understand and exercise seminary leadership in the Catholic major seminaries in China in terms of understanding, functions, role and style of seminary leadership. The framework of seminary leadership created by the researcher will help the seminary leaders to bring about a change in the seminary for improving the quality of Catholic higher education in China as well as for the development of the secondary education and the whole Catholic Church in China.