Liaoning Normal University

Liaoning Normal University was established in August 1951, as part of the newly founded People’s Republic of China’s drive to reform the teacher training system. Under the new shifan (师范) system certain institutions of further and higher education were established with the role of training future teachers. Financial incentives (such as tuition waivers, stipends and fellowships) were offered to encourage students to study at these institutions. The normal universities comprised the highest point of this reformed system and were the only institutions from which senior high school teachers could graduate. Liaoning Normal University was one of two normal universities (along with Shenyang Normal University, founded the same year) in Liaoning province.

Liaoning Normal University remains the provincial centre for teacher training in Liaoning. The university comprises 10 colleges, divided into 25 departments, offering 39 programmes for those studying for a bachelor's degree, 36 for those studying for a master's degree and 2 for doctoral candidates.

The Chinese government's recent move away from the shifan system had brought significant changes to the university. With more and more teachers are being recruited from regular universities, Liaoning Normal University (as with most normal universities) has expanded to offer a number of non-education-specific courses and to increase its focus on research. LNU now boasts, amongst others, a Ministry of Education sponsored Research Institute of Basic Education, an Ocean Economics and Sustainable Development Center and a center for researching the works of Sun Zi. Research originating from the university has resulted in 74 Science and Technology Progress Awards, 18 patents, and 190 contracts for technology or service transfer.

Liaoning Normal University

The move away from a narrow focus on education teaching has also resulted in an increased emphasis on business-related subjects, in part through a partnership with Missouri State University who maintain a branch campus within the university's main campus. Another avenue LNU has pursued is language teaching and testing — foreign languages for Chinese students (the university hosts an International Japanese Language Testing Center and an IELTS Testing Center and established a course training provincial government officials wishing to study at the University of Ulster) and the teaching of Chinese to overseas students (currently 338 students are enrolled on Chinese language courses).

Education remains, however, the focus, with a large education department and the maintenance of an affiliated high school for the purposes of teacher practice. This focus is reflected in the university's stated aim of its 10-year plan which is "to become the province's largest center for teacher education and serve as a role model for other schools."

Liaoning Normal University is on one campus, on Huang He Road (黄河路), in the west of Dalian. The campus, which is divided into southern and northern sections by the road, occupies 116 areas, with 350,000 square meters of building space. The university's libraries hold 1.33 million volumes.

• Missouri State University

• Liaoning Normal University (in Chinese)
• Liaoning Normal University (in English)
• Missouri State University's China Campus
• Reconstruction of the teacher education system in China