The Founding of the Education Discipline in Comprehensive Universities in China: The Pioneering Practice of National Southeast University

In the 1920s, the pioneering practice and exploration of the Education Discipline at National Southeast University established the core nature of pedagogy as an independent discipline, highlighted its disciplinary status and influence in comprehensive universities, and provided an important demonstration for the comprehensive integration of teaching, research and service functions of education as a discipline in China. Drawing on the multidisciplinary background of comprehensive universities, the discipline has strengthened interdisciplinary cooperation with other fields, adopted a talent cultivation model that integrates general and specialized education as well as knowledge and practice, and thus formed distinctive research characteristics and prominent disciplinary advantages. The development practice of the education discipline at Southeast University shows that academic frontier guidance, university strategic planning, inheritance of academic traditions, social service practice and an international vision are the key elements for enhancing the core competitiveness of the discipline. Teacher quality, as a core condition for ensuring the level of discipline-based education, provides solid support for the high-quality development of higher education.