20世纪80年代以来，强调基础教育改革和提供优质教育已经成为一种国际教育潮流。学校改进作为教育改革的一种策略和方法在发达国家得以研究和实践，逐步形成学校改进的知识基础。20世纪90年代以来，随着全民教育运动的推进，学校改进尤其是农村学校改进成为发展中国家提升学校教育质量的重要途径。本文采用文献研究法和案例研究法，从学校改进的文献中构建起发展中国家农村学校改进的概念框架，并以此作为分析框架，对发生在中国西南偏远农村地区的学校改进实践——中英西南基础教育项目进行了详细的解读和分析。在反思中国偏远地区农村学校改进的经验与挑战的基础上，作者对发展中国家的农村学校改进提出实践建议。本文主要发现如下：发展中国家农村学校改进的关键要素包括学校外的支持性因素和学校内部条件的改进因素。发展中国家农村学校改进的实践通常采用全面的学校改进模式，涉及教育系统、学校、课堂和社区各个层面的改进。学校所处的具体环境对于学校改进有着非常重要的作用。学校改进的校内和校外因素并非相互孤立的元素，而是在特定的环境下相互作用，从而影响学校改进的过程和结果。中英西南教育项目框架下的学校改进以“公平而有质量的教育”作为项目学校改进理念，采用全面学校改进策略，从五个领域提升学校教育质量：引入和实践参与式教学，提升教与学的质量；建构县域教师支持体系支持教师专业发展；实践学校发展计划提升学校领导力；实施发展性学校督导模式；促进社区、家庭参与学校改进。中英项目的学校改进取得的经验是：国家政策与地方需求的结合成为学校改进的动力；学校改进的愿景是教育质量观在本地情境的体现；改进模式是系统变革、整校推进；学校改进的过程是在行动中变化与发展；成功的关键在于发展学校改进的能力。笔者对发展中国家的农村学校改进实践提出的建议包括：将学校改进的关注点放在学习上；改善学校管理；认可学校作为改进主体，重视学校改进能力的建设；学校改进考虑本地实际和需求，确保现实性和可行性。

Basic education reform and promoting the quality of school education have been the major concern of most countries since 1980. The research and practice of school improvement in the developed world have formed a consolidate knowledge base. With the development of Education for All movement, school improvement has been introduced into developing countries in order to improve the quality of basic education, particularly the schools in rural areas. This study begins with a review of the research literature on school effectiveness and school improvement and generates a concept framework of rural school improvement in developing countries. The report presents a case study on the China-UK Southwest Basic Education Project by using this concept framework with a focus on what had been changed and how the changes happened in a specific context. It proposed some suggestions to the practice of rural school improvement in developing world. The major findings are as follows:In order to improve rural schools, both supporting inputs outside the school and enabling elements within the school are needed in the developing world. Whole School Development (WSD) has been adopted as an model to improve the quality of primary education, which treats the schools as the unit of change and harness improvements in management strategies, professional development, monitoring and evaluation and school development planning, etc. to orchestrate a complete change in the culture and organization of schools to improve performance. The rural school improvement in the most remote areas in Southwest China made great efforts to promote five elements which are identified as most influential to schools in local context. They are: improving teaching and learning by the practice of participatory classroom teaching; building up support system for teachers’ professional development; promoting school leadership by conducting school development planning; conducting a supportive school inspection; encouraging community involvement in school development. The lessons learnt from SBEP are summarized as follows: the integration of national education reform policy and local needs is the key to motivate improvement. The school development vision needs to put the idea of education quality into local practice. A systematic and whole school approach is crucial to generate change within and outside schools. Process of action and change is the process for improvement. Building school’s capacity for improvement is critical for sustainable development. Suggestions for future rural school improvement in developing countries are made as follows: focus on improving the quality of teaching and learning; emphasis on efficient school management; place schools as the unit of change and develop school’s capacity for improvement; develop context specific action plan to ensure a realistic and feasible improvement.