State policies in China have created new opportunities for ordinary senior secondary education in 3 provinces and 1 city in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region. In this context, weaker areas of high school education in this region should benefit from these policies, use existing high-quality resources, and continue improving their overall quality. In this article we considering the actual implementation of relevant policies promulgated by the state and the statistical data on the development of ordinary high school education in 3 provinces and 1 city in the YRD region from 2013 to 2020. We adopted a combination of empirical and qualitative research to analyse the data. We combined corresponding theories to explore the actual development status and existing problems of high schools in weak regions compared to high-quality high schools in economically developed regions of the YRD. Based on these problems, we put forward the following suggestions to strengthen and promote weak high schools to enter the high-quality development process of the YRD integration. Firstly, the policy level should establish and improve the relevant linkage mechanism. Secondly, weak schools should actively innovate independently. Thirdly, a regular evaluation mechanism should be introduced in schools, and in the last instance, the training and construction of teachers should be optimised.

https://doi.org/10.15700/saje.v45n3a2527

ORCiD iDs of authors:
Mengna Zheng – https://orcid.org/0009-0008-9404-4173
Chengwu Ruan - https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8686-7129