Reform Work in the Chinese Communist Educational System

Abstract

In the 16 years since the establishment of the political authority of the Chinese Communists the only officially promulgated educational system has been that of 1951. When this educational system was promulgated, all the newspapers on the Mainland and the renowned scholars concerned with education rushed to proclaim its "excellent" nature. They compared it with the educational system that had been promulgated by the Kuomintang government in 1928 and emphasized the differences between them; for example, everyone praised highly "the unified five-year primary school system," "the system of accelerated schools for workers and peasants," "spare-time education," etc. However, the Chinese Communists ordered that the unified five-year primary school system "stop being implemented" in December 1953, and they continued to use the 4-2 system. In addition, the accelerated schools for workers and peasants, another "excellent point," were also ordered to "stop recruiting students" in the autumn of 1955. Finally, in 1957, the Chinese Communists again stressed that the educational system must be reformed, and therefore they organized discussions on broadening development in every locality, set up experimental points, and engaged in educational reform experiments. However, up until today, there have been no results. For the last several years the education work of the Chinese Communists has again concentrated on using all their strength to develop part-time work, part-time study and part-time farming, part-time study education and to systematize and determine the educational system. This essay concerns simply the process of the evolution and the development of this aspect, as will be seen below.