ABSTRACT
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Summary: This chapter describes the problems which faced China on the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949 and the necessity for education of the whole population. Governmental guidelines for education, based on the concept of education as universal, lifelong and completely politicallyorientated, were developed in the liberated areas prior to 1949. During the period 1949–66, priorities were debated between mass education or selective education. Achievements in formal education were considerable; mass literacy campaigns were organized.
After the Cultural Revolution there was a clear victory for the mass line policy and the decentralization of education. School curricula were closely geared to local needs, and run on a part-work, part-study basis, achieving a combination of education with productive labour. There was selection for higher education but social and political criteria were deemed more important than educational level. The development of workers' colleges was a more technical form of higher education. The May 7 cadre schools and party schools were intended to prevent bureaucratic methods of leadership and to provide better political leadership.
The People's Liberation Army was transformed into an army of a new type, an educative as much as a military force; it had close ties with the civilian population. Spare-time education embraced workers' study groups, correspondence courses, and radio and television programmes. Changes since 1977 include more formalized education to raise standards, the reintroduction of university entrance examinations and a mass scientific movement to aid ‘four modernizations’. China is still a poor country, but successes in dealing with starvation, homelessness, and drought are largely a result of mass and lifelong educational policy.
