ABSTRACT
In East Asia, there are a number of countries that have a Confucian heritage culture, and in all of these countries, education, in keeping with Confucian thought, is held in great esteem and seen as crucial for the well-being of the state through its contribution to the creation of a harmonious society. There is in this acknowledgement of the central place that the cultivation of virtue has for Confucian education, and hence, of the importance of wisdom. The Confucian style of education has been characterised as involving overbearing dependence on the teacher, a hierarchical structure in which students are to regard the teacher as the supreme authority figure, and learning that relies on memorisation and recitation. In the rush to adopt modern conceptions of education in much of Asia and notably in China, it is apparent that some of the central ideals of Confucian education have been either corrupted or abandoned.
