ABSTRACT
Although the revolution in China today, as claimed by its leaders, must be continued and has yet a long way to go, the success so far in transforming and modernizing the rural areas, as one of the achievements of the revolution, has won world-wide recognition. This chapter is a study, based on instances rather than theories, of the role of education in the transformation and modernization of rural areas in China today. Education here, in pragmatic terms, means an instrument which is used to rectify people's ideology and to train socialist workers for national reconstruction. This study begins with a brief review of the reforms and innovations that have led to a reorientation of pre-1949 education in China and then investigates some of the major educational programmes which have successfully embodied the plans for rural development. The most notable achievements of China's rural development programme have been the elevation of the cultural level of the rural masses; the increase in farm production and the relative disappearance of destitution and ill-health which had dogged China's rural areas before. In the context of these three achievements, a variety of programmes will be discussed under three headings: literacy and mass ideological education; agricultural and technical education and rural public health education. Finally we examine some of the potentialities and problems of China's education for rural development schemes.
