ABSTRACT
Interwoven into China's educational policies of the past 30 years are two contrasting strategies. One focuses on the question of equality and has its correlary the effort to increase the availability of education as broadly as possible. The other focuses on quality and has its correlary the concentration of available resources on a smaller number of better schools. Educational administrators, concerned more with quality than quantity of education, actively support the upgrading of existing programs and amount of study time. Today, with educational policy emphasizing the latter side of the quantity-quality equation, one might assume that earlier Cultural Revolution focus would be completely rejected. Most of the revised policies are supported by middle school teachers. The primary school curriculum begins with a concentrated focus on Chinese language and arithmetic, followed by courses in, physical education, drawing, and calligraphy. Many villages established new primary and junior middle schools by using local people and urban-trained 'educated youth' to staff them.
