ABSTRACT
The People's Republic of China represents one of history's great experiments in planned social change, re-structuring education, the family and the possibilities for individual development. The nation's educational policy must enable everyone who receives an education to develop morally, intellectually and to become a worker with both socialist consciousness and culture. David Wong discusses the differences between societies based on 'virtue-centered' moralities and those based on 'rights-centered' moralities. Japanese 'virtues' include interpersonal sensitivity and other behaviors enhancing group solidarity, as does Confucian Chinese morality. The emphasis on virtue in Chinese society must be seen in the context of the ongoing dialectic which shapes it, and which antedates the advent of modern socialism. The examinations and the administrative systems which supported them were not static and continuous from the period of the Han Dynasty. A well-publicized movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s, called the Rencai (Human Talent) Movement, clarified the losses and provided a future direction for educational policy.
