Education

At first glance it might appear that the conflicts over educational policy that are revealed in the documents in this section have already been settled. On May 27, 1985, the Central Committee of the CCP issued the long-anticipated "Decision on Reform of the Educational System." ¹ This Decision is meant to provide the basic guidelines for educational policy into the early twenty-first century. In many respects, however, the Central Committee document either ratified or extended familiar policies already in place; the most contentious issues remain. The highlights of the May Decision include: (1) the granting of increased autonomy to colleges and universities in a wide variety of areas, such as student recruitment, foreign academic exchanges, curricula reform, administrative appointments, and scientific research; (2) the expansion of technical and vocational education, leading to a tighter linkage between the educational system and the job market; and (3) the gradual development of a nine-year compulsory education system, with the most economically developed areas (about 25 percent of the population) to complete the task by 1990, those areas of medium-level development (about 50 percent of the population) "to make preparations for popularizing general, vocational, and technical education at the junior middle school level by about 1995," and economically backward areas to do the best they can, as economic conditions allow.