ABSTRACT
Enterprise-operated adult education courses stem from a long tradition in China, going back to the 1920s. As a relatively new phenomenon, the cities are also hiring teachers from nearby colleges and secondary schools, turning vacant municipal buildings into classrooms and asking students to pay small fees to study vocational subjects. The first village peasant schools were set up in Hunan Province in 1926. Since then, they have proliferated throughout the country, especially after communes were widely organised during the Great Leap Forward of the late 1950s. 'The communes, which seemed an unalterable part of rural life, have begun to be dismantled and the brigades and teams have been depoliticised.' Although it is too early to assess the effects of these recent changes on the structure of peasant education, it is clear that the consequences will be profound. In every commune or Brigade visited, cadres and other spokespersons emphasised the contribution that peasant education had made to improved agricultural productivity.
