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Elementary Education in Communist China
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2009
Extract
There are a variety of agencies engaged in elementary education in Communist China. Besides the regular elementary schools for children, there are adult schools of elementary grade and spare-time elementary schools for youth as well as older people; there are winter schools in the rural areas, worker-peasant schools, and various kinds of literacy classes. In view of limited space, this article will deal only with the regular elementary schools. Kindergartens and nursery schools are not included in the discussion.
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- Education (II)
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- Copyright © The China Quarterly 1962
References
1 See report on the five-year unitary school by Yen-yin, Wu in Jen-min Chiao-yu (People's Education), 12 1, 1952.Google Scholar
2 The decision of the Government Administration Council was published in the People's Daily (Jen-min Jih-pao), 12 14, 1953.Google Scholar
3 In 1960, talk was revived of shortening the elementary course of study. Proposals were made to introduce ten-year schools which would encompass the entire range of elementary and secondary education.
4 See report on such practices in Jen-min Chiao-yu, 02 1, 1952, p. 47.Google Scholar
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6 Commonly known to foreigners as “Mandarin.”
7 Schools have been instructed to teach the newly adopted Latin alphabet as an aid to learning the Chinese language. The question of Latinisation, however, is still an unsettled issue. Scholars and linguists have expressed scepticism. So far, the successful changes of the language reform movement consist of the standardisation of pronunciation and the adoption of abbreviated written characters. Latinisation, which the leaders of the language reform movement consider the goal of the future, is still a question under study.
8 Editorial in the People's Daily, 12 14, 1953.Google Scholar
9 Texts of outline and of Ministry directive in Jen-min Chiao-yü, 06 9, 1954Google Scholar. A later official statement on this question is contained in En-lai's, Chou report to National People's Congress in 06, 1957Google Scholar; see People's China, 07 16, 1957Google Scholar, Supplement, p. 16.Google Scholar
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13 Text of Ministry of Education directive on the guidance of elementary and secondary school graduates for further study or employment, in Chiao-shih Pao, 05 5, 1957.Google Scholar
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15 The writer prefers the use of “non-state” rather than “private” schools, because although they are not established by the state they do not escape the control of the state and most of the “private organisations” that run the schools are in effect controlled by the state and the Party.
16 Min pan means “established by the people.”
17 See footnote 2.
18 Text of directive in Collection of Laws, Vol. 5, pp. 316–317.Google Scholar
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57 See, for example, U.P. dispatch “Red China Veers, Now Urges Home Education,” Los Angeles Times, 11 2, 1961Google Scholar; also Chen, Theodore H. E. and Chen, Wen-Hui, “Attitudes Toward Parents in China,” Sociology and Social Research, 43: 175–182, 01–02 1959.Google Scholar
58 See this author's monograph, Teacher Training in Communist China (Washington: U.S. Office of Education, 1960).Google Scholar
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