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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2009
Since the 1920s the pattern prevailing in the field of primary and secondary education in China has been that of a twelve-year cycle divided into three basic parts—a six-year primary or elementary school followed by a three-year “junior middle” or junior high school and a three-year “senior middle” or senior high. The six-year elementary cycle was further subdivided into four years of junior grades followed by two years of senior grades.
1 From late 1951 to late 1953 the régime experimented with the substitution of a fiveyear unified elementary school for the six-year school divided into two parts, but this experiment proved abortive and was abandoned at the end of 1953.
2 The figure for elementary students and the total for regular full-time middle school students appear in the section on cultural and educational affairs in Wei-ta Ti Shihnien (The Great Ten Years), a statistical report compiled by the State Statistical Bureau of Communist China and published by the People's Publishing House on September 1, 1959. The breakdown for the two levels of middle schools was given in an English language news release of the official New China News Agency (NCNA) dated September 18, 1959.
3 NCNA news release of March 23, 1959. These figures are cited in Cheng, J. C., “Half-Work and Half-Study in Communist China,” Pacific Affairs, Vol. XXXII, No. 2 (06 1959), p. 191.Google Scholar
4 Yang's speech was published in the Peking newspaper Jen-min Jih-pao (People's Daily) of 04 9, 1960.Google Scholar Lu's speech was printed in the same newspaper on April 10. A translation of Lu's speech prepared by the régime for foreign consumption appears in the magazine Peking Review, No. 19, 1960 (05 10, 1960), pp. 15–20.Google Scholar
5 Lu's formal post in the Party organisation illustrates the close connection between education and propaganda under a Communist régime.
6 It is not clear just how much experimentation with a 10-year unified system has taken place. The Minister of Education said that “a number of localities” had tried this system, but Lu Ting-yi mentioned only Peking and Honan Province in this connection. With respect to Lu's statement, however, it may be significant that both Peking Municipality and Honan Province have often served as experimental or “model” areas in recent years.
7 This suggestion was in line with experimentation reported by Lu, who said that algebra had been successfully introduced in fifth grade “in co-ordination with arith metic” and had proved useful to the students in solving arithmetical problems. Another experiment reported by Lu revealed that kindergarten children could be taught to “calculate figures up to 20” through games.
8 Yeh's speech was published in the Jen-min Jih-pao on 04 14, 1960.Google Scholar A translation appears in U.S. Joint Publications Research Service, “Translations of Jen-min Jih-pao Articles on Education—Communist China” (JPRS Report No. 2777, 06 3, 1960), pp. 23–36.Google Scholar
9 A reduction of 1,000 class-hours would mean the elimination of approximately one-sixth of the total class-hours in the six-year middle school cycle. This would be roughly equivalent to one year of class time. See an article by V. Klepikov in the Soviet journal Narodnoye Obrazovaniye (Popular Education), No. 8/1958, pp. 100–101Google Scholar, translated by Schlesinger, Ina in School and Society, Vol. 88, No. 2168 (02 13, 1960), pp. 72–74Google Scholar, which gives 6,023 as the total number of hours in the middle school curriculum in Communist China.
10 In this connection, however, it should be noted that in discussing the reform of history textbooks, Yeh criticised the failure of some current texts to “use the class viewpoint in the analysis of an historical situation.” He added that “we must use the proletarian standpoint … and method in the description of the phenomena of society and the phenomena of nature. Only thus may we … augment the political and ideological character of the textbooks.”
11 This problem is acknowledged in the announcement of the Ministry of Education regulations governing the enrolment of new college students in 1960. See the announcement released by NCNA on June 3, 1960, translated in Survey of China Mainland Press (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), No. 2285 (06 27, 1960), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar
12 Communist China's full-time institutions of higher learning will take in only 280,000 new students in 1960. Ibid.
