 The
illiterate refers to people who do not know 500 Chinese
characters each. The functional illiterate refers to people
who know more than 500 Chinese characters each but fall
short of literacy standards. Following the founding of
the People's Republic of China, the government vowed to
eliminate illiteracy for 80 percent of the population
and vigorously carried out a literacy campaign in urban
and rural areas of the country. All illiterate and functionally
illiterate citizens in the 15-40 age bracket had the right
and obligation to receive literacy education regardless
of gender, ethnicity and race, with the exception of those
who do not have the ability to accept such education,
the government decreed. Flexible methods were used. Fellow
villagers or city residents served as teachers; whoever
was qualified could serve as literacy teachers; and the
illiterate learned more during slack seasons and less
during busy seasons. Literacy lessons were connected with
life and production. The illiterate used national unified
textbooks compiled by government education departments,
which include Peasants' Literacy Textbook, Practical Chinese,
Practical
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Arithmetic,
Practical Science and Technology and teaching materials
reflecting local conditions and suited to local needs.
Fan Guiying,
a working woman residing in Minquanfang neighborhood of
Shahekou District, Dalian, got rid of illiteracy after
one year of learning. She said: "I've seen the light
like a blind person with restored eyesight." According
to literacy standards made public in 1992, a peasant has
shed illiteracy if he or she knows 1,500 Chinese characters.
For employees and residents in  cities,
the standard is to know 2,000 Chinese characters, be able
to read easy-to-understand newspapers, keep simple accounts
and do simple practical writing.
In the
1980s and 1990s, literacy education met with new difficulties:
most illiterate people lived in poverty-stricken and mountainous
areas as well as remote areas inhabited by ethnic minority
people, and more were women, with a high reversion rate.
Literacy workers combined illiteracy elimination with
primary school education popularization and post-literacy
continuing education with fairly good |
