was founded. A month later, the Education Ministry of the Central People's Government was established. Education began its new development in a peaceful and stable social environment. A number of statistics can well reflect conditions of China's education at the time. In 1946, the year when China's education was at its best before the founding of New China in 1949, out of every ten school-age children, only two attended school; and out of every ten young adults, eight were illiterates. Calculated on a national population of 470 million at the time, of every 10,000 people, there were three college students, 38 middle school students and 486 primary school students.

        From 1949 to the present, New China's education has traveled more than half a century amid reforms and adjustments. In the 17 years from 1949 to 1966, China established pre-school, regular and adult education systems of a considerable size. Full-time education and spare-time education were provided for an increasing number of people. In 1957, Mao Zedong proposed the

following in accordance with the country's conditions:"Our educational policy must enable everyone who receives an education to develop morally, intellectually and physically and become a worker with both socialist consciousness and culture." This policy guided the development of China's education in the next three decades and its spirit has extended to the present.

        The so-called "cultural revolution" of 1966-1976 was a political movement that brought calamities to the Chinese nation. During the ten-year period, normal development of education came to a stop, the order of teaching and learning was disrupted, textbooks used in primary and middle schools were full of political slogans, and institutions of higher learning stopped enrolling students. Intellectuals, including teachers, had a very low social status. The prevailing idea of "learning is useless" adversely affected the cultivation of a generation of people.