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
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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.
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