During the next three years, campuses were controlled in turn by propoganda teams of Red Guards, soldiers from the People's Liberation Army, and finally workers and peasants. Acute factionalism often brought about a complete cessation of classes. The primary schools were the least affected by the Cultural Revolution, and by Fall of 1967 most had reopened for normal operation. However, primary education was, for the most part, shortened from six years to five or even four years. The secondary schools (including junior and senior secondary) likewise shortened their programs, from six years to as few as three years. The curriculum was reconstituted so as to conform with practical needs, resulting in the elimination of coursework in such subjects as history, geography or literature. Even such core science subjects as physics and chemistry gave way to courses in industrial skills. These reform measures can be traced directly to the Communist Party Central Committee (or various sub-committees), rather than to the Ministry of Education, as this latter organ ceased to function from 1967 through 1974.
The concept of key school was abolished, with enrollments in primary and secondary schools based on proximity. In June of 1966, the system of university entrance examinations was halted. However, few colleges and universities admitted new students until the early 1970s, and selection of students was based on political virtue. Those from families of workers, peasants or soldiers were deemed the most “virtuous,” and were among the first admitted. This has generated the label of worker-peasant-soldier student ( gong-nong-bing xueyuan ) for those students entering college during the early 1970s. It is interesting to note here that even those not of worker-peasant-soldier origen could be “reclassified” as such but subjecting themselves to reeducation in a rural area or factory after finishing junior or senior secondary school.
In all, the period of the Cultural Revolution was a very disruptive one for Chinese society in general and its education in particular. The educational infrastructure was decimated as a result of the revolutional struggles, and students suffered because of a vastly watered-down or non-existent curricula. Perhaps the only gain (again at the expense of quality) was the delivery of elementary education to an unprecedented percentage of school-aged children, largely because agricultural collectivization allowed for the creation of large numbers of “commune schools,” overseen directly by the collective rather than by higher-level agencies.
1976-Present. With the fall of the “Gang of Four” ( si ren bang ) (and the ascension to power by twice rehabilited Deng Xiaoping, the educational policies reverted to those that had been initiated during the early 1960s. The guiding principle was to bring about educational reforms to realize the “Four Modernizations,” viz., significant advances in the areas of agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology, but in keeping with the “Four Cardinal Principles:” the socialist road, the people's democratic dictatorship, the Chinese Communist Party leadership, and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong thought.
The process of regularization in the schools was resumed, whereby academic standards were reintroduced at all academic levels, thereby placing an emphasis on quality as opposed to quantity in the delivery of education. In most cases, a 6-3-3 system (six years primary, three years junior secondary, and three years senior secondary) was reestablished. The designation of key schools once again was used to single out schools whose mission was to minister to the special needs of the educational elite. At the same time, it was proposed to expand the system of vocational and work-study schools in order to provide a meaningful educational track for those not meeting the standards for college, or college preparatory studies. This invited old debates on populist versus elitist education. Partly in response to these concerns, the central decision makers promulgating a compulsory nine-year (elementary and junior secondary) education policy (see the discussion on “The Decision on Reforming the Educational System,” below).
The impact of regularization on the schools led to a number of closings and mergings, especially among the primary schools. In the rural sparsely populated areas, this resulted in declining enrollments. In fact, in most provinces, enrollments in elementary schools were higher in 1978 than in either 1985 or 1992. A second contributing factor to declining enrollments can be traced to the agricultural decollectivization, begun in 1978. This provided for a remuneration system based on output, and so for some families, education for their children, as opposed to working at home, was not always the most advantageous choice.
At the secondary level, the educational reforms induced a stratification into four types of secondary schools:
Keypoint middle schools ( zhongdeng zhongdian xuexiao )
Non-key general or ordinary middle schools ( Putong xuexiao )
Specialized technical secondary schools ( zhongdeng zhuanye xuexiao )
Vocational schools ( zhiye zhongxue )
In spite of the need for technically trained manpower for the economic reconstruction of China, the acceptance of technical and vocational secondary schools was slow, at least initially. The perception lingered that these educational streams were only for those not able to pass muster in the traditional streams. In 1978, enrollment in technical and vocational programs comprised only 5% of the total enrollment. However, by 1994, of the junior secondary graduates that continued their schooling, 44.1% entered key and general senior secondary schools (a total of 2,434,000 students), whereas 55.9% entered specialized technical or vocational schools (a total of 3,079,000 students).
One of the first changes in higher education after the end of the Cultural Revolution was the restoration of the national unified college entrance exams in 1977. Further reform borrowed heavily from two important documents of the early 1960s: the “Decision on Unifying Management in the Higher Education System,” and the “Sixty Articles of Higher Education.” Very briefly stated, the former document was a regularization decree inasmuch as it called for the setting of academic standards, and empowered the Ministry of Education as the final authority and facilitator. The second document was a resolution that the institutions of higher education were to train the experts needed for socialist construction, and that the teachers would be relatively uncumbered by political constraints as they went about their business of dispensing their expertise. The definitive reformulation of these earlier decrees came in 1985 with the “Decision of the Reform of the Education System.” This has been the guiding document of reform, not only for higher education, but for all levels of education during the post-Mao years. Its main points are outlined below:
To bring about the Four Modernizations.
To increase state funding for education.
To insure that the education system shall supply a sufficient number of highly qualified personnel.
To institute a 9-year compulsory education policy.
To expand the system of technical and vocational education.
To give provisions for reform of higher education, e.g.,
To change the system of job-assignments to graduates.
To grant the colleges and universities more decision-making powers.
To strengthen educational leadership.
To establish a State Education Commission (SEC). (This had a higher status than the previous Ministry of Education, roughly equivalent to that of the State Economic Commission.
To establish the president of a college or university, or the principal of a school as the chief executive officer of the unit.
Perhaps ironically, the Chinese higher educational system was still structured after the Soviet models prevalent during the 1950s. The arts and sciences were still taught at the comprehensive universities (zonghe daxue) (whereas separate institutions were responsible for other fields. The major disciplines offered were still very narrow, an intentional feature since the colleges and universities were primarily responsible for job assignment of their graduates. Since then, the curriculum has broadened somewhat to more closely that in American colleges and universities. At the same time the job assignment role of the universities continues to be phased out.
Recently the National People's Congress passed the Education Law of the People's Republic of China, and on September 1, 1995 it bacame effective. This Law codified many of the previous policies and decrees, especially those of 1985 mentioned above. The Law shows a clear committment to a universal education, as well as to one that will produce both scholar/scientists and skilled laborers. Only time will be the final arbiter as to whether China has found a workable formula for its educational system, with its Western coutours trying to conform to a patently non-Western environment. However, China is irreversibly part of the international community, and developments in China's educational system will have an increasingly profound influence on the other systems of the world, just as so many of them have influenced the present Chinese system of education.
