ILLITERACY FIGHT

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 211, 22 June 1950, Page 5

ILLITERACY FIGHT

COMMUNISM IN CHINA AMBITIOUS PLANS (From Eeutor’s Correspondent). HONG KONG. The cumpulsory study of Marx-ism-Leninism and Mao Tse-Tung’s philosophy highlights new China’s educational reform programme, now being gradually enforced * throughout the country. The main reason for this move, according to official explanatory statements, is to ensure success of the new democracy reconstruction era, (New Democracy is the first of three stages toward a full Communist State, the second being Socialism). The highlights of the programme include: (1) Establishment of a people’s . university to undertake the “planned and measured” training of personnel required for various phases of reconstruction in New China. (2) Establishment of short-term middle schools for workers and peasants in all parts of the country. (3) Change of university curricula. (4) Promotion of mass education campaign.

The Chinese people’s university is already operating in Peking, with a staff of 130 professors, lecturers and instructors, including Soviet professors and experts, and an enrolment of 1600 students. Half of the student body is said to be composed of industrial workers and revolutionary cadres, and the rest young intellectuals from other North China educational establishments. The main aims of the university are to provide students with a thorough grasp of Marxism-Leninism and a mastery of technical knowledge necessary to their various professions. In addition, students may sign up for a two-year Russian language course, and undertake research in ‘ MarxismLeninism, 'foreign affairs, problems of these Chinese revolution, and other subjects.

Meanwhile, changes are being gradually introduced in the Chinese nation’s universities, including those run . or endowed by foreign missionaries. These include the replacement of the President system by administrative committees and the addition on the curricula, as compulsory subjects, of such political courses as Marxism-Len-inism and Mao Tse-Tung’s philosophy. These changes have already been introduced in middle and high schools in Shanghai, but in Chinese ‘ schools conducted by foreign missionaries teachers of political courses are usually supplied by. the Chinese Communists themselves, and in some cases indoctrination classes are held after the normal school hours. Education for Masses 1 Perhaps the most spectacular phase of the educational reform programme is the mass literacy movement designed to wipe out illiteracy among the masses. Striking results are already being officially claimed for Manchuria, where the movement was launched in the winter of 1948 —immediately after the defeat of the Kuomintang. Several million peasants in China’s rich north-east, once illiterate, are to-day able to read newspapers and keep simple accounts following education during the slack winter months at some 30,000 schools scattered all over this vast territory, according to official sources. In the So-viet-controlled Dairen-Port Arthur area alone, 250,000 out of a total of 380,000 illiterate adults learned to read and write during the first nine months of last year. The goal in the literacy movement is to get each peasant to , know 1000 of the used characters of the Chinese language—and thus lift them into the ranks of the literates. The mass education movement is said to be also making great headway in North and Central China as more and more schools are established. In many’sectors of North China the classes are taught by middle school students in the absence of regular teachers. In speaking of new China’s educational reform programme, the Vice-Minister of Education, Mr Chien Chen-Jui, said: “We must learn from the experience of the Soviet Union in its educational development, so as to build up our new • democratic education, which aims at raising the people’s cultural level, fostering reconstruction talent, wiping out feudal, compradorish and fascist ideology and developing a spirit of service.” The Minister admitted that China was very short of teachers, and urged universities to step up efforts to meet the demand.

Political Education

One of the tasks facing New China, Mr Chien declared, was the ‘‘education” of former cultural and educational workers so as to bring them around to the new viewpoint of service for the people. “We must carry out faithfully the policy of uniting and reforming the old intellectuals,” he continued. “We must prevent ultra-left' tendencies in the course of the rental reduction and land reform campaigns, which may result in the expulsion of intellectuals and thus the suspension of a large number of schools.” Mr Chien said that, from experience gained in different areas, the effective introduction of political education required the following: (1) Theory must be closely blended with practice. (2) Important points must be grasped in study. (3) Free thinking must be developed and criticism and self-criticism carried out properly. (4) Intrinsically correct ideology within different parties must be developed to enable them the better to absorb more correct ideological concepts. One well-known Chinese Professor, Fei Hsiao-Tung, has meanwhile warned against haste in reforming university curricula. For instance, he said, the compilation of Chinese language lectures to replace English originals can only be done gradually. The translation of technical terms calls for careful deliberation, and should at best be standardised. The total number of students in China run into many millions. East China —in which Shanghai is located — alone has over 6 million students studying in 78,000 schools, colleges and universities, according to a report given to the East China military and administrative committee. Of these establishments St. John’s university in Shanghai, run by American missionaries and Alma Mater of many of China’s best-known diplomats and statesmen, remains one of the most

popular, although a student committee has now a large say in its administration. ’