Chinese Student Selection Reform

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31090, 20 June 1966, Page 13

Chinese Student Selection Reform

(N.Z.P.A, Reuter —Copyright) PEKING, June 19. China has announced sweeping reforms would be made in its methods of choosing which students will go to universities.

It attacked the old “bourgeois examination system” and called for toppling of the “cultural yoke of intellectual aristocracy.” The aim was for the universities to absorb “more revolutionary sons of workers, peasants and soldiers into the universities.”

The announcement, splashed by Peking newspapers yesterday, was expected to herald radical education reforms which would eventually affect all schools and colleges, observers said.

Pending the planned reforms, of which no precise details were given, enrolment of new university students for the 1966 academic year, which normally begins in May or June, was being postponed for six months. The announcement indicated that university entrance examinations would either be abolished or completely changed. Reasons Given

The decision was formulated five days ago by the Chinese Communist Party's central committee and the government, the Peking newspapers said.

Reasons given for the changes were the need for students “to carry out well the Socialist cultural revolution” and for reforms in the educational system. The present university entrance examination must be reformed thoroughly, the announcement said, adding that a definite period of time must be devoted to carrying out the cultural revolution in depth in universities and schools.

This was because in many of them “the foundation of bourgeois rule is still deeply rooted and the struggle between. proletarians and bourgeoisie is very sharp and serious.”