The foundation of national rejuvenation lies in education, while the whole education lies in primary and secondary schools.
A 70-year history of basic education in China is also a true portrayal of new China’s development from backwardness to revitalization. At the beginning of the founding of New China, China’s per capita education was only 1.6 years. In 2018, this figure has risen to 10.6 years, and China’s education has made remarkable achievements.
Since the founding of New China, China’s basic education has achieved great-leap-forward development. From 1949 to 2018, the gross enrollment rate of preschool education in China increased from 0.4% (in 1950) to 81.7%, the net enrollment rate of primary school increased from 20% to 99.95%, the gross enrollment rate of junior high school increased from 3.1% to 100.9%, and the gross enrollment rate of senior high school increased from 1.1% to 88.8%, which left a great legacy in the history of human education.
70 years of hard work, 70 years of spring and autumn.
In the past 70 years, the face of China’s weak education foundation has been completely changed, among which basic education has played an important role. Over the past 70 years, China’s basic education has always walked with the tide of the times, condensed China’s experience for human education, issued China’s voice and contributed China’s wisdom.
Re-establish order and get on the right track
To rebuild order and stabilize the situation, at the beginning of the founding of New China, China’s basic education was gradually standardized in the process of exploration.
In December 1949, the first national conference on education was held after the founding of New China, which defined the general policy of national education and marked the transformation of China from semi-colonial and semi-feudal education to new-democratic education.
According to the general policy of education, the decision on the reform of the educational system, the first educational system document in New China, was promulgated in 1951, which made new provisions on the status, years and mutual connection of schools at all levels, and a team of professional teachers was initially formed. In 1952, the Provisional Regulations for Primary Schools (Draft) and the Provisional Regulations for Middle Schools (Draft) were officially promulgated, which comprehensively standardized the education and teaching of primary and secondary schools in China and formed the basic framework of the curriculum of primary and secondary schools in China. According to these two documents, the Ministry of Education has formulated a new syllabus for primary and secondary schools, and a new basic education curriculum system has been initially established in New China.
However, the old society left a mess for the education in new China, with illiteracy and semi-illiteracy accounting for more than 80% of the total population, and the enrollment rate of school-age children is only about 20%. Universal education, especially universal primary education, has become the top priority of education in new China.
By the end of 1965, China’s basic education had been fully restored, with 14.32 million students in secondary schools and 116.269 million students in primary schools, which were 6.9 times and 3.9 times higher than the highest in 1946 before the founding of New China, respectively, and the enrollment rate of school-age children reached 85%. General secondary education has trained more than 20 million graduates and a large number of labor reserve forces for the country, laying the foundation for the training of senior professionals. From 1949 to 1965, 102.723 million people were illiterate in China, with an average annual literacy rate of 6.043 million.
In 1977, education in China ushered in the long-awaited spring. At the beginning of his comeback, Deng Xiaoping volunteered to be in charge of education and science and technology. School education is out of chaos and back on track.
China entered the new period of reform and opening up with a heavy historical burden. Although many large-scale literacy campaigns have been carried out throughout the country before, and many times it has been proposed to popularize primary education within a time limit, in the early 1980s, primary education in China was still not universal.
The Constitution of People’s Republic of China (PRC) promulgated in 1982 put forward "universal primary compulsory education", which was the first time since the founding of New China that it was determined in the form of a constitution to popularize primary compulsory education in China, and became the fundamental follow-up for popularizing primary compulsory education everywhere.
After the reform and opening-up, China has entered a new situation of all-round socialist modernization. Where should the reform of primary and secondary education go? In 1983, the teaching reform experiment of Jingshan School in Beijing has gradually entered a new stage of comprehensive reform of primary and secondary education from a single experiment. With such questions, the teachers and students of this school put questions to Deng Xiaoping in a letter of more than 500 words. A few days later, Deng Xiaoping wrote an inscription for Beijing Jingshan School: "Education should face modernization, the world and the future." These "three aspects" set the beacon of modern education in China and became the general policy of education reform in China.
In 1985, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s Decision on Education System Reform (hereinafter referred to as the Decision) was promulgated. The "Decision" proposed for the first time that "nine-year compulsory education should be implemented step by step". In order to achieve the grand goal of popularizing nine-year compulsory education, according to the national conditions at that time, the responsibility for developing basic education was handed over to local governments, and the state mobilized the enthusiasm of local governments for developing basic education, while local governments also relied on the people to run education. This system reform has promoted the rapid popularization of compulsory education in China.
In order to ensure the smooth implementation of compulsory education, in 1986, the nine-year compulsory education was written into the newly promulgated Compulsory Education Law, which provided special legal guarantee for the popularization of compulsory education, and China’s basic education embarked on the track of legalization.
A leap towards a big country in human resources
An educational history is a historical portrayal of a country’s revitalization and development.
From the establishment of universal compulsory education system in the form of national legislation in 1986, education equity rose to the will of the state for the first time, and the goal of "two basics" was fully realized in 2011. In these 25 years, China’s basic education opened a road of "quantity compensation" and "scale expansion".
This is a shining link in the history of China: on the one hand, it is connected with China’s century-old dream of popularizing compulsory education, and on the other hand, it is connected with China’s bright future of building a powerful country with human resources.
Achieving nine-year compulsory education in an all-round way and basically eliminating illiteracy among young and middle-aged people is a brilliant milestone in the history of education in China and the most ambitious foundation stone project for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
In the mid-1980s, the Republic faced the reality that knowledge regained respect, education order was restored soon, primary education was just popularized, and more than 200 million people were still illiterate and semi-illiterate.
In 1992, the 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward that "by the end of this century, nine-year compulsory education will be basically popularized and illiteracy among young people will be basically eliminated" as an important goal for the development of China’s education in the 1990s.
Throughout the 1990s, education in China has been asking: When will nine-year compulsory education be popularized so that all school-age children can enter schools?
In 1993, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the Outline of Education Reform and Development in China, which opened a new era of education reform and development in China, and formally took "two basics" as a new goal.
At the national conference on education held in 1994, the "two basics" really changed from a goal to a national action, which became the top priority of China’s education work, and a military order was issued in 1996, 1998 and 2000.
Dezhou, located in the northwest of Shandong Province, had a local fiscal revenue of only 740 million yuan in 1996. In the three years since the Ninth Five-Year Plan, a total of 860 million yuan was allocated for education. On December 25, 1997, with the last county in Texas passing the acceptance of "Pujiu", this "Pujiu" attack, which lasted for three years and went up and down to Qi Xin, was fully completed.
Like Texas, in the 1990s, "Nine-Year Compulsory Education" was launched vigorously throughout the country. At that time, the national construction was still in its infancy, and under the condition of very tight financial resources, the multi-channel school-running strategy was adopted to widely mobilize local governments and the people to hold compulsory education. This has made a great historical contribution to basically achieving the goal of "two basics".
On January 1st, 2001, the government of China solemnly announced to the world that China had achieved the strategic goal of basically popularizing nine-year compulsory education and basically eliminating illiteracy among young people as scheduled. By the end of 2000, the population coverage rate in the "Ninth Five-Year Plan" area reached 85%, and the illiteracy rate among young and middle-aged people dropped below 5%.
As a result, the Republic has turned from "basic realization ‘ Two basics ’ " To "fully realize ‘ Two basics ’ " Another chapter in. In 2003, the State Council held the first national conference on rural education since the founding of New China, and put forward the requirements for tackling the "two basics" in the western region: realizing the "two basics" goal in the western region in 2007.
Achieving this goal faces extremely difficult conditions and special difficulties. Among the 410 counties that have not achieved the "two basics", there are 215 poverty-stricken counties, 309 minority counties and 51 border counties, and the level of compulsory education lags far behind the national average.
The biggest denominator of education in China is in rural areas, and the weakest link is also in rural areas. The compulsory education in rural areas, especially in western rural areas, covers a wide range, involving almost all the difficulties of educational equity.
In order to solve the funding gap of rural compulsory education, in 2001, the State Council’s Decision on the Reform and Development of Basic Education made a major reform on the management system of rural basic education, which clearly stated that the management of rural compulsory education was "county-oriented" and "people’s education is run by the people" began to shift to the track of "people’s education is run by the government".
However, in the central and western regions of China, the county-level finance with weak financial resources is unable to support the funding of rural compulsory education, and there is a general dilemma of "small horse-drawn carts". In 2005, the State Council’s Notice on Deepening the Reform of Rural Compulsory Education Funding Guarantee Mechanism proposed to establish a rural compulsory education funding guarantee mechanism that is divided into projects and shared by the central and local governments in proportion. Rural compulsory education is fully included in the scope of public financial security.
In 2006, the newly revised Compulsory Education Law clarified the principle of free compulsory education in legal form, and established the main contents of the reform of compulsory education funding guarantee mechanism. Under the background of abolishing agricultural tax, from the spring semester of 2006, students in rural compulsory education in the western region were exempted from tuition and miscellaneous fees, which were extended to rural areas throughout the country in spring of 2007 and nationwide in autumn of 2008. At this point, compulsory education is "completely free", and the dream of several generations of Chinese has finally come true.
Policies such as rural boarding school construction project, "two exemptions and one subsidy" project, modern distance education project in rural primary and secondary schools, and "special post plan" for rural teachers are closely linked and promoted as a whole. In this context, in 2007, the "two basics" attack in the western region was completed as scheduled, and the education in the western region achieved historic changes. In 2011, China achieved universal nine-year compulsory education and basically eliminated illiteracy among young people.
This is an honor worthy of being remembered in the annals of history: it took China 25 years to complete the "Ninth Five-Year Plan" task that took the United States 100 years to complete, and completed the perfect turn from a populous country to a big country in human resources.
We have fully realized the "two basics" in a country that accounts for one-fifth of the world’s population and made great contributions to the civilization and progress of all mankind. According to UNESCO statistics, the enrollment rate of children in the world has increased from 80% to 84%, and China has contributed; From 1990 to 2005, there were 100 million illiterates in the world, including 90 million in China. Among the nine populous developing countries, China is the only country that has fully realized nine-year compulsory education, and has become an important force to promote the development of education for all in the world.
In this great journey towards equality of educational opportunities, the "two basics", like a spark, have played an important turning point in basic education in series. Educational supervision system originated from "two basics", free compulsory education was realized in "two basics", balanced development started in "two basics", and the concept of quality education was born out of "two basics" … …
When quantity is no longer the biggest problem faced by basic education, the voice of quality improvement is getting higher and higher. People are more and more aware of the disadvantages of one-sided pursuit of enrollment rate, and begin to pay attention to people’s all-round development and understand the law of education better.
In this context, in 1999, the third national conference on education since the reform and opening up was held in Beijing, with the theme of "deepening education reform and comprehensively promoting quality education". In the same year, the Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Deepening Education Reform and Promoting Quality Education in an All-round Way was promulgated, which clarified the objectives, contents and safeguard measures of quality education.
Make a final decision Taking this as a symbol and paying attention to connotation development has become an important melody of basic education in China since the new century, bringing a new atmosphere to education in China.
The wind rises and sails again, and the development of basic education opens a new voyage.
Pursue fair and quality education
Seeking happiness for the people is the initial intention of the Communist Party of China (CPC) people. General Secretary of the Supreme Leader pointed out that people’s yearning for a better life is our goal.
When the Communist Party of China (CPC) put forward the ruling idea of "people-centered", people found that this idea was also implemented in the educational action in China.
The basic education that has entered the new era has changed from "learning" to "learning", which reflects the people’s yearning for a better life and their expectation for the future. People’s sense of gain has become an important value orientation of basic education, and balanced development and quality improvement have become the new coordinates of the development of basic education in China.
The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward that "every child should strive to enjoy a fair and quality education". From basic balance to high-quality balance, from fair educational opportunity to pursuing high-quality educational fairness, it constitutes the main theme of basic education in China in the new period. They all point to the proper meaning of education: paying attention to the all-round development of people and giving every child a chance to shine in life.
From basic balance to high-quality balance, a series of measures have landed:
In 2002, the "Notice of the Ministry of Education on Strengthening the Management of Basic Education" formally put forward the goal of "actively promoting the balanced development of schools in the compulsory education stage". Since then, "key schools and key classes" have been gradually cancelled.
According to the Outline of the National Medium-and Long-Term Education Reform and Development Plan (2010— In 2020), a series of major basic education projects, such as the nutrition improvement plan for rural compulsory education students and "all-round thinning", have been implemented one after another. These projects are beneficial to the present and the future, and the bottom of basic education can’t be reached. Balanced development is empty talk.
In order to speed up the overall allocation of compulsory education resources in urban and rural areas, in 2016, the State Council issued "Several Opinions on Promoting the Integrated Reform and Development of Compulsory Education in Urban and Rural Areas in Counties", and ten measures such as eliminating large classes were subsequently introduced.
With the promulgation of "Measures for Supervision and Evaluation of High-quality and Balanced Development of County Compulsory Education" in 2017, China’s compulsory education has entered the stage of "high-quality and balanced" from "basic balance". By the end of 2018, 92.8% of counties (cities, districts) in China had passed the supervision and evaluation of the balanced development of compulsory education.
On the premise of paying attention to the degree of fair access to educational opportunities, basic education is focusing on the quality of the people’s acquisition process and the satisfaction of the results, comprehensively and systematically improving the quality, promoting the comprehensive reform of basic education, and constantly approaching the goal of quality education equity.
Who to train is the primary problem of education. In 2014, when General Secretary of the Supreme Leader visited Peking University, he pointed out that "the buttons of life should be buckled from the beginning"; During the investigation in Haidian District Ethnic Primary School in Beijing, it was pointed out that children should "remember the requirements, set an example, start from an early age and accept help" when cultivating and practicing socialist core values. On September 10, 2018, at the National Education Conference, the General Secretary of the Supreme Leader delivered an important speech, pointing out that "efforts should be made to strengthen moral cultivation, educate and guide students to cultivate and practice socialist core values, improve their moral character in a down-to-earth manner, and become a person with great love, virtue and great feelings."
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has issued the Guide to Moral Education in Primary and Secondary Schools and compiled the Implementation Manual of the Guide to Moral Education in Primary and Secondary Schools, and made great efforts to build a moral education system with correct direction, perfect content, cohesive learning segments, rich carriers and normal development.
Classroom is the most critical link of quality. Since the launch of the eighth curriculum reform, the classroom has changed from imparting knowledge to students’ active learning, and "teaching and learning" has undergone profound changes, strengthening the role of the classroom as the main position; In the autumn of 2017, the textbooks of ethics and rule of law, Chinese and history of compulsory education were put into use in the initial grade of compulsory education, which marked that the textbooks of the three subjects had changed from "one syllabus and many books" to unified compilation, examination and use. This was a major deployment to run compulsory education with China characteristics and safeguard the long-term stability of the country with an eye to the requirements of the times.
Basic education is the foundation of education, and teachers are the foundation of foundation. General Secretary of the Supreme Leader is very concerned about the construction of the teaching staff, and calls on teachers to be "four haves" and "four guides" for students.
In order to make up for the shortcomings of rural teachers, since 2012, the "National Training Program" has trained more than 14 million teachers. The central and western provinces recruited 510,000 special post teachers, optimizing the structure of rural teachers. In addition, the establishment and improvement of the salary guarantee system and the evaluation and employment system of teachers’ professional titles have enhanced the professional attraction of grassroots teachers. In January 2018, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the Opinions on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of Teachers’ Team Construction in the New Era, which described the grand blueprint for teachers’ team construction in the new era.
At the same time, the "baton" of evaluation is also turning. In 2014, the "Implementation Opinions of the State Council on Deepening the Reform of Examination Enrollment System" was promulgated, which established the examination enrollment model of classified examination, comprehensive evaluation and multiple admission. In the same year, the new college entrance examination was first implemented in Shanghai and Zhejiang. At the same time, since the Ministry of Education issued the "Guiding Opinions on Further Promoting the Reform of Entrance Examination System in Senior High Schools" in 2016, most provinces and cities have successively announced the implementation plan for the reform of the senior high school entrance examination suitable for the region. The gradual establishment of a scientific evaluation system oriented to the development of quality education has forced the front line of basic education to accelerate the pace of reform.
Basic education concerns everyone and is a basic project to improve the quality of the people and realize the prosperity of the country. Implementing the decision-making arrangements of the CPC Central Committee, making efforts to improve quality and promote fairness, and striving to run a basic education that the people are satisfied with will become the strongest note for the future development of basic education.
After the National Education Conference, the central government successively issued three documents on the reform and development of preschool education, compulsory education and ordinary senior high schools: Several Opinions on Deepening the Reform and Normalization of Preschool Education, Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Reform of Educational Methods in Ordinary Senior High Schools in the New Era, and Opinions on Deepening the Reform of Education and Teaching and Improving the Quality of Compulsory Education in an All-round Way, which made a systematic design for the reform of basic education in the new era, marking that China’s basic education has entered a new stage of comprehensively improving the quality of educating people. The publication of China Education Modernization 2035 has become a programmatic document to accelerate the modernization of basic education in the new era.
From 1.6 years of education per capita to 10.6 years in 2018, from a big illiterate country to the full realization of nine-year compulsory education, from "not going to school" to "going to school" to "going to school" … … Looking back on the 70-year history, basic education has laid the foundation of national education in China, achieved great changes from scale expansion to connotation construction, and embarked on a road of basic education with China characteristics.
Today, China has more than 500,000 schools with nearly 240 million students in the basic education stage, which has provided strong intellectual support and talent reserve for the vigorous development of education at all levels and for China’s economic and social development and the improvement of comprehensive national strength.
Learning to teach determines the future of each child, affects the joys and sorrows of countless families and concerns the hope of a nation. Stepping into a new era, from a big education country to a strong education country, basic education will continue to write a new chapter for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. (Reporter Wang Jiayuan)
