Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Prehistoric Period
The root of a system of formal education in China can be traced
back at least as far as the 16th century B.C. later Shang Dynasty
(1523-1027 B.C.).
Throughout this period education was the privilege of the elite few,
and for the most part existed for no other purpose than to produce
government officials.
The imperial government had an active hand in education only
inasmuch as it administered the various levels of the imperial or
civil service examinations, which were used for the selection of
imperial officers.
Six Arts:
Rites
Music
Archery
ChariotRiding
History
Mathemati
cs
The
Four
Books:
Great
Learning
Doctrine
of
the Mean
Analects
Mencius
The Five
Classics:
Classic of Poetry
Book of
Documents
Book of Rites
I Ching (Book of
Changes)
Spring and
Autumn Annal
1840-1949
Following the defeat in the
Opium War (1840-1842) and
the ensuing cessation of Hong
Kong to Great Britain, Western
education gradually began
to take root in China, for the
most part through schools
founded
by
Christian
missionaries.
With the defeat in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, the Chinese finally
became convinced that their own future would rest, at least in part, on the
acceptance of certain aspects of Western-style education.
1949-1966
Shortly after the Liberation
by the Chinese
Communists, a new
educational system was
imported: the Soviet Model.
Soviet Model - driven by
technological needs.
Soviet model did very little
to address the problem of
mass illiteracy.
Government
resumed
earlier
attempts at a balance between
Confucian
and
Western-style
education. Mao's walking on
two legs exhortation, took its
form as a two-track educational
system:
1. vocational
and
schooling, and
work-study
1966-1976
Cultural Revolution (1966)
Classes stopped until fall
1967 each level shortened
Development
of
commune
schools
for
agricultural regions
1976-PRESENT
Four Modernizations
science & technology