Literacy in China
During the Cultural Revolution, the college entrance examination system was suspended, and millions of young people went to the countryside for a month out of each year as part of secondary school.
In the sixth national census in 2010, the total population of mainland China was about 1.34 billion, of which about 54 million were illiterate, with an illiteracy rate of 4.08 percent.
In September 1949, the Common Program of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, formulated by the first plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, like the Provisional constitution, called for strengthening part-time education for workers and on-the-job education for cadres.
More than 400 staff members from the central government, education departments of major administrative regions, women's federations, and model teachers and students from workers' and peasants' spare-time schools attended the meeting.
The slogan "promoting literacy education and gradually reducing illiteracy" was put forward, and the principle of "government leadership, relying on mass organizations and cooperation from all sides" was realized.
[14][16] The literacy campaign has been carried out on a large scale throughout the country, but in the implementation process, some places have ignored reality and rushed ahead.
On 15 November 1952, the 19th meeting of the Central People's Government Committee passed a resolution to establish the Central People's Government Illiteracy Work Committee (chairman and Party Secretary Chu Tunan, deputy chairman Li Chang, Lin Handa, Qi Jianhua) to eradicate illiteracy step by step.
[15] Qi Jianhua, a cultural education instructor of a department of the Southwest Military Region of the People's Liberation Army, invented the "rapid literacy method" in the process of carrying out cultural education in the army and carried out teaching in three steps: In practice, it generally takes only half a month for one to learn and memorise more than 1,500 characters.
[15] In December 1951, the Ministry of Education of the Central People's Government held an "Accelerated Literacy Law" symposium.
On 23 April 1952, the Cultural and Educational Committee of the Central People's Government Administration Council issued a certificate of award to Qi Jianhua.
Three days later, the People's Daily published an editorial calling for the "universal implementation of the accelerated literacy law" nationwide.
After the policy was introduced, through publicity and mobilization, workers and farmers signed up for literacy classes on a large scale.
According to incomplete statistics in northeast China, Shanghai, Beijing and other places, 258,000 workers have participated in the accelerated literacy program.
In the late autumn of 1955, Mao Zedong discussed with Hu Yaobang, Secretary of the Central Secretariat of the New Democratic Youth League of China in the Summer Palace, how to combine literacy and agricultural cooperation.
After Mao Zedong read it, he changed the title of this material to "The Experience of the Youth League Branch in Gaojialiugou Village, Junan County" and included it in the book "The Socialist Upsurge in China's Rural Areas" and wrote more than 800 articles.
[14] On 11 October 1955, at the sixth plenary session of the 7th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong said: "I think it is better to sweep up the literacy campaign.
"[14] Mao Zedong's commentary on "The Experience of the Youth League Branch in Gaojialiugou Village, Junan County, Establishing Work-Recording Classes" soon spread throughout the country with the book The Socialist Upsurge in Chinese Rural Areas.
All provinces, cities, counties and even villages have compiled new literacy teaching materials adapted to local conditions.
According to statistics, illiteracy was eliminated in more than 6 million illiterate farmers and residents in 1957, reaching the peak of the development of literacy education after the founding of the People's Republic of China.
[15] During the Great Leap Forward period, literacy work also fell into the trend of exaggeration and high indicators.
In February 1958, the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, the central committee of the Communist Youth League, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the All-China Women's Federation, and the National Illiteracy Eradication Association held a representative meeting of advanced units of literacy, at which a cultural "atomic explosion" was proposed.
On 7 March 1958 and 20 May 1958, the People's Daily published editorials "Setting off a Great Leap Forward in Literacy on a Grand Scale" and "Eliminating Illiteracy with a Revolutionary Spirit".
[21][22] At the same time, during the Cultural Revolution, the college entrance examination was suspended, and tens of millions of sent-down youths went to the mountains and countryside.
[23] Deng Xiaoping, who returned to politics for the third time in 1977, first proposed to "set things right" in September 1977 and resumed the college entrance examination, which had been suspended for ten years due to the Cultural Revolution.
[24] On 19 September 1977, Deng Xiaoping and the heads of the Ministry of Education, Liu Xiyao, Yong Wentao, and Li Qi, talked about the reversal of the educational front during the ten-year Cultural Revolution, with Deng Xiaoping stating that "If you made a mistake in the past, repeat it and correct it.
"[25][24][26] In October 1978, Deng Xiaoping proposed that "education is the most fundamental cause of a nation", rejecting the belief of Zhang Chunqiao, one of the Gang of Four, that the fact that "the whole country is illiterate is also a victory".
[27][15][better source needed] In December 1978, when the 3rd plenary session of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was held, Deng Xiaoping became the second-generation supreme leader of the People's Republic of China.
"[check quotation syntax] In the following years, The State Council continued to issue relevant documents which put forward precise requirements for literacy and universal education.
"[check quotation syntax] "By 2010, based on fully realizing the 'two basic' goals, we will make senior high school education universal in cities and economically developed areas step by step, and the number of years of schooling of the entire population will reach the advanced level of developing countries".
Experts believe the slowdown is due to the full realization of nine-year compulsory education in China after 2011, eliminating illiteracy among young and middle-aged people and the remaining difficulties in literacy work.
