Abstract
This chapter introduces the background against which the two episodes occurred. It first depicts the changes in basic education in China from the early 1980s to the turn of the century. Then, it outlines compulsory education policy development since 1949. It also describes legislative institutions and procedures, with a focus on special features relating to compulsory education legislation. Social, economical, and legal reforms as the context for the two episodes are sketched as well.
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Notes
- 1.
The Scheduled Graduation Rate of Compulsory Education = Scheduled Graduation Rate of Primary School Students ∗ Promotion Rate of Primary School Graduates ∗ Scheduled Graduation Rate of Lower Secondary School Students (China Education and Human Resources Issues Report Project Team (CEHRIRPT), 2003, p.58).
- 2.
Minban education, which differs from private education, was advocated as a strategy to achieve universal education by Mao Zedong during the Second Civil War of Liberation. Minban schools were founded, financed, and controlled by private individuals or groups. Although they may be considered as “private” in western countries, they have been defined as “collective” and have been one of the ingredients of Chinese “public ownership.” Minban education was suspended during the “Cultural Revolution.” The CCPCC’s Decision on Structural Reform in Education of 1985 encourages and guides “state-owned enterprises, social groups, and individual to set up schools,” and encourages units, collectivities, and individuals to donate to education on a voluntary basis, which brought minban education into vogue again (Ding 2006).
- 3.
The “Great Leap Forward” was an economic and social plan used from 1958 to 1960 that aimed to transform China from a primarily agrarian economy into a modern communist society by releasing the potentiality of its vast population through labor-intensive methods of agriculturalization and industrialization. It ended in catastrophe, triggering a widespread famine that resulted in millions of deaths.
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Wang, Y. (2019). Evolution of Basic Education in China. In: Paradigm Shift of Education Governance in China. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-59515-2_2
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