Mao’s Disastrous Educational Reforms

“Education must serve proletarian politics and be combined with productive labor. Our educational policy must enable everyone who receives an education to develop morally, intellectually, and physically and to become a worker with both socialist consciousness and culture.” (Mao 63). Throughout the summer that spanned from late 1965 to 1966, tensions and conflicts rose between Mao’s followers and the Chinese Communist Party. The building of tensions that existed in China may have remained docile for decades, had it not been for Mao’s catalytic attempt to remove opposing party members through the schooling system. Mao had already established that the people required a violent sort of activism to turn their attentions away from corrupt leadership, and to promote a sense of unity through rebellion. In addition, the prevailing traditional Yan’an method of schooling had forced a separation between students, essentially dividing them into classes, which brought about an emphasis and awareness to their differing backgrounds and skills. It was through these “two important respects, [that] China’s high school students held a high potential for violent conflict once the floodgates were opened to them” (Unger 110). With these major factors contributing to an impending crisis, Mao set the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution into motion, with the goal of reinforcing communism through the removal of capitalist, traditional, and cultural elements from Chinese society. Mao’s major revolutionary advances were brought about by his changes to the Chinese educational system, and although Mao’s reforms were seemingly sound and made with “good intentions”, it was these changes themselves that ultimately ended in disaster for the nation. Because of M...

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...proletarian characteristics within the students.

The changed education system that emerged from the Cultural Revolution in the schools of 1968 to 1969 can best be characterized by the following five main traits: First, the reformed educational goals led to the removal of many systematic courses and replaced them with concepts centered around industrial and agricultural work. Second, academic excellence was no longer a strength, and instead, the gap between the smart and poor students was to be closed. Third, the Open-Door Education aimed to more closely link labor and schooling. Fourth, the length of time spent in school was significantly shortened by four to six years. Fifth and finally, a students admission into higher levels of education were no longer based on grades and test scores, but rather the recommendations of his peers and their work ethic in labor.