1. (Oont'd)
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"Public Education" No. 2.
The central administrations for pre- school education, elementary, secondary schools and for universities,and the Committee for Higher Education Affairs form part of the Ministry of Education. This Committee effects mothodical management of educational and scientific work in all the higher schools, regardless of their allegiance, it provides thom with textbooks and teaching aids and offccts supervision of their work through inspectors.
In the provincos education branches.
were formed under departments, and in the districts public education sections were established. Special representatives are being sont into rural areas to solve the questions of public · education...
The Ministry of Education relies on the considerable experience already accumulated in Northern China, and above all on experience in the recently liberated areas of China...
Great and important tasks lie ahead of
the Ministry of Educatión,
For the timo boing thore is in China no accurate computation of imiterates. Tho Ministry of Education considers that the porcentage of illiterates to the whole population amounts to approximately 80% and in the countryside reaches 90%...
Work on the liquidation of illiteracy is now assuming wider and wider dimensions. Numerous schools and groups for the liquidation of illiteracy are being formod. The slogan: "Every literate person must teach his friend or acquaintance" has become popular...
As yet there are no uniform programmes in Chinese schools. Tho liberated areas have drawn up now programmos for themselves. The general roorganisation of the programmes is now beginning with the higher schools, then it will be carried out in the secondary schools where primarily it is planned to reorganise the teaching on the social-political sides (history, political education) and finally of natural sciences. In all this it is planned to use the experience of our Soviet schools...
The compilation of uniform educational plans for the schools is as yet complicated. As an example the Ministry of Education points to such a subject as Russian.
The de- mind to make it a compulsory language for instruction in Chinese schools is indisputable, but the Ministry of Education cannot yet include it in the educationaḥ plans as a compulsory subject because of the absence of the necessary number of trained teachers.
Nevertheless, exceptional attention is being paid to the study of Russian despite all difficulties. in the majority of Peking secondary schools the teaching of Russian has already been introduced. It has also been introduced in some schools in other large towns. It is taught in part By Russian · people living in China as well as by Chinese teachers who have studied Russian in the special Harbin institutes, etc.
Thus,
The study of Russian has been organised now additionally, in the Peking Institute of Foreign Languages and also in a number of universities in Peking, in Hunan, Hantung and other provinces. The Sino-Soviet Friendship Society has begun to train teachers of Russian. However, all these measures are far from covering the requirement for teachers who know Russian well.
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