I
Adult education was known as education of
workers and peasants or spare-time education. With the
expansion of educational scope and diversification of
educational forms, it was officially called adult education.
II
In 1949, the "Common
Guiding Principles", the so - Called "provisional
constitution" formulated by the First Session of
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference put
forward as follows: "Spare-time education for working
people and training for in-service cadres should be
strengthened". In 1950, the then Council of Government
Affairs (now called the 'State Council') issued an
instruction that regarded education for workers and peasants
as an imperative task in the country's educational work. In
order to tackle the serious situation in which illiterate
people accounted for 80% of the total population, the
Central People's Government issued a call for
"developing literacy education and gradually reducing
the illiterates". The period between 1949 and 1966 saw
the take-off and development of New China's adult education.
However, affected by the 10-year internal disturbances known
as the "Cultural Revolution", adult education
could not be normally conducted from 1966 to 1976. Since
1979 when China entered a phase of modern construction,
adult education was restored quickly and developed
vigorously. In 1987, the Chinese Government officially
recognized that "adult education is one important
component of education in our country", and "a
necessary prerequisite for the contemporary social, economic
development and the progress of science and
technology". "The Guidelines for Educational
Reform and Development in China" promulgated in 1993
pointed out:" Adult education is a new education system
which plays an important role both in the development of
conventional school education toward life-long education and
in the continuous enhancement of the national quality and in
the promotion of economic, social
development".
III
The main
functions of China's adult education
include:
1. to provide education and
training of cultural knowledge, professional skills and
practical ability for those who have become parts of the
work force or those who may switch to new jobs and those
job-seekers who have not met job
requirements;
2. to provide literacy for
the illiterates;
3. to continuously
provide basic or higher education for those who have left
formal schools, taking into considerations of their cultural
basis and actual needs. Graduation Certificates are issued
to those who are qualified;
4. to
provide continuous education for those professional
technical or management personnel who have received higher
education, with the purpose of renewing and enriching their
knowledge and enhancing their
ability;
5. to conduct diversified
education of social culture or living, activities such as
elementary knowledge of law, health of women and children,
health of senior citizens, family life, fine
art/calligraphy, beauty care, cooking/nutrition,
flower-planting etc.; to provide educational service of
civilized, healthy, and scientific life-style for the
elders, women and all
citizens.
IV
The agencies
responsible for China's adult education include various
ministries or commissions under the State Council,
educational departments of provinces, autonomous regions and
municipalities, business or industrial departments at
different levels, such as machinery electronics, light
industry, coal-mining, metallurgy, railways, communication,
agriculture and forestry. They can be units of factories,
mines of enterprises or local governments at county,
township levels. In cooperation with educational
departments, trade unions, Chinese Communist Youth League,
women's federations at different levels jointly run schools
for advanced studies, training for the respective trades or
local areas. Democratic parties, social, people's and
academic organizations, collective economic entities and
individual citizens can also set up institutions of adult
education, by offering remedial or tutorial courses of
cultural studies, classes of vocational and technical
education or courses on social, cultural
life.
Adult schools usually consist of
the following: education radio and television universities,
institutions of higher learning for workers and peasants,
colleges for management personnel, education institutes,
independent correspondence colleges, adult education offered
by regular institutions higher education (departments of
correspondence, evening universities, advanced training for
teachers), TV education via satellite as well as the system
of examinations for self-taught students at higher level.
Slementarg Intermedial adult education can also be conducted
places like secondary professional training schools, for
adults secondary professional training schools, for adults
secondary professional training classes for workers or
cadres by regular secondary profossional training schools,
adult middle schools, technical schools for peasants,
agricultural schools of radio and television as well as
self-taught examination system at secondary level. Various
schools are in existence for advanced studies, training,
correspondence or face-to-face tutorial lecture. The above
mentioned schools or establishment (provide for adult
learners different forms of studies: full-time classroom
lectures, self-study with the help of provided teaching
materials, audio/visual data distance tutoring. Some pursue
their studies on a full-time or part-time basis, or in their
spare time. These schools or establishments as regards to
the social needs and their consideration of facilities
available, offer a lot of specialities in liberal arts,
basic sciences, engineering, agriculture, medicine, finance
and economics, political science and law, pedagogy and
physical education. Teaching contents are made available to
the actual needs of learners in possible way on the
condition that academic education standard can be
guaranteed. The best example in this regard is education for
peasants, that is, adult education in rural areas developed
from merely learning to read or acquire knowledge to a
training system in which there is an integration of cultural
knowledge with knowledge of agriculture, forestry,
side-products, fishery as well as township industry,
commerce, architecture, transportation and service which are
required by the development of
production.
Specifications of running
schools include both academic and non education. Academic
education includes studies of undergraduate programmes,
two-year college, secondary specialized schools and middle
schools. Non-academic education is defined as those
programmes for literacy, training of rural practical skills,
single-subject qualification certificates, professional
certificates and post-college further
education.
Adult education has scored as
great achievement in the development of China's reform.
76.93 million people became literate from 1978 to 1998, and
nearly 200 million since the founding of the People's
Republic of China. The literacy rate for two-thirds of
counties (cities) in China reached 95% or over. Illiteracy
can hardly be found among the workers in cities and towns.
10 units have been awarded UNESCO's International Literacy
Awards in succession since 1984. According to the plan, the
task of basically eradication illiteratcy among youth and
middle-aged people will be accomplished by the end of the
century.
The number of the employed who
participate in job training has steadily developed. 348
million participated in the training among the public,
collective enterprises or non-enterprise units alone from
1986 to 1997. Post-college further education was broadly
launched to scientific, technical and management personnel
in terms of supplementing or up-dating their knowledge.
Millions of people participated in such kind of training
each year. In the past 20 years of reform and opening-up,
adult institutions of higher learning turned out as many as
9,242,100 graduates at university and short-cycle college
levels. The accumulated number of participants in the
self-taught students. The total number of students in
primary, secondary schools for adults and in institutions of
adult education reached 5,385,500; 67, 127, 700 and 2, 822,
200 students respectively.
In recent
years, the conditions of school buildings, teaching
instruments and equimpment and teaching force in adult
educational establishment have been enriched and improved to
a great extent with steady promotion of quality and
effectiveness. According to the current statistics, there
are 962 independently established institutions of adult
education with 200,390 faculty and staff members.
Correspondence programmes and evening schools for academic
education are organized by 1,311 regular institutions of
adult education. There are over 400,000 secondary schools
and 180,000 primary schools for adults. Schools of adult
education have become important educational resource of the
country.
V
Adult education in
China is under the unified administration of the Ministry of
Education within which the Department of Adult Education and
Technical Education, Department of Higher Education and
Department of Basic Education are in charge of detailed
affairs. Offices in charge of adult education with full-time
offices are founded under educational authorities in
provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities as well as
in prefectures, counties, and townships. Non-governmental
organizations, such as All-China Trade Union Federation,
All-China Women's Federation and Central Committee of
Chinese Communist Youth League, are the cooperative agencies
that hold responsibilities for guaranteeing and urging
workers, women and youth to participate in the adult study
programme. The Chinese Association of Science and Technology
is responsible for the task of education and training that
offer scientific knowledge and extend applied skills among
the adults. Another important partner of the Ministry of
Education is the Chinese Association for Adult Education
that was established in 1981, Which is a mass, academic
social organization for all members of adult education in
China and its tasks are defined as publicizing, organizing
and coordinating activities of adult education, providing
consultations, offering training, publication and carry in
gout international exchange. It joined the International
Council of Adult Education in 1983 and Asian-Pacific
Association of Adult Education in 1988. Some affiliated
research establishments exist under the society, such as,
Society for Anti-Illiteracy Campaign, Society for Adult
Higher Education, Society for Workers Education in
Enterprises and Scoiety for Rural Adult Education. The
Chinese Association of Workers' Education and the Chinese
Association of Continuous Engineering Education and other
organizations also work jointly with the society in this
field.
VI
Article 19 of the
Constitution of the People's Republic of China regulates:
"It is the work of the State that develops different
education establishments, offering education of politics,
culture, science, technology and professional skill to
workers, peasants, state employees and other working
people." According to the regulations of the
Constitution, the State Council, Ministry of Education,
Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Labour and Social Security,
and Ministry of Personnel promulgated documents concerning
the management and finance and related aspects in adult
education. Some major issues regulated in these documents
include: to eradicate illiteracy in the age group of 15-45
by the end of the century; to carry out job-training among
workers, teachers and state employees and set up a system of
training and evaluation; to take steps in implementing a
system in which qualification certificates of job-training
must be obtained for those people engaging in jobs
concerning the safety of people's life and property before
employment; to offer educational training of "Green
Certificate" among peasants (training of single subject
agricultural productive skill and management for peasants).
Since 1987, the State has established an independent account
item of adult education in the budget revenue. 1.5% of the
total workers' salary can be spent on the educational
expenditure of enterprise workers. If overspending occurs,
payment can be made out of enterprise foundations, net
profits, surplus and after-tax interests. When developing
urban regional construction or setting up new enterprises,
planning of basic facilities in adult education must be made
and be listed in investment programmes of capital on
literacy, teacher training, compilations of texbooks and
awards can be covered within educational funding by the
various educational authorities. Full time teachers of adult
schools should be respected by the whole society as the
teachers of regular schools are, enjoying the same privilege
as their counterparts in regular schools in terms of
academic titles, promotions, housing distribution, awards
and social welfare. Apart from the policies, regulations
concerning adult education formulated and promulgated by the
State, regional decrees and regulations were approved and
promulgated by local standing committees of people's
congress in some provinces.
VII
In
the early 21st century, job training, further education,
community education will be the focus of adult education in
China. By establishing modern enterprise education system,
job certificate system and taking flexible and diversified
forms of school management, adult education will enable
laid-off workers and those who have transferred to other
jobs to receive vocational or regular education at different
levels that are oriented to different age brackets, thus
serving the needs of reemployment program, standardizing and
systemizing such education. Vigorous efforts should be made
to develop modern distance education and job qualification
certificate education and other forms of further education.
The self-taught examination system should be developed so as
to set up a socialized and open education network. Trial
operation of community education should be launched with a
view to gradually putting in place an ideal life-long
education system and enhanching the overall qualities of the
people.
In the rural areas, a sound
adult education network at county, township and village
levels should be optimized so as to energetically carry out
education in culture, ideology and morality, democratic
legal system, environmental protection, family planning and
the training of practical skills, thus serving the needs of
the development of agricultural production, rural economy
and the development of the society as a whole.