Curriculum reform and moral education

Suggestions from the office of the Central Communist Party and the Office of the State Council regarding the strengthening and reform of middle and primary school moral education work in order to adapt to changing circumstances:

This document stresses the importance of moral education in order to protect the health of young people. It draws on a speech of jiang zemin for inspiration. the speech is entitled "A conversation about educational issues" and can be found at the following link.
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info7450.htm

There are 16 paragraphs in the document plus one introductory paragraph. The document is divided into five main sections as follows:

1. Gain a clear understanding of current circumstances, arrive at a unified understanding, go one step further in strengthening urgency and sense of responsibility for the work of moral education in primary and middle schools

The first paragraph of this section stresses the new societal challenges that make the task of moral education urgent:

"At the turn of the century the decision of the state council to deepen education reform adn to comprehensively implement suzhi jiaoyu has brought new requirements to teh workd of moral education in primary and middle schools" at the same time our nation is in a critical period of the fortification of reform and development, complicated and deep changes have taken place in societal circumstances, these have influenced the values or young people, the contradictions and conflicts in national and international attitudes are becoming more complex, especially the tightening of international hostile forces are permeating the thought and culture of a generation our nations young people; individualism, materialism, and hedonism and other negative corrupting influences are having a negative influence on our youth.

Moral education in primary and middle schools has still not adapted to the new circumstances brought about by teh changes in national and international conditions, by the new tasks of educational reform and development adn the new situation of thought education for young people..."

2. Conscientiously raise the relevance and the effectiveness of moral education in primary and middle schools

paragraph 3 lists the content that should be covered in the area of moral education in primary schools adn then in middle schools.

Primary schools: love the motherland, love the people, love labor, love science, love socialism--these are fundamental. then added to this general knowledge about society, civilized behavior habits

Middle school: "cultivate studetns to become citizens who passionately love the socialist motherland, and who possess social virtues, consciousness of the law, civilized habits of behavior adn who are law-abiding. Guide them to gradually establish the correct world view, view of human nature, and values and continue to increase in their patritotism, collectivism, and their socialist consciousness. In middle school, and especially in high school they should study marxism, maoist thought adn deng xiaoping theory, dialectical materialism, and histotorical materialism. it is important to strengthen education about national conditions, to help students to understand the tremendous accomplishments that our nation has achieved since the start of opening and reform and to have a correct understanding of the current contradictions and difficulties and the determination and the measures that the party adn the government are undertaking to solve these problems.

3. Exert great effort to strengthen the construction of teacher professional ethics

4. All society to work hard together, and all deparments should coordinate adn communicate, to ensure the healthy growth and development of youth

5. conscientiously strengthen the leadership of the work of moral education in primary and middle schools.


I coded the document as follows
Economic development 4
Sociopolitical control 17
Social justice 8

Examples of sections that were thus coded include:

Economic development:

the recurring call to focus on the development of an innovative spirit and ability to apply knowledge in practice are still inserted into sentences about cultivating successors to teh socialist legacy with the four haves.

i find the consideration of scientific values as moral values particularly intriguing and interesting. part of the "correct world view" has to do with have a scientific outlook on life.

the overwhelmning importance of cultivating ability to apply knowledge in practice is emphasized frequently as it was in Jiang zemins speech "A conversation about educational issues" where he stated that pressure should be lessened on children to all become academically excellent, that education should also come from social experience and that society needs all kinds of people not just university graduates.

in this speech jzm also links moral education and stability to economic development. in teh final paragraph of the speech he states:

"WE cannot waver from our persistence to place economic construction at the center, at the same time we must conscientiously grasp the work of the construction of the socialist spiritual civilization, otherwise economic construction will not succeed either. in summary, taking hold of the thought work of young people, is directly related to the extent of our success in the "science and education revitalize the nation" lines of action, and is also directly related to the success of our nation's socialist modernizing construction, everyone must from this lofty perspective understand the problem and begin the work."

Sociopolitical control:

This document is about moral political education and so it is expected that this theme is going to come through the heaviest.

the first is the cry that social problems are increasing in complexity, that individualism, materialism and hedonism are increasing, that the responsibility for protecting the young people and fostering their healthy development belong with all of society.

there is the line that "school moral education work should continue to be the top priority in the implementation of suzhi jiaoyu"

there should be a balance between the inheritance of the cultural traditions of the past and the creation of new ideas...

there is a call to make approaches to moral education relevant to the development needs of children...

political overtones of moral educaiton are still very much present. they form the foundation of the "correct scientific world view" adn view of human nature.

all aspects of the school curriculum should serve the needs of moral education adn the cultivation of a love of the nation, a love of socialism, national unity etc.

propaganda activities should be organized to engage young people in patriotic activities (see pargraph 6 for examples)

teachers moral values are important if they are to be training children in these moral values so several passages are devoted to this topic. teachers are to attend moral education and thought educaiton (professional ethics) activiteis every winter and summer vacation!

a system for the monitoring of teachers morality shoudl be set up adn it is to continue to be an important component of their annual evaluation adn also of student evaluations.

with regard to the role of all of society in the protection of youth this includes the appropriate restriction of internet use for gaming and reactionary material and for access to pornography. It is illegal to produce, sell, adn brodcast violent adn unhealthy "cultural trash"

in the last section all government departments are exhorted to work together on projects to further this goal. teachers who are members of the party are called upon to rally other teachers in this work, research on effective strategies for implementation is called for, there shoudl be rewards adn commendations for techers and leaders who successfully do the work of moral education.

does this documetn provide any further evidence regarding the process of purposeful "institutionalization of ideologies"

see paragraph 12: "news promotion, culture, broadcasting and television adn publishing houses and other departments, should vigorously promote teh party's educational directives, and publicize the spirit of jzm's "conversation regarding educational issues" and promote the correct view of human talent, of how to succeed, and of educational thought, vigorously promote patritotism, collectivism, adn socialist thought, publish and broadcast more and better literary arts, and media productions that are beneficial to the healthy growth of young people."

Social justice

Under social justice i have placed the ideal of the healthy development of children and youth, the push to incorporate required community service as part of the middle and high school curriculum, the encouragement to consider the views and opinions of students, parents adn community members in the evaluation of schools and teachers, the encouragement of local governments to provide more cultural activities for the benefit of youth such as libraries, museums, sports facilities etc.