Social and Cultural Changes - Education and Health Provision Flashcards
(15 cards)
1
Q
What was education like before reform?
A
- only 30% males over 7 could read a simple letter
- only 2.2% females received any schooling
- most received traditional style education, learning confucian concepts
2
Q
What were subjects like before reform?
A
- arithmetic and science not included
- few modern schools with western-style curricula
- 59% students enrolled in humanities degrees
- only around 20% engineering and natural science
- 3% agriculture
3
Q
How did access to education improve after reform?
A
- new form of written language introduced
- number of primary school students increased from around 26 million to 64 million
- in rural areas min-pan (run by the people) primary schools key to improving access
- winter schools provided short courses for adult peasants
4
Q
How did reform improve higher education?
A
- university enrolments increased from 117,000 to 441,000
- higher education modelled closely on Soviet Union, separate Ministry of Education set up to coordinate
- by 1959, 38,000 Chinese students trained in Russian universities
- 26 new engineering institutes created
- by 1953, 63% students in engineering, medicine and agriculture
5
Q
What was Pinyin?
A
- 1955 gov introduced new written language
- letters instead of symbols meant that words in Mandarin could be pronounced phonetically
- greatly improved communication
6
Q
What were the failures of early educational reform?
A
- system remained elitist
- academic requirements needed for admission to middle schools and universities favoured old bourgeoisie and children of party officials
- universities mainly urban students
- teaching in villages left to barely educated cadres
- winter schools ineffective since peasants forgot what they had learned previous winter
7
Q
How did education change during the Great Leap Forward?
A
- manual labour introduced into the curriculum
- ministry of higher education abolished
- Mao promoted ‘half work half study’, new schools ran vocational courses along with basic maths and languages
- by 1960, approx 30,000 schools
8
Q
What was the impact of the Great Leap Forward on education?
A
- many potential students unable to attend school due to work on backyard furnaces
- two-track educational system developed, rural children onto vocational training, urban children into full-time education system
- ‘key point’ schools received more funding and best teachers, old elitism returned
- children of cadres took places at best schools
9
Q
Why did education collapse after 1966?
A
- failure to create educational equality convinced Mao capitalist roaders had taken over the party
- Mao complained 12 year education system too long
- Mao complained exams were too rigid and students not prepared for manual labour
- ‘there is too much studying going on’
10
Q
How did the cultural revolution impact education?
A
- central committee announced ‘the task of the cultural revolution is to reform the old education system’
- schools and unis closed as Red guards abandoned education to travel to Beijing rallies
- young people denounced and attacked their teachers, struggle meetings held
- partaking in ‘revolutionary struggle’ gave red guards opportunity to prove ideological commitment
11
Q
How did the winding down of the cultural revolution impact education?
A
- young people sent to the countryside as part of the ‘up to the mountains and down to the villages’ campaign
- Mao wanted to force intellectuals to experience the harshness of rural life
- Uneducated and abandoned to a life of rural poverty they became known as Chinas ‘lost generation’
12
Q
How did the CCP approach health policy?
A
- party decided the priority was in prevention rather than expensive cures
- cadres trained to show peasants how to prevent disease through hygiene and sanitation
- patriotic health campaigns sent teams of party workers into countryside to educate illiterate peasants
- terror campaigns against drug suppliers and criminal gangs
13
Q
What was the impact of the new health policy?
A
- diseases such as smallpox and cholera practically eliminated
- terror campaigns lowered number of drug addicts
- by 1965, number of doctors trained in modern techniques rose to 150,000
- by 1960s medical schools graduating 25,000 new doctors per year
- life expectancy rose to 57 years by 1957
14
Q
What were barefoot doctors?
A
- villages sent young people to receive medical training to become ‘barefoot doctors’
- new recruits worked in the village clinic
- barefoot doctors trained intensively for 6 months studying a ‘barefoot doctors manual’ which provided no theory but rather a summary of symptoms
15
Q
How did the barefoot doctors impact health?
A
- provided healthcare for rural peasants
- training adequate enough to treat common problems peasants experienced
- played important role in spreading modern medical knowledge
- by 1973 over a million new doctors trained
