The Reorganisation of Higher Education in Communist China, 1949–61
In: The China quarterly, Band 19, S. 128-160
ISSN: 1468-2648
Within the short span of twelve years since their rise to power in 1949, the Chinese Communists have completely revamped their educational system. Private institutions of higher learning have been abolished and the number of universities vastly reduced; in their place hundreds of technical institutes have been created, with an unprecedented increase in enrolment and graduates. The faculties of various universities and colleges have been amalgamated in an effort to train more and more scientific and technical personnel. New types of instruction, known as "specialty" (spetsial'nost) and "specialisation" (spetsializatsiia), have been introduced to accelerate the training of industrial experts. Emphasis on science and technology has completely replaced the traditional respect for the humanities; the highest learned organisation in Communist China today is the Academy of Sciences, and not the Academy of Letters (Hanlin Yuan) of Imperial China. A Twelve-Year Science Programme was adopted in 1956 with the avowed objective of producing 10,500 top scientists and some two million technicians by 1967, and towards this end a new University of Science and Technology was established in 1958.