| In 1966, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) swept over China. This movement was aimed at combating the "bourgeois" culture of China under the Liuists and redirecting this culture toward the Maoist conception of the ideologically pure socialist state.;The purpose of this study was to focus on the GPCR's policies toward higher education and on the implementation of these policies from 1966 to 1976. As a basis for understanding the higher educational reform of the GPCR, efforts were directed to explain: First, the place of the GPCR in the history of Chinese higher education; Secondly, Mao Tse-tung's basic ideas regarding higher education and their evolution and change during his lifetime; Thirdly, the meaning of the GPCR, particularly as it related to policy on higher education; Fourthly, the basic educational policies and programs developed and implemented by the GPCR and Mao. Selected programs and policies included: admission, administration and administrators; duration of the learning period, teaching personnel, curriculum and teaching methods; Fifthly, the extent to which the overall GPCR (a) produced changes in policy and programs in higher education in line with the stated goals of progresssing from "bourgeois" culture to an ideologically pure Maoist socialist culture, and (b) met national goals of modernization and growth.;Finally, a brief commentary on higher education in China during the post-Mao period concludes the study.;Data for this study were derived from the works of Mao Tse-tung and other political and educational leaders on education in general and higher education specifically. Secondary sources and cross references were used to validate the assertions made in the primary sources.;On the basis of the research undertaken, this writer concluded that Mao's basic ideas on education were developed during the Yenan period in 1936 and remained consistent until his death in 1976. Mao recognized the primacy of education as a factor in rebuilding China according to his concepts, but he also recognized the inherent tendency of education to create a stratified society. He tried to eliminate that tendency by creating the "new socialist man" who would see intellectual achievement not as an individual accomplishment of distinction but as an individual contribution to the larger society. The Maoist educational policy in the GPCR centered on the development of such a dedicated and educated "new socialist man" with a proletarian outlook, proletarian political consciousness, and a respect for labor.;With virtually no exceptions in the GPCR, Mao's basic educational policies and programs were characterized by: political predominance with emphasis on educating the proletarian masses; interaction of practical experience with education; universal education and decentralization of decision-making; antagonism to central bureaucracy and elitism; self-reliance; anti-intellectualism; and praise of "non-elite" virtues.;The GPCR led effectively to the destruction of the "bourgeois" elements in the educational system during Mao's lifetime. However, this writer believes that the GPCR in its effort to combat elitism and to promote equality, overemphasized "Redness" to the exclusion of needed "expertise." The educational program of the GPCR did not provide sufficient stimuli to meet the national goals of modernization. The most valuable educational policy of the GPCR was the extension of higher education to the previously uneducated masses. A major result was the creation of a massive literate consciousness among the masses who were previously illiterate.;The GPCR and Mao's higher educational reform, designed to produce the "new socialist man" for a new society, provides a unique model for study by educators. |
