A Study On The History Of Compulsory Education Of The People's Republic Of China

Compulsory education, which is on the bottom of Pyramid of education, is a base for a person's growth, a base for the whole education, a base for improving national quality and training qualified persons. For more than fifty years, compulsory education of the P.R.C. has developed rather quickly and gained great achievements. At the same time, there are some serious problems that restrict the development of education in our country. It is great help to China's educational development to study the developmental course of compulsory education of the P.R.C., to analyze existing problems, to summarize the experiences and lessons, and to put forward strategies and suggestions which are good to compulsory education of the P.R.C..The introduction of the thesis deals with the purposes for the study and the present situation of the study and tries to analyze the characteristics and problems in compulsory education research of the P.RC. and concludes that compulsory education research of the PRC is the weak points of education research in the country. And then expounds both theoretical and practical significance of this study. Lastly introduces the methods of the research and other theoretical problems.The first part deals with the history and the definition of compulsory education. Based on these, the author concludes the four characteristics of compulsory education: fundamental, compulsory, free and education for all.The second part deals with the five developmental stages of compulsory education of the P.R.C.. Each stage is expounded from educational policy, practical development, achievement gained and existing problems. The developmental sequence over fifty years' compulsory education of the P.RC. is clearly reproduced, which makes a base for part three.Part three and part four are the focus and difficult point of this study. Educational ideas are often the precursors of practice, finance is lifeblood of development, and teachers are the guarantee for quality. Therefore educational ideas, finance and teacher staffs are the topic of part three and part four. Part three analyzes the main problems in the three aspects: the ideas of compulsory education lag behind the practice; the financial system of compulsory education is multi-channel collected, local responded, which leads to unbalance of regionalinvestment and economic overburdens for low-income families. Although the construction of teacher training has gained great achievements, the low level of teachers' economical and social position, and the low rate of teachers' formal education are important factors restricting the development of compulsory education. Part four deals with specific strategies and suggestions drawn from comparisons between China and foreign counties. They are as follows: to undertake and manage education on the basis of national law, to establish comparatively centralized financial system for compulsory education, to carry out specialization of teacher profession...