Journal Articles - Singapore Journal of Education

“If children are to become capable of realising their potential in later life, they must acquire the basic tools that a twentieth-century society demands. We have failed if a group of children leaves school without any real knowledge of how to understand and handle these tools. If a child leaves school unable to read or inhibited from reading because of continuous difficulties, he suffers a communication handicap which will sharply affect his choice of career, his earning capacity and his role as a member of a society whose daily bread is the printed word.”

With a population of approximately 850 million living in an area of 9.6 million square kilometres, or the size of the United States of America or Europe, China's efforts to provide mass education since 1949 can only be described as impressive. Whether it is formal education or non-formal education, as educators in non-communist countries categorize education systems, China's education of the masses must be seen in the light of its role of “social reconstruction”. The vital role of education in accelerating economic growth is only a means to bring about reconstruction, not an end in itself as in other developing countries.