Education & Health Care

Question 1

Education, 1949

Answer 1

Standard very poor.
45.2% of males and 2.2% of females received schooling.
80% of population were illiterate.
Education based on Confucian concepts.
Elitist system, best schools were in cities.
Charged tuition fees + set entrance exams that reduced access.

Question 2

Educational institutions

Answer 2

First national primary school system
Primary school students: 1949 = 26m –> 1957 = 64m.
National literacy rate: 20% = 1949 –> 50% = 1960 —> 64% = 1964.
Lack of scientists, doctors, technical experts.
New polytechnics and engineering institutes created. Many sent to Russian universities.
Short courses for adult peasants in winter schools.

Question 3

Pinyin

Answer 3

Chinese language difficult to learn.
Used ideograms > alphabet. Symbols varied region to region.
People from different parts of China couldn’t understand each other.
Pinyin = new language introduced to simplify the traditional language.
New official language.

Question 4

Failures of Educational Reform

Answer 4

Remained elitist. Best schools in cities, still sat entrance exams.
Children of government officials still better off.
Education woefully underfunded. 1952, 6.4% of budget spent on culture + education.
Standard of teaching in rural schools very poor; teachers barely literate.
Winter schools not effective, peasants forgot what they learned the winter prior.
Great Leap Forward, many students couldn’t attend school, working on backyard furnaces.

Question 5

Collapse of Education

Answer 5

1966.
Cultural Revolution closed schools and universities.
130m young people received no formal education.
Youth joined Red Guard, traveling across the country to attend rallies/struggle meetings.
Teachers often victims of revolutionary violence; many killed.
After Red Guard was disbanded, many didn’t return to school.
Party members used connections to return (Red Guard) children back to lives in cities.

Question 6

Health Care, 1949

Answer 6

Public health provisions rudimentary.
Non-existence in rural China, used herbal remedies.
Peasants verge of starvation = immune systems easily succumbed to epidemic disease.
Water borne diseases rife - typhoid, cholera.
Human manure main source of fertilizer.

Question 7

Barefoot Doctors

Answer 7

1.5m paramedics sent to rural areas to provide basic care to peasants, only source of medical care in villages.
Only had 6 months of intensive training.
Cheap to train, improved hygiene, stopped spread of disease + contraception.
Spent ½ time working in agriculture, helping to win local confidence.
Villages clinics had little equipment + low supply of medicines.
People treated by a trained doctor for first time, educated peasants in modern health ideas.
1976, 90% of villages were involved in the scheme.

Question 8

Success of Health Care Reforms

Answer 8

Patriotic Health Movements - sent Party members to countryside to educate peasants how to prevent illness.
Posters taught illiterate peasant how to catch rats + dig deep wells to collect drinking water.
Discouraged human waste as fertilizer.
Collectives drained swamps which bred malaria.
Smallpox/cholera/typhoid practically eliminated.
Life expectancy: 41yrs = 1950 –> 62 = 1970.
Infant mortality fell.
Anti-drug campaigns greatly reduced sale/use of opium.

Question 9

Failures of Health Care Reforms

Answer 9

Health Provisions urban > rural
Western-style hospitals in cities only.
Great Leap Forward, communes established medical clinics, but famine negated benefits.
Doctors attacked in Anti campaigns (1950s) - Laogai system.
Doctors denounced in Cultural Revolution.
Doctors undertook manual labor, cancelling operations.