Starting this semester, China’s national school curriculum will focus more on national security and traditional culture. Primary and junior high school students starting the autumn semester will be given new textbooks on Chinese language and history as well as morality and law, announced state broadcaster CCTV.
“Morality and law” was known as ideology and politics until 2016. It is a mandatory subject that promotes the ideology of the ruling Communist Party.
Included in the new textbooks are sections on the president’s political philosophy, Xi Jinping Thought. There will also be an emphasis on traditional Chinese culture and national security, according to a Ministry of Education official cited in the report.
All Chinese students receive nine years of compulsory education, six in primary school and the rest in junior high. The new textbooks will initially be used in the first and seventh grades and will be extended to all nine grades within three years, says CCTV.
The new morality and law textbook would introduce the “main content and historical status” of Xi Jinping Thought, the report said.
Officially known as “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” Xi’s political philosophy was enshrined in China’s constitution in 2018.
Chinese language textbooks will include more ancient Chinese literature and stories about the revolutionary years before the party won the civil war in 1949, establishing the People’s Republic.
