West’s political ideas threaten classrooms

Source:Global Times Published: 2015-1-31 0:13:08

At a meeting themed around a guidance recently released by the State Council on college ideological education, Education Minister Yuan Guiren said college classrooms should forbid any comments that attack the leadership of the Communist Party of China or smear the socialism, any speeches that break the Constitution and other laws, and any complaints and grievances.

Yuan also said that no textbooks that preach Western values should be allowed to enter the classrooms.

Yuan's remarks encountered with strong criticism on the Internet, with some twisting his meanings.

Actually, the Western values opposed by Chinese authorities are mainly the Western political values, not the normal philosophy in daily life. The Western political values can not fit into the Chinese political reality. If they infiltrate Chinese society in a large scale, they may erode the Chinese political foundations and may jeopardize the stability of the political system.

The influence of Western political values to China's Internet sphere is already apparent. The rostrums in college classroom are not likely to remain intact. 

Some insist that the classrooms need absolute "freedom of speech." But the teachers must realize a fact that in the colleges across the world, different values can be shown to the students, but they will only be faithful to the mainstream values of their own societies. Western countries will not allow their colleges to promote the thoughts that sing highly of China's rejuvenation and dismiss the Western systems as in hopeless decline.

The work on ideological education is one of the most challenging tasks in China. If conducted improperly, it may hurt the images of the Party and the country.

There are many lessons in this area. Each time the authorities' talk about ideological promotion is met with misunderstanding or even opposition.

The ideological promotion in colleges not only needs determination and confidence, but also concrete plans and action to follow up. It should not become a bureaucratic formality in reaction to the supervisors' instructions, which ends up in thunder but few raindrops.

When faced with debate, the authorities must precisely chose their targets in order to win the support of the majority. More convincing work needs to be done to strike the targets.

The difficulty of the ideological education work should not be underestimated. If the authorities and the colleges only hold some meetings, change some curricula, and remind some teachers to mind their tongues, the result may not be satisfactory.



Posted in: Editorial

blog comments powered by Disqus