Xi Jinping thought becomes compulsory course at top universities
Students of leading universities in mainland China must start to take an extra course to read the political ideology of Chinese President Xi Jinping alongside Marxism and Maoism, two other mandatory subjects imposed in one of the world’s communist strongholds.
Peking University and Tsinghua University, Xi’s alma mater, were among 37 institutes that had introduced into their curricula a compulsory two-credit course called “Introduction to Xi Jinping’s Thought of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era” in the new school year, which began in late September.
The Xi doctrine calls for a national transformation of China into a “great modern socialist country” when the country marks its 100th anniversary in 2049, envisions an army which is on a par with the United States military by mid-century and enshrines Xi as the core of the Communist Party.
Studying his ideological ideas meant interpreting “the thinking of a leader that has never been seen in Chinese history,” Hu Angang, dean of Tsinghua’s Institute for Contemporary China Studies, said last year.
The sudden addition to the university curricula came after an article published by Xi on Aug. 31, in which he emphasized the development of ideological and political education among schools and an education system overseen by the party’s leadership.
“I am concerned about classes on ideological and political education,” he wrote in the article posted on the party-run political theory periodical, Qiushi. “If teachers don’t believe in those political ideologies, how can they educate their students?”
The bimonthly also revealed that the Ministry of Education had added several publications regarding Xi’s doctrine to the latest teaching material and had started to compile reading resources for students.
A student from a military school in Shandong province told Bitter Winter, an online magazine focusing on religious freedom and human rights in mainland China, that Xi’s speeches had become a required study in their political course and that if they failed the course, they would be unable to graduate, join the party, find a job or get promoted.
The Nikkei Asian Review also reported that the curriculum change seemed to be in preparation for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party next year.
As of June, 92,000 people were teaching ideological and political subjects in mainland universities. Among them, 15,300 were new recruits after Xi held a seminar in March last year in which he extolled such courses as “an important guarantee for training future generations to be well prepared to join the socialist cause,” state-run newspaper China Daily reported.
Click here for Chinese version
Students of leading universities in mainland China must start to take an extra course to read the political ideology of Chinese President Xi Jinping alongside Marxism and Maoism, two other mandatory subjects imposed in one of the world’s communist strongholds.
Peking University and Tsinghua University, Xi’s alma mater, were among 37 institutes that had introduced into their curricula a compulsory two-credit course called “Introduction to Xi Jinping’s Thought of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era” in the new school year, which began in late September.
The Xi doctrine calls for a national transformation of China into a “great modern socialist country” when the country marks its 100th anniversary in 2049, envisions an army which is on a par with the United States military by mid-century and enshrines Xi as the core of the Communist Party.
Studying his ideological ideas meant interpreting “the thinking of a leader that has never been seen in Chinese history,” Hu Angang, dean of Tsinghua’s Institute for Contemporary China Studies, said last year.
The sudden addition to the university curricula came after an article published by Xi on Aug. 31, in which he emphasized the development of ideological and political education among schools and an education system overseen by the party’s leadership.
“I am concerned about classes on ideological and political education,” he wrote in the article posted on the party-run political theory periodical, Qiushi. “If teachers don’t believe in those political ideologies, how can they educate their students?”
The bimonthly also revealed that the Ministry of Education had added several publications regarding Xi’s doctrine to the latest teaching material and had started to compile reading resources for students.
A student from a military school in Shandong province told Bitter Winter, an online magazine focusing on religious freedom and human rights in mainland China, that Xi’s speeches had become a required study in their political course and that if they failed the course, they would be unable to graduate, join the party, find a job or get promoted.
The Nikkei Asian Review also reported that the curriculum change seemed to be in preparation for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party next year.
As of June, 92,000 people were teaching ideological and political subjects in mainland universities. Among them, 15,300 were new recruits after Xi held a seminar in March last year in which he extolled such courses as “an important guarantee for training future generations to be well prepared to join the socialist cause,” state-run newspaper China Daily reported.
Click here for Chinese version
