Primary and junior high school students will get new versions (版本) of textbooks this fall term.
The biggest changes will take place in Chinese textbooks. The primary goal is to include more traditional(传统的) Chinese culture. For example, ideas on the hundred schools of thought (诸子百家) will be introduced to students. There will also be more classical Chinese poems and essays (文章). The percentage(百分率) of traditional culture in the new textbooks will be raised to 30 percent for primary school students and 40 percent for junior high school students. Meanwhile, about 15 percent of the content (内容) will be taken out in order to make students have less work.
The Language and Culture Press will publish the new Chinese textbooks. It makes one of the main versions of the present textbooks in China. First, the new books will be given to more than 4 million students in the first and seventh grades across the country starting this fall, and then they will be given to other grades.
Also, politics (政治) textbooks will get new names. Primary school politics textbooks were called “morality and life (品德与生活)”, and those for junior high schools were called “ideology and morality (思想品德)”. This year, the names of all politics textbooks for the first and seventh grades will change to “morality and law (道德与法治)”.
It's the first time the word “law” will be included in the names of textbooks since 1949. “We need to let kids know that laws protect them as well as how they do that,” said Li Xiaodong, sociology (社会学) professor at Beijing Normal University.
No more than six words
