Adult literacy and literacy education have long been a global agenda. China's literacy education has been developing amid the backdrop of international commitments and goals of adult literacy. Since the founding of new China in 1949, adult literacy policy in China has been continuously evolved within the changing political, economic and social…

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of illiteracy on physical health and mental health. Design: Matching methods (nearest neighbour matching, Mahalanobis metric matching, and propensity score matching). Setting: Elderly people at least 65 years old in 22 provinces of China. Methods: The analysis used data from Chinese…

Sustainability has been incorporating multiculturalism in music education (MME) for decades, but the dialogs of MME in China has always focused on school education, neglecting community-based music education. The cultural-political context of this study is in Xijiang, southwest China, where is a Miao-dominated community integrating Miao, Han and…

Healthy life expectancy (HLE) is an emerging field in aging studies. Nevertheless, understanding of HLE from the perspective of socioeconomic status (SES) is inadequate. To fill this gap, the present study explores differences in HLE by SES based on two nationally representative longitudinal databases in China. The study adopts education as a…

After Deng Xiaoping's 1978 reform and opening, foreigners had a chance to see adult education in China. As a result, many met Yao Zhongda, Chief of the Bureau of Workers' and Peasants Education. From 1921 onwards, adult education has been a vital corollary of Communist revolution. Although Yao's biography was extremely relevant to what foreigners…

The Chinese state sees language as an essential determinant in ethnic minority schooling. The use of minority language as a medium of instruction is viewed as a way to increase attendance rates and strengthen socialization into a national ideology. However, the policies differ for those ethnic minorities with or without a commonly used written…

Education is recognized to be a key factor of economic development, not only giving access to technological progress as emphasized by the Schumpeterian growth theory, but also entailing numerous social externalities such as the demographic transition (Murtin, 2009) or democratization (Murtin and Wacziarg, 2010). If the evolution of world…

As a collaborative effort of the Center for American Progress and The Center for the Next Generation, this report examines where the United States is today and how that compares with two of its fiercest competitors for the jobs and thought leadership of the future, China and India. This report shows that their governments have embarked on…

Edgar Snow scored an extraordinary scoop in 1936 when he persuaded Mao Zedong to tell his story. The resulting book--"Red Star Over China"--was a best-seller in the West and translated editions caused a sensation in China. Adult education was the centrepiece of Communist revolution and featured prominently in Red Star. It is now the…

Literacy efforts in China have the following characteristics: (1) awareness of the necessity to eliminate illiteracy; (2) active participation of all levels; (3) combination of literacy education with skills acquisition; (4) emphasis on efficiency; and (5) compulsory schooling and prevention and follow-up efforts among the young. (SK)

Although efforts to combat illiteracy in the Arab world began several decades ago, the illiteracy rate in Arab countries is one of the highest in the world, as there are more than 70 million illiterate people in Arab countries. By contrast, many countries in the world have succeeded in eradicating adult illiteracy within a few decades. The study…

Describes the Chinese effort to eliminate adult illiteracy. The author discusses purposes of adult education, history of adult literacy education, adult illiteracy statistics, the design of literacy education, curriculum construction, teaching methods, evaluation of the literacy education process, impact of literacy education, and implications of…

Lack of access to basic education leads to diminished individual and national capabilities, therewith furthering cycles of poverty. An equitable education system meeting basic learning needs represents not only a human right, but also a means for reducing poverty, promoting productivity, and sustaining development. The Government of China--the…

Advocating the literacy campaign as the most appropriate and adequate means for dealing with large-scale illiteracy, this book presents eight case studies of national campaigns as examples and illustrations of this approach. The book notes that mass literacy campaigns are not the exclusive province of any particular ideology, but are possible…

Examines statistics on minority illiteracy from the 1990 Chinese national census across age groups in relation to China's changing language policy among three types of minority communities: those with writing systems of historically broad usage; those with historically limited usage; and those without functional writing systems. (Author/VWL)