Newly compiled College Chinese

Author: Wang Yujie, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2006-10-01
Features: Cultivating well-rounded individuals is the goal of educational reform and development in countries around the world today, as well as an inevitable choice for China's education to face modernization, the world, and the future. College Chinese is a humanities and foundation course widely offered in Chinese higher education institutions, primarily teaching literary works with the aim of enhancing students' humanities and cultural literacy. Offering literature courses is also a common practice in higher education institutions worldwide for providing humanities and cultural education to students of all majors, serving as an effective way to comprehensively improve students' qualities. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, university Chinese was commonly offered in universities. In the early years after the founding, it remained a compulsory course for first-year students. However, by 1952, during a nationwide reorganization of academic departments, the Soviet model was blindly adopted, separating liberal arts, sciences, and engineering, emphasizing technical education while neglecting quality-oriented education. As a result, university Chinese—a foundational discipline aimed at improving students' humanities and cultural literacy—was abolished. This was highly detrimental to cultivating well-rounded individuals. It can be said that this was an unwise decision that contradicted educational principles and societal development requirements.
After the reform and opening-up, in 1981, at the initiative of the "National College Chinese Research Association," universities such as Nanjing University and East China Normal University pioneered the reopening of university Chinese courses nationwide. Over the past two decades, hundreds of universities have used this course to provide humanities education and cultural heritage education, transforming students' knowledge structures, enhancing their literary appreciation skills, and improving their humanities and cultural literacy. Currently, to adapt education to societal development needs, China is transitioning from exam-oriented education to quality-oriented education. However, what role does university Chinese play in quality-oriented education, and what function does it fulfill? Fundamentally, this depends on the disciplinary characteristics and functions of university Chinese and their relationship to cultivating students' qualities, as well as our correct understanding of this objective "relationship." Only by correctly recognizing and accurately grasping the relationship between university Chinese and cultivating students' qualities, and reflecting this understanding in teaching, can we fully leverage university Chinese's unique role in quality-oriented education for college students.
The comprehensive development of individuals is a higher stage and ideal goal of human development, as well as a need for societal progress. Many great philosophers in history have regarded the comprehensive development of individuals as the fundamental purpose and ultimate goal of education. China's educational policy also aims to cultivate individuals with well-rounded moral, intellectual, physical, and aesthetic qualities. Cultivating well-rounded individuals relies on comprehensive education. Education is the means to transform, enhance, and perfect the spiritual world of individuals. The spiritual world is primarily composed of a cognitive system linked to intelligence, a will system connected to morality, and an emotional system tied to aesthetics.