CHINA-INTERNAL: IDEOLOGICAL EDUCATION IN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

China’s top universities have set up Communist Party departments to oversee the political thinking of their teaching staff after the colleges were criticised as part of the government’s tightening of ideological control on campuses. The Central Discipline Inspection Commission (CDIC) last week published “rectification reports” on eight top-tier universities it inspected this year. Seven of them have set up a “teachers’ affairs department” under their Communist Party committees to improve “ideological and political work” among teaching staff. The inspection teams toured 29 of the best universities across mainland China, including the prestigious Peking University and Tsinghua University in Beijing, for a “political check-up” earlier this year. Some universities were criticised after the months-long inspections for their weakness in promoting ideology, while party committees were also chastised for weak leadership and failing to toe the party line.

Dalian University of Technology in Liaoning province has pledged to make annual training plans to improve the ideological and political education of teachers. Beijing Normal University said the “virtues” of teachers, which include their ideological and political thinking, were included in their appraisals this year. All universities and colleges in China are under the control of a party committee, which oversees party affairs on campus and the running of the schools. Most committees already have two departments supervising undergraduate and graduate students to monitor their ideological and political thinking. The inclusion of teaching staff for supervision under the party committee is the latest move by the authorities to tighten ideological control on campuses.

(Comment: The CCP issued instructions four years ago enforcing and tightening ideological controls on academic institutions across China.) 







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