Chinese President Xi Jinping is reshaping political education across China’s more than 283,000 primary and secondary schools for a new era. Textbooks are getting a larger dose of Communist Party lore, including glorified tales about the party’s fights against foreign invaders like Japan. Schools are adding courses on traditional medicine and Confucian thought to highlight China’s achievements as a civilization. In a directive issued in 2016, the CCP ordered schools to intensify efforts to promote “Chinese traditional and socialist culture” — a mix of party loyalty and patriotic pride in China’s past.  Some parents and educators are, however, reported to be critical of these measures as they view political indoctrination as an anachronism in an era when China’s more than 181 million schoolchildren need a modern education in math, science and liberal arts to get ahead. A study, based on the results of a 2010 national opinion survey, found that the “incessant ideological indoctrination by the Chinese government turns out to be counterproductive,” with trust in the government actually falling among those who received higher levels of education. In August 2017, the Chinese Ministry of Education began issuing new textbooks in history, language, law and ethics across primary and secondary schools. The new books include studies of 40 revolutionary heroes, writings by revolutionary leader Mao Zedong like his 1944 speech “Serve the People” and lessons on China’s territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea, a pillar of Mr. Xi’s foreign policy. Anti-Japanese sentiment also features prominently. The government has set up 231 'Red Army schools' as models for its approach. At some Red Army schools, students wear military uniforms around campus. Xi Jinping, himself the son of a Communist revolutionary, has hailed Red Army schools as a model for the nation. According to records quoted by New York Times on October 16, Xi Jinping and his mother, Qi Xin, have given the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars to the schools, records show. A Red Army school in northwestern China is also named for Xi Zhongxun, father of Xi Jinping. The CCP sees the schools, which serve tens of thousands of students in its former revolutionary bases in 28 provinces, as charity projects that help the most disadvantaged children. Xi Jinping himself has become a part of the curriculum and several times a week, the school’s more than 1,400 students line up in the cement-paved courtyard to sing an ode to the “Chinese dream”. The ode is:

Chinese dream for 1,000 years,

Chinese dream for 100 years,

The dream carries on, the dream embraces all,

For the revival of China, for the revival of China!