The People’s Daily published four more commentaries between September 15 and 19, 2018, on Xi Jinping’s speech at the National Education Conference held in Beijing on September 10, 2018 where Xi Jinping stressed that “our education must treat cultivating the builders and successors of socialism as its fundamental mission” and “lead the students to love and support the CCP and to be determined in listening to and following the Party.” The third commentary of the series (Sept 15) highlighted the six aspects that Xi Jinping emphasized in his speech, namely consolidating ideals and beliefs, enhancing patriotism, reinforcing morality, increasing knowledge and experience, fostering the spirit of struggle, and strengthening comprehensive quality. It stressed that the people cultivated must “establish a common ideal for communism and socialism with Chinese characteristics” and “never forget that they are Chinese.” The fourth commentary (Sept 16) emphasized the importance of “building a team of high-quality and professional teachers.” It said it is necessary to “expand teachers’ cultural perspectives and increase their comprehensive quality” and make them “disseminators of advanced thoughts and cultures, firm supports of the Party’s ruling, and guides for students’ healthy growth." The next commentary (Sept 17) stressed that “the key tasks for deepening reforms in the education system must be firmly implemented to carry forward vigorously the innovation of education system reform.” It emphasised the need to overcome the “pernicious diseases” of only focusing on scores, diplomas, and theses and to “increase education’s ability to serve the development of the economy and the society.” The sixth commentary (Sept 18) called for maintaining “the Party’s comprehensive leadership over education.” It emphasized that “ideological and political leadership matter above all else” in accomplishing this task. To this end, the article declared that “education departments and Party organizations at all levels and types of schools must… consciously maintain a high-level of uniformity with the Party Central Committee in political position, orientation, principles, and path.”
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