• Main Reason for Decline: The Cultural Revolution.
• 1966-1970: 130 million youngsters stopped school/university.
• Effect on Education's Image
  • Education's value = undermined.
  • Attack and ridicule on teachers by students.
  • Traditional learning = thrown out.
  • Education = valuable ONLY if it served the revolution.

🌍 Real-world Example: It's like if suddenly schools across the world told students that textbooks were uncool and that only listening to a specific type of music would get you A's. Chaos ensues!

• Result: Young people weren’t being prepared for a modern state. Instead, Mao sent 12 million youngsters to the countryside instead of back to school (called "up to the mountains and down to the villages").

• What Were They?
  • Initiated by Mao Zedong in 1966.
  • Schools teaching "dignity of labour" by making attendees work on farms.
  • Goal = Learn how peasants lived.

🎈 Fun Fact: Think of it as "Survivor: Mao Edition". Instead of island challenges, you'd be farming and surviving the rough life!

• Reality of These Schools:
  • Nearly identical to labor camps.
  • Life = hard; average "education" term was two years but could be longer.
    • 1000 schools across 18 provinces.
  • Held 100,000 high-ranking cadres and even more for lower-ranking officials.
  • Deng Xiaoping, a future leader, was an inmate here.
  • "Intellectuals" purged in the Cultural Revolution = sent here.
  • Issues = suicides and deaths from malnutrition.
  • Closed down post 1971, especially after Lin Biao's death. None existed by 1976.