10,000 Beijing U. Students Get Jolt: Summer Work in Country
About 10,000 Beijing University students--more than half the student body--will be sent to work in poverty-stricken areas during their summer vacations, official news reports said today.
The practice of sending students out to “integrate with the masses,” a traditional method of indoctrination and control in China’s schools, has been revived during the crackdown that followed student pro-democracy protests last winter in Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities.
Students will be sent to provinces including Shaanxi, Ningxia, Shandong and Anhui to help with local economic development, the New China News Service said.
During the monthlong Spring Festival vacation from mid-January to mid-February, tens of thousands of students from all over China were sent to work in the countryside, factories and army units.
The official press later printed comments from students who said they had learned during the work projects that government policies were correct and demonstrating was wrong.
The action revived memories of the 1966-76 extreme leftist Cultural Revolution during which tens of thousands of middle-school and college students were sent down to the countryside for indefinite periods to learn from the peasants.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
