Schools check foreign textbooks

Survey coming at the request of education ministry

Several universities in Beijing have recently launched an accelerated check of the usage of overseas original textbooks after receiving a notice from the Ministry of Education, the Beijing Youth Daily reported Tuesday.

"Overseas original textbooks" refer to textbooks published overseas, written in foreign languages with their photocopy rights being introduced to China, or translated textbooks whose copyright has been introduced into China, according to the ministry's notice.

"I saw the notice on March 10 and was required to submit the material the next day," the newspaper quoted a teacher of social sciences at a Beijing-based university as saying.

Another law professor also said that he has received a notice, which ordered them to fill out a questionnaire and a form about the usage of foreign textbooks "honestly."

Education Minister Yuan Guiren said in January at a meeting about ideological education in colleges that no textbooks that "preach Western values" should be allowed to enter the classrooms.

Yuan also said that college classrooms should forbid any comments that attack the leadership of the Communist Party of China or smear socialism, any speeches that break the Constitution and the laws, or any ventilation of complaints and grievances in classes.

The same notice has also been delivered to many provincial education departments including Jilin, Anhui, Guizhou and Hainan.

According to the official website of the Anhui Provincial Education Department, six universities in Anhui, including two of the province's top schools, were required to fill out and submit the questionnaire and form before March 11. The notice was later deleted.

"We have received the notice and submitted the material," a teacher with a surveyed university in Hefei told the Global Times Tuesday on condition of anonymity.

The ministry's original notice, the questionnaire and the form are available on the website of the Anhui education department.

According to the original notice released by the ministry on March 3, local education departments need to submit a report before March 13 analyzing the usage of and problems with foreign textbooks. The provinces have to select five schools to submit materials, including high-ranking, middle-ranked and privately-run universities.

"The report should be objective, truthful with specific data, and include specific cases," said the notice.

The survey requests information on foreign original textbooks, the types of courses in which they are used, the proportion of all courses these classes account for, channels through which the textbooks were purchased and the systems schools used to approve the textbooks.

The main targets of the questionnaire are social sciences and the humanities, with a list of seven specific majors that includes journalism and communications, economics and sociology.