Chapter 330 - The Great Debate on Education
Lu Jia couldn't read either—or rather, not all the characters. He was functionally semi-literate. But he had memorized the regulations in class, so he positioned his finger on the posted rules and recited them line by line, pretending to read.
Halfway through his performance, a gong sounded from outside. The children erupted in cheers: "Mealtime!" Judging by their enthusiasm, the food here was evidently worth anticipating.
There was no cafeteria. Everyone retrieved their bowls and chopsticks and queued at the kitchen window for their individual portions, then returned to the dormitory to eat. Fu Wuben stared at his tray. They were actually eating steamed rice. And a small fish. Boiled vegetables. A bit of egg scrambled with fish meal. His throat tightened. Back home, even during the busiest harvest season, meals like this were unimaginable.
"Three meals a day—one rice, two porridge. The food is excellent!"
When Fu Wuben reached the front of the line, the server paused. "New arrival? Let me see your plaque."
He squinted at the bamboo tag around Fu Wuben's neck. "Have you had diarrhea?"
"Mm, yes." Fu Wuben wondered what that had to do with getting food.
"Drink this." And so he choked down another dose of the bitter liquid he had been given during purification.
Once he finished, the cook added an extra fish cake to his tray.
"You're entitled to Recovery Rations for ten days!" The man chalked a few symbols on a wooden board.
"You even get Recovery Rations." Yuan Fei's envy was palpable. Such treatment was usually reserved for the genuinely ill.
"I was sick," Fu Wuben said. But his heart swelled, and for a moment he felt tears threatening. In eleven years of life, this was the first time anyone had truly cared about him as a person—not as a burden to be fed, not as half a laborer to be worked. Someone actually cared whether he was healthy.
Xiao Zishan rose particularly early that morning. He had skipped the previous night's banquet welcoming the circumnavigation expedition—by all accounts a legendary affair. Four People's Commissars had reportedly been carried out from beneath the table by evening's end. The Leizhou Sugar Company had shipped a massive quantity of rum fermented from molasses, and the liquor had flowed like water.
He stepped out of his office-cum-dormitory—most department heads preferred sleeping in their offices to the collective dormitory. An office wasn't necessarily more comfortable, particularly given the extra walk to the bathhouse each night, but it signified a certain status.
The dormitory occupancy rate had been declining steadily. Xiao Zishan recalled seeing the "Overnight Absence" roster from Fang Yijing, the dormitory administrator, only yesterday. Even excluding accidental overnights, more than thirty percent of residents now lived outside the dorm on a permanent basis. Some were migratory, rotating between the dorm and outside lodgings every few days.
Those not living in the dormitory obviously had somewhere else to go. Executive Committee administrative cadres mostly slept in their offices; military officers in their barracks, returning to the dorm only on weekends. Farm personnel, ensconced in their private cottages, had even less reason to emerge. Many under the Industrial and Energy Committee had taken up residence in their factories. As everyone's professional direction solidified, rest near one's workplace had become more attractive than returning to collective quarters.
This clustering might indicate high morale, but Xiao Zishan knew that if the trend continued, demands for individual housing allocations would soon follow.
Certain patterns were already visible. First: requests to the General Office for "Living Secretaries" had increased sharply, and BBS discussion threads on the topic were multiplying. Second: applications to take on "apprentices," "adopted sons," and "adopted daughters" had begun appearing. The Executive Committee had not yet opened "cross-gender adoption" except in a few special cases—otherwise, Xiao Zishan suspected, many would already be raising lolis.
Regardless, the transmigrators were scattering. If a major incident occurred, mustering forces could prove problematic. Xiao Zishan mulled over whether to raise this issue at the upcoming Executive Committee enlargement meeting as he pedaled a Type-28 heavy-duty bicycle toward the new school site—one of the Transmigration Group's priority projects. The National School was nearing completion.
Since the mainland orphan intake began, the transmigrators had prioritized cultivating successors from among the indigenous population. Adults, regardless of age cohort, inevitably carried the habits, mindsets, and values of the seventeenth century. No amount of indoctrination could erase every residue. The optimal approach was to start with children: shaping a new generation of laborers, soldiers, and administrators for the decades ahead.
This educational vision would first benefit the so-called "children within the system." They came from two sources: offspring of indigenous employees working for the transmigrators, and orphans collected from the mainland and locally. The latter were especially prized as cultivation targets. Their backgrounds were clean; they had no family entanglements to complicate loyalties or influence behaviors. They regarded the transmigrators who had rescued them from misery as saviors and gods.
Over the past half-year, the Transmigration Group had established an array of educational models: night schools promoted in rural areas; the Rural Cadre Training Institute run by Du Wen; literacy programs administered through quarantine camps; military-political schools organized by the Army and administration; Health Schools under the Ministry of Health; National Schools for orphans; and finally, the Industrial and Energy Committee's "Apprentice Corps" vocational track.
Most of these efforts lacked proper facilities. Aside from the Training Institutes, which repurposed dilapidated temples, almost none had dedicated classrooms. Children received their lessons in open-air courtyards; on rainy days they did homework and recited lessons in dormitories. Under such conditions, all education to date amounted to little more than literacy training. Continuing indefinitely in this manner was not viable.
The proliferation of parallel programs had also created administrative chaos. Zhou Dongtian found himself bewildered when trying to print textbooks—every department seemed intent on developing its own curriculum. The Executive Committee decided to consolidate all educational initiatives and pool resources.
As with every policy question, the issue of how to structure the education system had split the transmigrators into factions. Dr. Zhong Lishi, ever passionate about such debates, proposed a plan first. Naturally, it was also the most ambitious.
Education would be divided into Public Schools and Private Schools. Private schools, self-funded and self-administered, would face no curricular mandates beyond Mandarin and basic arithmetic; however, the government would use administrative and economic incentives to encourage adoption of standardized textbooks. Attending public school would be free—taxes being collected as usual—while private school tuition could earn discretionary tax reductions.
Children would enter school at seven, progressing through five years of primary school, three years of junior high, and two years of senior high. Ten years of compulsory education total. High achievers would sit for university entrance examinations; public universities would charge no fees. Non-registered auditors could attend lectures free of charge. Graduates would be selected for government positions based on merit. The government would establish various free literacy programs. Teachers would be honored as paragons of society, enjoying exceptional social prestige.
...
Hu Qingbai, People's Commissar for Education, immediately objected: "Let us revisit this plan when we have established the 'Republic of Haibei' and can exercise sovereign authority over the entire island. For now, we should concentrate on universal literacy and adult education."
Everyone agreed the proposal was too luxurious. Finding sufficient teachers in the short term alone presented an insoluble problem. Then, inevitably, another luxurious plan emerged—this one championed primarily by Army and Navy officers. They cared little for basic schooling but seized the opportunity to advocate for military education.
"Given the severe situation facing our Transmigration Government, all education must be militarized!" Zhang Berlin used the term without hesitation. "Whatever system is adopted, military training courses are essential! Simultaneously, we should establish Army Junior Schools, Army Officer Schools..." His enthusiasm was boundless. "Ultimately, an Army War College!"
"The Navy demands equivalent treatment," Li Haiping interjected. Whatever the Army received, the Navy must have too.
"Hongpai Port Naval Officer School!"
"Hongpai Naval Academy!" Internal disagreement over the naming had already begun for an institution that existed nowhere but in imagination.
"Pah, you Hanjian," someone sneered. "Planning to sing the Warship March next?"
"The copyright on Warship March belongs to this officer!"
"Then may 'Your Excellency' achieve an early Gyokusai for the Senate."
...
The military academies proposed by Army and Navy immediately triggered a rush of departmental demands. The Ministry of Health wanted a Health School. Wu Nanhai wanted an Agricultural School. The Prospecting Team wanted a Geology School. The proposals multiplied wildly.
"Enough!" Wen Desi cut through the clamor. "This isn't a BBS thread where you can toss out anything that sounds fancy. Keep your eyes on reality. Stop painting pies in the sky."
"In my view," Ma Qianzhu said, "we should focus for now on literacy classes and basic teacher training. Add a simple Cadre Training Institute. That's sufficient." His pragmatism was unvarnished. "First, we need not concern ourselves with universal education in Lingao—that's not our responsibility. We need only cultivate basic applied talent for the Transmigration Group's immediate needs. Soldiers who can write and perform arithmetic up to a hundred are adequate. At most, engineers and artillerymen should understand the four operations plus elementary geometry. Requirements for ordinary workers need not exceed those for soldiers. Administrative cadres should know some abacus work..."
"Objection!" Dr. Zhong interrupted. "Shipyard riveters alone need high-school-level solid geometry. How can workers from mere literacy classes master such techniques?"
"Illiterates can still become excellent workers. At most, they attend night school to patch their education." Ma Qianzhu was unmoved. "At the enterprise where my elders worked, many skilled industrial workers were illiterate before Liberation. A little post-Liberation night schooling, and they excelled."
Dr. Zhong remained unconvinced. "That is a low-level application of empiricism. Adequate temporarily, perhaps. But what happens as industry advances? Technology develops continuously. We cannot remain static."