Cultivating a nation of loyal innovators

For Xi Jinping, teachers are engaged in a political struggle for the country's future.

On Saturday, the Party’s top theoretical journal, Qiushi, published excerpts of a 2018 Xi speech on the importance of education.

• The publication comes ahead of China’s very own Teachers’ Day, on September 10.

Xi vividly lays out the challenge:

• “Various hostile forces have never ceased their efforts to implement strategies of Westernization and division against our country…[focusing on] the battle for our youth.”

For Xi, the education system is where the struggle is won or lost:

• “Our education must never cultivate those who would destroy socialism or become its gravediggers.”
• “[Instead, it must] prioritize cultivating socialist builders and successors.”

Xi says education is about acquiring knowledge, but also about reinforcing Party rule:

• “We must educate and guide students to love and support the CPC, listen to the Party’s words…[and] follow the Party.”

Get smart: The Party wants teachers to cultivate a nation of innovators – yet too much emphasis on ideological conformity and Party loyalty will stifle the creative freedom necessary to achieve this.