China Bans Foreign Textbooks at Primary & Middle Schools

By Bridget O'Donnell, January 9, 2020

This article originally appeared on our sister website, Urban Family Shanghai.

Textbooks imported from foreign countries will be banned at primary and middle schools across China, according to new regulations issued by the Ministry of Education on Tuesday.

Sixth Tone reports that under the new regulations, primary and middle schools, as well as vocational institutions, must use the country’s unified teaching materials for Chinese language, history and politics. Furthermore, editors and authors of the textbooks will be required to align their political stances with the Communist Party of China.

The regulations also stipulate that a new system will be put into place to review textbooks for primary and middle schools. Schools will be required to use materials selected by provincial education administrative departments. Books that have not been reviewed will be forbidden from being published or selected for classrooms.

Notably, the new regulations exclude international high schools, international programs at local high schools, universities and secondary vocational schools, as reported by The Paper. Domestic materials “aren’t sufficient to meet teaching demands” of such institutions, according to the ministry.

While these schools will be allowed to use overseas teaching materials, they’ll still be encouraged to include textbooks from Chinese publishers in their curriculums.

The move comes after the ministry announced a similar crackdown on foreign teaching materials in schools in late 2018. The previous campaign called for a nationwide inspection of educational teaching materials used in elementary and middle schools.

[Cover image via Pexels]

This article was originally published by our sister magazine Urban Family Shanghai. For more articles like this, visit the Urban Family website, or follow the Urban Family WeChat account (ID: urbanfamilyshanghai).