China wants to raise the moral standards of its 367 million
youth.
A plan, released Monday by the Chinese Communist Party Central
Committee and the State Council, includes publicity campaigns,
educational reforms and investment in projects for people under
18.
The government plans to launch publicity campaigns to teach
primary and middle school students to value life, say no to drugs,
advocate science and civilization and oppose superstition. It
promises efforts to correct and help minors with poor records of
conduct.
At the same time, resolute measures will be taken to reform
curriculum, textbooks and teaching methods to reduce the academic
burden on primary and middle school students, while putting more
emphasis on their ideological and moral make-up, their spirit of
innovation and capacity to practice.
The plan also calls for greater efforts to ensure the right to
education of the children of the country's 100 million migrant
workers.
Large cities will be expected gradually to set up public venues
for young people at the city, district and community levels. Medium
and small cities will be required to concentrate their efforts on
building city-level public venues for them.
Every county should have a comprehensive and multifunctional
public venue for young people in three to five years, according to
the plan. The central government will offer financial subsidies to
central, western and other poor areas for construction of these
venues. It will also develop policies to encourage private
investment in them.
The government will also increase support for the production and
screening of China-made animated films. Internet portals are urged
to develop a better understanding of their social
responsibility.
The document calls for tougher measures to censor game software
aimed at young people, checking for those with content that may
induce young people to violate the law.
Regulations that forbid youth under the age of 18 to enter
commercial Internet bars and that require terminals at those bars
have filtering software barring pornographic and other unhealthy
information will be implemented to the letter.
The plan also calls for improvement in the administration of
public entertainment venues, electronic gaming halls and other
social and cultural venues. Areas within 200 meters of primary and
middle schools are to be free of commercial Internet bars and
electronic gaming venues.
(China Daily March 23, 2004)