Study Sources 1 and 2 before you answer this question.
Source 1: From 'New China's First Quarter Century', an English-language propaganda booklet, published in China, 1975. The booklet outlines the achievements of Mao's China in a variety of different economic and social areas, including education.
The revolution in education, started during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, is still going on throughout this country. What has been undertaken is the transformation of the old educational system in the light of Chairman Mao's teachings: education must serve proletarian politics and be combined with productive labour. Before, students were shut up in their classrooms. They had little idea how workers and peasants worked. They had no practice in working with their hands, their heads being crammed with formulae and equations. Such students failed to meet the requirements of socialist revolution. Now students, in the course of receiving education, make a useful contribution to society and state. More importantly, while working together with workers and peasants, the students begin to understand and draw near to the labouring people and learn how to work in their service.
The university enrolment system has been changed. Universities take students from among outstanding workers, peasants and soldiers with some years of practical work behind them, on recommendation by the masses and approval by local leaders. This removes the 'book-knowledge first' criterion, which has unfairly barred the labouring people and their sons and daughters from entering the universities. The educational revolution has achieved notable success. The first worker-peasant-soldier students have graduated. Highly conscious politically, they have a vocational experience far above that of old university graduates. They have co-operated with factories and mines, undertaking projects before graduation.
Source 2: From an interview given by Xu Xinhua in 1996. Xu had been a high school student in Shanghai when the Cultural Revolution began in 1966. He was working in China as a head teacher when he was interviewed by researchers from an American university.
To me and to the rest of my generation the Cultural Revolution meant not only ten years of turmoil and personal hardship. I went from school to the countryside in 1968. I wasn't given much choice. My two elder brothers had jobs in Shanghai, so that meant I would have to be a peasant. I travelled north believing that hardship is the best way to build character. We students did bring some change to the countryside. You can't say we didn't contribute. I went all out in my work so that I could become a 'Model Education Youth'. I come from a working-class family. In school I had been an average student.
In 1972, universities and colleges started recruiting worker-peasant-soldier students. I thought that my best bet was to work hard so that I could get a recommendation for university. I was nominated to study at university; my parents were very happy because I was the first from our family to go. I'd earned this place for myself. I studied physics. Education then didn't stress academic excellence. But our training wasn't completely worthless. We were expected to solve many practical problems. One-third of our study time was spent in factories, working with production teams. I thought it was a good way to learn. I only wish I'd had more years of study.
How far could the historian make use of Sources 1 and 2 together to investigate the impact of the Cultural Revolution on education in China?
Explain your answer, using both sources, the information given about them and your own knowledge of the historical context.
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