Schools should do more to foster a sense of citizenship in students, a member of Beijing municipal committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) has said.
"Our children should be taught to become socially responsible citizens instead of teachers' nodding students," said Li Jiangzhou, who is also headmaster of Beijing's No. 19 Middle School, in the political consultative meeting.
"We should consider renaming the politics course as the citizenship course and adding necessary legal knowledge. Then they would, when entering society, know their rights, duties and responsibilities."
Student should be the fundamental element in the education process and their personalities and dignity should be fully respected, he said.
Teachers should foster and shape their independent personalities, given the universal economic market environment, added Li.
"Training qualified citizens is a hard job that all society should cooperate in and a sense of citizenship should be considered an important part of the construction of advanced culture and political civilization," said Yuan Jixi, also a conference member and professor of the People's University.
(People's Daily January 15, 2003)
