MODERN CHINESE SCHOOL: TRADITIONS AND FOREIGN INFLUENCE

Abstract

The article is devoted to the development of the educational thought and the secondary education in China during the XIX - beginning of the XXI century. In the article, it is noted that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, China was characterized by its extreme isolation and strong resistance to any foreign influence. Confucianism had a considerable impact not only on public administration, but also on education in China and its norms of behavior whereas value orientations were accepted and turned into a symbol of “genuine Chinese.” Therefore, regardless of age and education, every Chinese person had to become a Confucian. The First Opium War (1839-1842) demonstrated the cultural and economic backwardness of China and stimulated the development of the education system, the emergence of educational institutions of the European type, the implementation of the class-lesson system. At the beginning of the twentieth century, an idea of pragmatism and free pedagogy had a considerable impact on Chinese schools and pedagogy. Since the second half of the twentieth century till contemporary times, various foreign educational ideas and concepts were actively studied, summarized and adapted in China. The pedagogical views of V. Sukhomlynsky, the Ukrainian teacher, were especially popular in this country.