China-Vietnam: notes on population and the development of school programmes for population education
Fraser, S.E.
Comparative Education Review 20(2): 253-263
1984
ISSN/ISBN: 0010-4086 PMID: 12339616 DOI: 10.2307/3098568Document Number: 250397
Recently introduced population education programs in the school cirriculum in China, a country with a vigorous population policy and in Viet Nam, a country with a less vigorous population policy, were described and compared. Although the 2 countries have vast demographic differences they both face the prospect of supporting large populations by the year 2000. Estimated annual growth rates are 1.4% for China and 2.2% for Vietnam. Both countries have considerable regional differences in growth patterns and both have large minority populations. Population policy in China emphasizes a 1-child family while current Viet Nam policy stresses a 2-child family. In China the male to female ratio was 106:100 in 1982 and Viet Nam the ratio was 94.2:100 in 1979. In 1979 both countries were about equal in the degree to which population issues were dealt with in the school curriculum. Since that time, China has developed and implemented a new and comprehensive population education curriculum while Viet Nam has only entered the planning stage for the development of a comprehensive program. Both countries are receiving assistance from the UN for Population Activities. Beginning in mid 1970, China instituted an unsystematic curriculum which stressed social hygiene, late marriage, and family planning, but in 1981 a comprehensive population education curriculum was developed for secondary students, and this curriculum is now being implemented on an experimental basis in selected schools in several cities. The course provides information on population theory, population growth, the relationship between population growth and modernization, birth control, and population planning. The Beijing Institute of Education is developing teaching materials for use in the courses. Its first publication was a 57 page textbook providing straight foward information on sexual intercourse and contraception. Viet Nam still lacks a systematically developed program. Despite opposition on the part of provincial authorities and some teachers, some attempts have been made to provide population information in a number of different disciplines in accordance with a thematic approach. Recently the Ministry of Education Commission on Population Education developed a plan for the administrative framework needed to develop a population education curriculum. The proposal includes the establishment of a National Population and Family Planning Commission to guide population activities. Only some of the recommendations of the Ministry of Education Commisson on Population Education have thus far been implemented.