Chinese students face more national defence education in drive to raise military awareness
Proposals being considered by China’s top legislative body, include the first significant updates to a law first adopted in 2001
Chinese schools must raise students’ awareness about military service by stepping up their national defence education, according to a new set of legislative amendments.
The proposed amendments, which are now under review by the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, included clauses about the contents of military training for students and military units’ obligations, China’s state media reported on Tuesday.
The standing committee, which is China’s top legislative body, began its four-day meeting in Beijing on Tuesday. Besides amendments to the National Defence Education Law, members are also reviewing amendments of the Supervision Law and the Statistics Law.
“National defence education in schools should be combined with teaching military service knowledge to enhance the students’ awareness of military service in accordance with the law and create a good atmosphere in which military service is considered honourable,” a draft published in state media said.
“The draft also improves provisions about the launching of education and training for reservists,” the reports said.
The draft said that military training for students must follow the manuals jointly written by education departments under the State Council and relevant units of the Central Military Commission, China’s top military decision-making body.
“The draft clearly stated that military training for ordinary university and senior high school students must follow the training manuals, improve training [of the students’] military skills, toughen their characters and quality, strengthen their organisational discipline and at the end achieve an improvement in their training,” the report said.
