The People's Education Press (PEP; ) is the oldest publishing house of the

Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China The Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China is a constituent department of the State Council, responsible for basic education, vocational education, higher education, and other educational affairs throughout the country. Th ...

. It was founded on December 1, 1950, and the name was inscribed by

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...

in his own handwriting. The main tasks are of researching, compiling, publishing, and distributing teaching materials for elementary education of the country. Up to 2023, PEP has compiled and published twelve sets of national primary and secondary school textbooks, as well as many books for international Chinese language learners.

History

On December 1, 1950, the People's Education Press was formally established, with its name written by

Chairman Mao Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...

personally. The first president and editor-in-chief of the press was

Ye Shengtao Ye Shengtao (28 October 1894 – 16 February 1988) also known as Ye Shaojun, was a Chinese writer, journalist, educator, publisher and politician. He was a founder of the Association for Literary Studies (), the first literature association dur ...

. During

the Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

from 1966 to 1976, the People's Education Press was forced to stop working, primary and secondary school textbooks were compiled and published by provinces and cities instead. In 1983, the Curriculum and Teaching Materials Research Institute was established, with its name written by

Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping also Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Teng Hsiao-p'ing; born Xiansheng (). (22 August 190419 February 1997) was a Chinese statesman, revolutionary, and political theorist who served as the paramount leader of the People's R ...

. In September 2005, People's Education Press moved to a nearly 50,000 square meter building located in

Zhongguancun Zhongguancun ( Chinese: 中关村) is a major technology hub in the Haidian District, Beijing, China. Zhongguancun occupies a band between the northwestern Third Ring Road and the northwestern Fourth Ring Road in the northwestern part of Bei ...

. On December 18, 2010, the "China Education Publishing and Media Group" was established, and People's Education Press became a core member of the group. On May 5, 2018,

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. ( zh, s=腾讯, p=Téngxùn) is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimed ...

and People’s Education Press officially signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Beijing. On November 29, 2020,

Xi Jinping Xi Jinping, pronounced (born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has been the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (China), chairman of the Central Military Commission ...

wrote back to some retirees of the People’s Education Press, extending his greetings and urging efforts to create high quality teaching materials. As of 2023, the People's Education Press has compiled, researched and published twelve sets of national primary and secondary school textbooks and multiple sets of vocational education textbooks and normal college textbooks. And in 2023, there were more than 1,300 employees. The People's Education Research Institute was established in the same year.

Main publications

Books

The publications of People's Education Press include: * Compulsory education textbooks * Compulsory education curriculum standard experimental textbooks * General high school textbooks * General high school curriculum standard experimental textbooks * Extracurricular reading materials for primary and secondary school students * Teaching materials and supplementary teaching materials for Chinese as a foreign language * Teaching materials and supplementary teaching materials for vocational schools * Teaching materials for normal colleges For international students, there include: * Standard Chinese, Happy Chinese, Learn Chinese with Me, Mastering Chinese; *Chinese Readers and Library of Chinese Classics Laozi. Chinese Picture Dictionary and International Chinese Learner's Dictionary; International Chinese Teaching Material Theory; BCT Standard Course and Official Examination Papers of HSK as exam guidebooks, and so on.

Audiovisual products

People's Education Press has published a large number of audiovisual products for basic education, such as "Standard Chinese (Revised Edition)", "Oriental Fairy Tale Mathematics - Creative Thinking for the Future", and "Standard Japanese for Sino-Japanese Communication", "English for Junior High School Listening and Speaking", etc. On January 31, 2000, the books "Establishment for Generations - Deng Xiaoping and Education in the People's Republic of China" (VCD), "Garfield's Adventures in China" (Videotape), and "Junior High School Chemistry" (Videotape) published by People's Education Electronic Audio-visual Publishing House won the first "National Audio-visual Product Award".

Related events

*In May 2022, a reader pointed out that the illustration style of the mathematics textbook used by People's Education Press since 2012 was weird, the characters in the illustrations all had small and wide-set eyes, their facial features were seriously unbalanced, their eyes were dull, and there were characters with crooked mouth, tongue sticking out and in bunny girl outfit, which sparked heated discussions on the Internet. After a three-month investigation, the Chinese Ministry of Education announced penalties for 27 people, including the editor-in-chief. The illustrations of the math textbooks have been recreated.

References