| Sumario: | After 1949, the Chinese government built a massive adult education system—based largely in factories and rural communes—that at times enrolled more students than the entire regular education system for youth. This paper focuses on one part of this system—adult schools inside factories. These schools provided workers with education and technical training, but were also designed to train workers to replace incumbent factory managers, diminish class differences based on education, and reduce the gap between those who labored with their minds and those who labored with their hands. Mao Zedong emphasized these radical goals as he pushed for the rapid expansion of factory-based schools, especially during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Although these radical goals were eventually abandoned, state-owned factories continued to run schools for employees well into the post-Mao era, until the industrial restructuring process that began in the 1990s. This paper considers the causes of the rise and fall of China's factory-based education system based on official publications and interviews with factory leaders and workers, including many who participated in these schools.
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