China adds Beijing’s positive Covid narrative to school curriculum

China is planning to add government-endorsed content about the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and its “fighting spirit” into the national curriculum.  

The Ministry of Education said the content will be added to elementary and middle school classes in biology, health and physical education, history, and Chinese literature, and will “help students understand the basic fact that the Party and the state always put the life and safety of its people first”.

“Students will learn about key figures and deeds which emerged during the epidemic prevention and control efforts. They will learn to foster public awareness and dedication, to enrich knowledge about the advantages of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics,” the ministry said.

The ministry said the new elements of the curriculum will emphasise the country’s newfound knowledge in outbreak prevention and control, and “the spirit of fighting the pandemic”.  

The statement from the government came in response to a proposal aired by the National People’s Congress which advocated that the country’s response to Covid-19 should be incorporated in the school syllabus, state owned-media outlet Sixth Tone reported.

The Chinese authorities faced a domestic backlash for its initial attempts to cover up the mounting evidence of the emergence of Covid-19, even punishing health workers who tried to inform the authorities.  

Since then, the government has presented its efforts as hugely successful in containing the novel virus.  

In June, China released a report denying the accusations of a cover-up and praising itself for launching a “resolute battle to prevent and control its spread”.  

However, a US intelligence report has said that local officials in Wuhan kept early warning signs about the virus from reaching the broader Chinese government for weeks, slowing the nation’s ability to respond to the virus before it began to spread.  

US officials claimed that local officials withholding information from the central government is not uncommon. They said that local officials fear reprisals from Beijing for situations that might be viewed as failures.

China says it has largely contained the virus to sporadic outbreaks. Most recently, the country displayed its testing capacity after a 17-year-old tested positive for Covid-19 in a remote part of western China. Despite her having no symptoms, the authorities decided to test all 4.75 million residents of the city, in a drive that returned 137 positive – but all asymptomatic – results on 25 October.