China’s secondary school students are dropping history as an exam subject, a trend that could leave the public more vulnerable to distorted narratives in the future, an academic at a top university has warned.
The note of caution comes as Beijing steps up efforts to counter “historical nihilism” – the official term for narratives that contradict or undermine the state’s official historical line – as well as pseudo-history, such as claims that Ancient Greece did not exist.
“History education in secondary schools is an important means of preserving historical, cultural, ethnic and national identity,” said Liu Linhai, dean of the school of history at Beijing Normal University, in a commentary in the state-backed China Teacher Paper.
“Its current weakening and even marginalisation should be a matter of urgent concern for policymakers, who should take coordinated and effective measures to address the structural problems affecting the subject,” Liu wrote.
Authorities in China have become increasingly alert to challenges to the orthodox view of the country’s history.
On Thursday, a newspaper published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences ran two front-page pieces framing pseudo-history as a “new variant” of historical nihilism.
In a strongly worded editorial, Chinese Social Sciences Today warned that such narratives could sow confusion in society, threaten ideological security and undermine cultural confidence and national identity.
The second article, by two staff reporters, examined how claims that the Tang dynasty (618-907) never existed went viral – to highlight how influencers and traffic-driven social media algorithms could turn fringe theories into viral narratives.
They also mentioned the so-called “1644 historical perspective”, which has been seen as a particularly sensitive issue.
Central to this narrative is the view that China was prosperous and powerful under the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), whose rulers came from China’s majority Han ethnic group, and its decline began with the country’s conquest by the ethnic Manchus who established Qing rule in 1644.
By emphasising a historical break and blaming a specific ethnic group for China’s relative decline in that period, these narratives challenge the idea of China’s 5,000-year historical continuity, which Beijing uses today to cast itself as the inheritor of a long-unified, multi-ethnic nation.
Liu noted that the importance of history education had become more pronounced as the internet, social media and artificial intelligence transformed how historical knowledge was produced and consumed, warning that the rise of amateur historical research had fuelled the spread of inaccurate historical narratives online.
“A sound history education in secondary schools is extremely important,” Liu said.
“It is the foundation for ensuring that students acquire sound knowledge and correct values, and any measures that weaken or marginalise the subject could have serious consequences.”
Yet, while the need for a sound history education had grown, the subject had also come under greater pressure, he said.
China’s reforms to its highly competitive college entrance examination or gaokao had caused a “structural disruption” across secondary education, with history bearing the brunt, he noted.
Since 2014, reforms have sought to give students greater flexibility to choose subjects based on their interests and strengths by moving the exam away from its traditional science-humanities divide.
Under the new system, only Chinese, mathematics and English remain compulsory, while students can choose several additional science and humanities subjects that also contribute to their final score.
Although high school students were “theoretically free” to choose subjects based on their interests, Liu said their choices were constrained by the requirements of the zhongkao or high school entrance exam and the admission requirements of universities, limiting the flexibility envisioned by the reforms.
“The college entrance exam is a competitive selection examination, and students’ eventual choices tend to be rational and pragmatic,” he wrote.
He noted that the proportion of students choosing history had dropped sharply in most provinces and continued to fall each year, prompting a reduction in classroom hours for history teachers.
Chinese media reports have described similar consequences. Facing declining student numbers and reduced workloads, some middle-school history teachers have either had to start teaching other subjects or leave the profession.
Policy reforms had reduced the weight given to history in the high school entrance exam, with some provinces even excluding it altogether, making students less likely to prioritise the subject, Liu said.
“Without a solid foundation in history during junior high school, the subject may struggle to attract students in high school,” he noted.
In some provinces, students had to choose between history and physics, further squeezing history as relatively few university programmes required the subject, while physics was required for a much wider range of courses, he said.
According to the Southern Weekly newspaper, among those provinces, nearly half saw a roughly 7:3 split in favour of physics, with the ratio reaching 8:2 in some provinces.
Even students interested in history would opt for physics if they felt it would give them a better shot at a higher exam score, Liu added.
He stressed that a sound foundation in history had become all the more necessary today as “erroneous” views of history were proliferating.
Liu argued that policymakers should address the structural pressures facing history education if the subject was to play its role in “strengthening national and ethnic identity and safeguarding national security”.
He highlighted the unique role of secondary school history, noting that most students received no formal history education after graduation and that their understanding of the past was largely shaped during their school years.
Chinese Social Sciences Today also said that strengthening historical education and improving historical literacy among the public was a long-term solution to countering pseudo-history. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
