About Population Policy

The National Family Planning Program of China 1995-2000

(www.unescap.org)
Updated: 2010-08-20 15:07

IV. Give Top Priority to Education and Publicity and Help Effect Changes in the People's Concept of Childbearing

(9) Vigorous efforts should be made to develop educational undertakings. Relevant laws and regulations should be conscientiously implemented. These include: The Law of the People's Republic of China on Nine-Year Compulsory Education, Regulation on the Eradication of Illiteracy, the National Educational Reform and Development Program of China and the Program for the Implementation of Patriotism in Education. We should enhance people's command of science and general knowledge and improve their ideological and ethical qualities. Special emphasis should be put on improving the standard of women's education so as to facilitate changes in their concepts of marriage and childbearing.

(10) Nation-wide publicity and education campaigns on population and family planning should be carried out on a long-term basis and in a thorough way. Efforts should be made to enhance people's awareness of population issues and guide them toward a more civilized, advanced and scientific concept of marriage and childbearing. Governments at all levels should coordinate with the departments concerned and mobilize all social sectors into publicity campaigns to disseminate via such means as radio, and television, films, newspapers, magazines and art performances, information on China's population situation and its basic national policy of family planning, and on the necessity that population growth must coordinate with economic and social development and with the environment and resources. Efforts should be made to help popularize among people of childbearing age, scientific knowledge of reproductive health, contraception and fertility regulation and of maternal and child care, as well as healthier births and healthier childbearing, and to advocate later marriages and later childbearing, fewer and healthier births. The idea that male and female babies are equally desirable and the virtue of respecting elders and protecting the young should be encouraged. Efforts should be made to protect the legitimate rights and interests of women and children and to commend those who have conscientiously done well in family planning. The broad masses should be advised to handle correctly the relationships between their long-term and immediate interests and between the interests of the nation and those of the individual family.

Vigorous efforts should be made to bring about a boom in literary and artistic creativity to publicize population issues. Writers and artists should be encouraged to produce more and better works depicting population and family planning issues. Efforts should also be made to improve the supervision of literary and artistic creativity and the publication of books and audio-visual products.

(11) Publicity and education should be geared to grassroots units and the masses, and should be integrated with the efforts to promote a socialist set of ethics and culture. Emphasis should be put on serving a clearly-defined purpose and achieving tangible results. Civilized units should be established. Campaigns should be launched to draw women into mass activities aimed at acquiring literacy and production skills and emulating one another in achievements and contributions so that a community environment favorable to family planning will gradually be formed. Face-to-face communication and counseling, patient and careful persuasion and publicity should be extended into households. To meet the people's need for more knowledge and a more prosperous life, information, education and communication on family planning should be integrated with the efforts to popularize science and culture, spread information on income-generating projects, improve hygiene and health care, enrich people's cultural activities during their spare time and promote social welfare and security. In this way, information, education and communication are combined with rendering services.

Party schools, cadre schools, Youth League schools and adult schools in rural areas at various levels and universities, as well as colleges and middle schools should incorporate knowledge on population and family planning into their curricula. Education on China's population situation and on adolescence health should be offered in related courses in middle schools and in senior classes of primary schools in rural areas.

(12) Greater efforts should be made to develop family planning publicity networks. The initiatives of various family planning publicity and education centers should be brought into full play. Publicity materials that suit the needs of grassroots, either in written, drawn or audio-visual forms, should be maximized so that family planning publicity materials are made available to every village and every household. County family planning service stations or publicity stations should be manned and supervised by full-time staff members and equipped with necessary facilities to conduct publicity and training in a well-planned way. In places where the necessary conditions are available, population schools at the township level and publicity offices in villages should be established to conduct publicity and training among family planning personnel at the grassroots level and among couples of childbearing age.

By the year 2000, feature programs on population and family planning should be broadcasted on all radio and television stations at the provincial level and 85 percent of radio stations at the prefecture and county levels and 70 percent of television stations at the prefecture level.