Study On The Policy Recommendations To Implement Citizenship Education To Chinese College Students

The concepts of citizen and citizenship education originated in ancient Greece first. It has been for so thousands of years in western countries. In the17th and18th centuries, accompanied by the bourgeoisie’stepping on the stage of history, citizen and citizenship education had been further developed in an all-round way in the capitalist countries. Meanwhile, it was interpreted in a new way. That is, from small parts of the privileged class who were eligible to participate in citizenship meetings in the time of ancient Greece into all members of society within the nationality. Moreover, the equal rights of members were secured by forms of laws. The value of a strongly political complexion at the beginning was changed into a value neutrality for social benefit. The theory of citizenship education also has been developed in western developed countries, mainly in human being’s modernization theory, identity theory, and political socialization theory as well as value clarification theory. Apart from western developed countries, some Asian countries, such as, Singapore, Korea and Japan, which influenced by Chinese Confucian arts and culture, not only paying attention to their problem of civic education, but also trying their best to improve the quality of their nationals.Because our country had been a feudal society for over2000years, subject consciousness was deeply rooted in people’s minds, which was detrimental to the growth of "citizen". It wasn’t until the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China that "citizen and citizenship education" arose. However, due to the unrest of in the environment in that period, citizen awareness of our people was not well developed. After1949, under the influence of Left Opportunism,"citizen" was excluded from being considered as the product of capitalism. After reform and opening-up, we attached importance to the science and technology of Western developed countries while ignoring the study of their humanistic spirit, which becomes one factor for restricting our socialist modernization.As a contemporary college student of our future social construction, I think there is a decreasing gap between Western college students and us in mastering science and technology. Nevertheless, in the aspect of citizen quality, we are deficient in citizen knowledge, citizen awareness and behavioral competence, because contemporary college students didn’t receive complete citizenship education in their primary and middle schools. This is not only bad for their own all-round development, but also incompatible with our reforms of the market economic system and political system. Therefore, it is a pressing issue for our higher education to effectively improve the citizen quality of our contemporary college students.It is necessary for our country to carry out citizen education for college students, referring the successful experience of western developed countries. Firstly, government and higher university should realize the positive significance of implementing citizen education. The government should establish specialized education institutions and plan overall objectives and development direction of civic education for our higher university students on a macro level. The government should maintain the authority of the state Constitution and the law, and guarantee citizens to enjoy the rights of the constitution and the law, to safeguard social fairness and justice. Secondly, constructing the system of citizen education for college students, to let higher university students learn knowledge about civics, form civic consciousness, grasp citizenship skills and practice citizenship behaviors. Thirdly, we should cultivate a troop of professional citizenship education teachers, establish an equal teacher-student relationship, and encourage students to break authority, to think independently, and to develop critical spirit. Finally, we must purify the social environment of the harmful atmosphere of materialism, utilitarianism and so on to promote a sound environment for carrying out citizen education for college students.