New textbook to highlight traditional culture

Sample pages of the Doctrine of the Mean, one of the textbooks introducing traditional Chinese culture. [Photo/Beijing Daily]

A series of textbooks featuring gems of traditional Chinese culture, including Analects of Confucius and The Art of War, will be used by primary and middle school students across China, reported Beijing Daily.

The new textbooks, compiled by China Center of Traditional Culture, aim to cultivate youngsters' values and characters by teaching them Confucian classics, poems, Chinese medicine and the like.

The textbooks are tailor-made for different regions to enable students to better understand their hometown. For example, in a book for third-grade students in Beijing, the "history of Beijing Hutong" (hutong are narrow lanes commonly seen in North China) is introduced.

The textbook comes at a time when the central leadership of China is calling on schools at all levels to tap the potential of traditional Chinese culture in education.

The new textbooks, which are expected to be used on a trial basis in 25 provinces, cities and autonomous regions across the country later this year, mark the first time that standard textbooks for traditional culture are to be used on a large scale across China.