Preparatory Education are a unique part of China’s education system for ethnic minorities. They have played a tremendous role in training talented personnel of ethnic minorities in the country’s remote, poor areas over the past 50 years. This model of education had existed in China for 50 years by the end of 2003.
    As a matter of fact, the Preparatory Education China first introduced for its ethnic minorities in the early 1950s are valuable because they are unprecedented in the country’s history of several thousand years and at the same time a unique example in the world. It can be said that this education model is a contribution made by China to world education.
    In the early 1950s, the Central Institute for Nationalities (renamed Central University for Nationalities in 1993) in Beijing, China, the Southwest Institute for Nationalities (called Southwest University for Nationalities since 2002) in Sichuan Province, the Central South Institute for Nationalities (renamed Central South University for Nationalities in 2002), the Northwest Institute for Nationalities in Shaanxi Province, and the Yunnan Institute for Nationalities (called Yunnan University for Nationalities since 2003) introduced Preparatory Education for ethnic minorities because these minorities and ethnic minority areas had slow economic development and backward education conditions. Their purpose was to enroll young people of ethnic minorities in border regions who were available for long-term education but had an education lower than senior high school education and offer Preparatory Education for them, so as to improve their knowledge and educational level. After these young people became qualified for university studies several years later, they might pass the entrance examinations for universities where they were studying, or other universities or secondary technical schools.
    When it first introduced Preparatory Education for ethnic minorities, the Central Institute for Nationalities implemented the guiding principle of training all kinds of talented personnel who were badly needed by ethnic minorities. And its enrollment principle was to enroll all applicants and regard all of them as equals. The university offered flexible and efficient education that accorded with the actual conditions of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas. It established courses for students from lower primary school to senior high school with the duration ranging from two to four years. In 1956, the scale of Preparatory Education expanded quickly, and the university had 1,488 students taking Preparatory Education, accounting for over half of the total number of students it had at the time.
    In July 1957, as entrusted by the relevant ministries and commissions of the government, the Central Institute for Nationalities successively set up such secondary courses of medical sciences, geology, geography, meteorology, electric machinery, and machinery as well as political training and foreign languages. In 1962 it began to train people especially for Tibet. In 1965 it had a course of journalism.
    At the time graduates of Preparatory Education were dealt with in the following two ways: Some of them were trained especially for ethnic minority areas to become educated, acquire managerial expertise and certain techniques, so they returned to where they came from to become the main force promoting development there. Others were relatively young students with a good academic foundation and were enrolled for further studies as undergraduates or junior college students in institutions of higher learning.
    After the 1980s, great changes took place in the Preparatory Education for ethnic minorities. Their focus was shifted from purely providing training in different courses to prepare for the college entrance examination to providing qualified students for institutions of higher education. It was clearly stipulated that the tasks of Preparatory Education were to take the characteristics of students of ethnic minorities into consideration and adopt special measures to improve their elementary knowledge and strengthen their training in basic skills so that they would further develop morally, intellectually and physically and lay a solid foundation for their studies as undergraduates or junior college students in institutions of higher education.
    After that, the duration of Preparatory Education was divided into one and two years. Changes also occurred in the way students were enrolled for Preparatory Education: they were enrolled from among those who had failed the college entrance examination by a small margin.
    In 2002, the Central University for Nationalities began to make major adjustments in its enrollment plan for Preparatory Education. It shifted from mainly training qualified students for other key universities to mainly training them for itself. Consequently, the proportion of its students taking Preparatory Education increased from about 20% to about 70% of its total enrollment in the year and to about 60% of the total number of students taking Preparatory Education in the university.
    In addition to the Central University for Nationalities, the Central South University for Nationalities, the Southwest University for Nationalities, the Northwest University for Nationalities and the Yunnan University for Nationalities adjusted their respective Preparatory Education in light of their conditions over the past 50 years. In all cases, however, their Preparatory Education have been in an upward trend. In the past 50 years, the Central University for Nationalities alone trained about 20,000 people of Preparatory Education. After graduating from the Department of Preparatory Education of the Central University for Nationalities, these students entered over 60 famous universities in China such as Beijing University, Qinghua University, Beijing Normal University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing University of Medical Sciences, China University of Law and Political Science, China University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and China Agricultural University to study more than 70 majors there. Many of these students became experts, scholars, and professors of petroleum, geology, water control, electric power, medicine and other industries and the press, publishing, culture, education and other departments. Over 4,000 of them became leaders at or above the county level, and 11 of them became provincial and ministerial officials.
    Preparatory Education, a special form of education, are warmly received among China’s ethnic minorities. Some families of ethnic minorities sent two or three generations of their children to study Preparatory Education in universities for nationalities, and they have benefited the most from this unique model of education.