The current curriculum of senior secondary schools consists of two parts: subjects courses and activities. Subjects taught in senior secondary schools are divided into obligatory ones and optional ones. Activities include out-class activities and practice activities.

　　In 1999, MoE began to design the new basic education curriculum system for the 21st century. Any child reaching 6 years of age should enter the primary school and in places where conditions are not available, the age for a child to enter a primary school could be postponed to 7 years old. In areas where junior secondary education has been basically universalized, all primary school graduates should enter nearby junior secondary schools, without sitting for any entrance examinations. However, those gradates from junior secondary schools seeking to continue their education in senior secondary schools have to sit for and pass locally organized entrance examinations before admission.

　　Throughout compulsory education, students are required to take end-of-term examinations and tests or check-ups at the end of each semester, school year of before graduation. In primary schools, the Chinese language and mathematics are the required examination subjects for graduation, while the other subjects are checkup subjects. In secondary schools, the graduation examination subjects are determined within the scope of the general subjects taught in the graduating class set by the state, while the students‘ performance in other subjects are only checked up

　　After-school Education

　　After-school education plays an important role in the all-round development of primary and secondary school students. Under the cooperative administration of departments in charge of education, culture, physics, worker‘s union, the Communist Youth League, Committee for Women‘s and Children‘s Work and science and technology, after-school education is conducted by joint efforts of the concerning central departments. In 1986, the First national Conference on After-school Education was convened and the Second One in 1991, and consequently a number of regulations on after-school education have been formulated, providing guidance to such work.

　　After-school education always adheres to the policy of integration of schools, the society and families, and strive to give full scope to the unique educational role of after-school activities. After school, children may take part in the scientific, cultural, and recreational activities organized by children‘s palaces, children‘s clubs, scientific and technological centers for teenagers, and other similar institutions.

　　After-school education is conducted through rich and colorful extracurricular activities organized in the light of the age and interests of school children, such as stage performances, competitions of aircraft, ship and motor vehicle models, exhibitions of small inventions and handicraft making, literary writing, summer and winter camping and so on, to mould the students‘ temperament and temper their willpower.

　　Development of Teaching Materials

　　After the founding of the People‘s Republic of China in 1949, the government began to pay great attention to the preparation and production of school textbooks and other teaching materials. In 1950, the Ministry of Education formulated curricular standards for primary schools. Afterwards, in 1956, 1963, 1978 and 1986, four conservative sets of syllabuses of subjects taught in primary and secondary and secondary schools were formulated, and eight sets of school textbooks were complied and published by the People‘s Education Press for nationwide use in compliance with the requirements set in these syllabuses.

　　In 1992, syllabuses of various subjects taught in full-time primary and secondary schools were drawn up under the guidance of the former SEdC to provide guidance for teaching and complying the textbooks used in primary and secondary schools within the 9-year compulsory education. The new textbooks for regular senior secondary education linking the 9-year compulsory education which was implemented in 1993 in under pilot exercise in Shaanxi Province, Jiangxi Province and Tianjin.