"Be a civilized person who speaks Mandarin and writes standardized words" and handwritten newspaper materials

Chinese is the main language in China, the most widely used language in the world and one of the most developed languages in the world. Language is a tool for communication and social struggle and development. At present, Chinese is serving the great socialist construction of our people. Learning Chinese well is of great significance to the development of China's socialist cause.

Due to historical reasons, the development of Chinese has not reached the point of complete unification. Many dialects with serious differences hinder people's conversation in different regions and bring a lot of inconvenience to socialist construction. Some inconsistent and ungrammatical phenomena in language exist not only in spoken language but also in written language. In written language, even in publications, the confusion of vocabulary and grammar is quite serious. For the further development of China's politics, economy, culture and national defense, these phenomena must be effectively eliminated.

The foundation for the unification of Chinese already exists, that is, Putonghua with Beijing accent as the standard, northern dialect as the basic dialect and typical modern vernacular as the grammatical norm. Popularizing this Putonghua in all aspects of culture and education system and people's life is the main method to promote the complete unification of Chinese. To this end, the State Council instructed as follows:

(1) Since the autumn of 1956, Mandarin has been taught in Chinese classes in primary and secondary schools all over the country except in ethnic minority areas. By 1960, students above grade three in primary schools, students in middle schools and normal schools should basically speak Putonghua, teachers in all subjects in primary schools and normal schools should teach in Putonghua, and teachers in middle schools and secondary specialized schools should also basically teach in Putonghua. Mandarin should also be added to Chinese teaching in colleges and universities. Students who are about to graduate from middle schools and colleges and universities, as well as young teachers and teaching assistants in colleges and universities, should attend short-term remedial classes to facilitate their work if they still can't speak Mandarin. The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education shall formulate special plans for strengthening Chinese teaching in schools at all levels and promoting the standardization of Chinese, and report them to the State Council for approval and implementation.