OCTOBER 1, 2019 will mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The early days of the PRC witnessed an impoverished and fragile state of the country where every-thing started from scratch and the level of educational development was very low. The national population was 540 million, with the illiteracy rate as high as 80 percent, and women took up 70 percent of illiterate population.