Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
Inscriptions on excavated oracle bones and tortoise shells confirm that formal education existed in China as early as the Shang dynasty (roughly 1480–1066 B.C.). Historical data show that Emperor P'ing-ti of the Han dynasty established a countrywide government school system in 3 A.D., consisting of a central school in the capital and local schools in prefectures and counties. Over the next nineteen centuries, the school system developed gradually, sometimes damaged by war but soon restored, until the introduction of the modern Western system in the early twentieth century.
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