February 7, 1961 (Boxer twelfth lunar month 22), the central authorities have decided to reduce students nationwide release on strengthening agricultural construction.

1961, the central forwards the central cultural and educational group report on the cultural and educational organization of work in 1961 and for a period, and decided to reduce the number of students nationwide, free on strengthening agricultural construction.
in the "Great Leap Forward", the development of cultural and educational undertakings too fast, there has been much of the rural labor force, the quality to keep up with the number of To this end, the Central Cultural and Educational Panel educational work arrangements: labor saving, support agricultural production. The next three to five years, more than 16-year-old rural students accounted for the proportion of the rural labor force, should be controlled at about 2%. Primary and secondary schools generally do not recruit overage Health strokes to continue processing. Some rural full-time secondary and upper primary, semi-learning, semi-labor agricultural secondary school was changed to amateur school instead. Agriculture ordinary secondary schools, rural primary and secondary schools graduates, all or substantially all returned to the countryside or further education in rural areas. Urban secondary school and college graduates, mainly agriculture, medicine, College Graduates must also have plans to transport part of the rural areas. Colleges and universities work to be completed in the first half of 1961 to adjust to concentrate on holding 64 focus schools. Requires college enrollment in 1961 to 25 million, a decrease of 9.4 million over the previous year; technical secondary school enrollment of 50 million, a decrease of 110,000; ordinary secondary school enrollment of 335 million, a decrease of 99 million people. Investment in infrastructure, culture and education, was reduced to 462 million yuan, 800 million yuan of 58% is expected for 1960.