Education in Jingdao

Education in Jingdao is focused on raising children as useful citizens for the empire. All students are expected to be able to find employment after they finish their studies and to be able to serve as soldier in the Jingdaoese armed forces. Educational policy is coordinated by the Educational Ministry in cooperation with many other government agencies and the United Jingdaoese Corporation.

In Jingdao, most schools are boarding schools. Students are usually enrolled in a school that is in another province than where there family lives. This is intentional as the Educational Ministry seeks to eliminate regional cultural differences in the empire. Students are usually allowed to visit their families for two weeks every year during summer holidays. Foreign children who have been adopted by the Jingdaoese Empire under the Zhengbing Programme as infants are unable to visit their parents, who they usually do not know. A wide range of summer camps is available for them.

Elementary education

Between the ages of four to ten, children attend schools called the Zuichu Dao, which is Jingdaoese for "the First Path". On these schools children are trained in the worship of the emperor, reading, writing and arithmetic. This school has six grades and students pass through these grades if they pass the exams at the end of each year. In the larger communities, the students in each grade are divided into faster and slower learners after the second year. In the final year of Zuichu Dao, students are interviewed and tested by officials from the Educational Ministry to determine their abilities and interests and see what secondary education is necessary to make the most of them.

Secondary education

After the age of ten and until they reach the age of eighteen, all healthy children are called into the Xingjunxue, which is Jingdaoese for "Learn to March". Students attend these schools for one day a week. Here they learn basic military skills like marching, marksmanship and bayonetting. Officials from the Jingdaoese armed forces regularly observe drills and will select particularly able students for a career in the military.

On four other days, students attend courses in the profession they have been selected for by the Educational Ministry. In the case that a student is trained to be an academic, the course can last over ten years. All students will also follow general courses like mathematics, science and virtue ethics courses.