As early as the Western Zhou Dynasty, mathematics has become one of the "six arts" specialized knowledge. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, a mathematics museum was set up in imperial academy, with doctors and teaching assistants in mathematics, and Ten Books of Calculation edited and annotated by Li was used as the teaching material. The examination of mathematics in the Ming Dynasty was also based on these textbooks (see History of Chinese Mathematics).

Modern elementary mathematics education

Modern elementary mathematics education can be said to have started after the promulgation of Guimao academic system (1903), the abolition of imperial examinations and the establishment of primary and secondary schools in the late Qing Dynasty. At that time, there were arithmetic classes in primary schools and mathematics classes in middle schools (including arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry and bookkeeping). In the early years of the Republic of China (1912 ~1913), the academic system of "not letting children learn from ugliness" was announced, and the middle school was changed from five years to four years, and bookkeeping was no longer taught in mathematics courses.