According to the survey, college students and middle school students have a higher understanding of the importance of national defense construction, which to some extent reflects the remarkable achievements of national defense education in China. On the other hand, we should also see that under the new historical conditions, the pertinence of national defense education is not strong enough, the channels are still relatively single, the educational effect needs to be improved, and there are many worrying hidden dangers.
1. Although the majority of young people have a relatively consistent understanding of the importance of national defense construction in peacetime, they also think that these things are other people's business, which seems to have nothing to do with themselves, or they don't intend to devote themselves to it.
According to the survey of senior high school students, local college students and national defense students, the proportion of "very important" in peacetime is 77%, 85% and 87% respectively, and the proportion of "relatively important" is 18%, 12.6% and 12% respectively, accounting for more than 95%. However, from the answers to other related items, it can be seen that although the vast majority of students think that national defense construction is important, these are other people's business and have nothing to do with themselves, especially those students who think that national defense construction is very important or relatively important. They just generally say that they are not prepared to do anything for national defense construction, and even show indifference or resistance to national defense construction. For example, when middle school students (mainly senior two students) answered whether they would like to apply for military schools when filling in their volunteers, 43% students answered "definitely not", 50% students answered "not sure" and only 7% students explicitly said "definitely fill in"; College students answer your attitude. If the army recruits recruits (soldiers) from college students, 37% of them will definitely not sign up, only 13% will sign up, and the rest will say "relatively willing" (28%) or "indifferent" (22%). When asked whether to recruit graduates to supplement the ranks of military cadres, 27% of the students clearly said "unwilling", only 17% said "very willing" and the rest said "relatively willing" (38%) or "indifferent" (18%). In addition, there are still a few students who have a vague understanding of the necessity of national defense construction in peacetime, which cannot but attract great attention: First, they think that national defense construction is not important or too important without war in peacetime; The second is to oppose national defense construction and economic construction, and believe that strengthening national defense construction will inevitably affect the central position of economic construction. In a word, these situations show that national defense education in China has not really been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people in recent years.
2. The majority of teenagers have a certain knowledge of national defense, but it is very general. National defense education lacks organization and planning, and the role of the main channel is not enough.
In the investigation of senior high school students, local college students and national defense students, we found that although teenagers have certain national defense knowledge, they are very vague and general. For example, the survey of national defense students shows that although the vast majority of students have applied for national defense students, they don't know much about national defense construction and the army, and the answer is as high as 77%. In the survey of middle school students, it is found that 38% students answered "unclear" when answering your motivation to apply for military schools (referring to those students who will definitely apply for military schools in the future); And those students who "definitely don't report to military schools", 46% think that "the army can't play its talents" and so on. These situations show that today's teenagers, no matter what attitude they have towards national defense construction, are not based on reliable national defense knowledge and are very blind, which shows that our education is not deep and systematic enough. The investigation of the sources of national defense knowledge can also prove this point. We divide the sources of national defense knowledge into four categories: mass media such as television, newspapers and magazines, military education courses organized by schools, propaganda by local defense departments and other channels. 72% of middle school students, 72% of national defense students and 66% of local college students answered from "TV, newspapers and other mass media", while the proportion from school education, national defense department propaganda and other channels was obviously low. This reflects that the source channel of youth's national defense knowledge is relatively single, and the leading role of the state has not been fully reflected; The role of the army as a "living teaching material" needs to be strengthened; The main channel function of the school is not obvious enough; The good atmosphere of society has not yet formed. In addition, there are some deviations in the implementation of national defense education. Organizing students' military training and participating in military summer camps are effective ways to carry out national defense education. However, in recent years, these activities often have more forms than contents, and many military summer camps have become "stale" and become various cram schools in fact.
3. Contemporary youth have a high cultural literacy, but their strong will, especially their martial spirit, is insufficient, and they are afraid of the hardships of national defense labor.
Being strong-willed and martial is an important symbol of masculinity, enterprising consciousness and self-improvement vitality of a country and a nation, and it is also the basic spiritual environment driving force for the growth of national defense human resources. However, the motivation of young people in China's mental environment is weakening, which is directly manifested in the decline of young people's career ideal of joining the army. In our survey of college students, we asked "What is your motivation for not applying for military schools" (referring to those students who didn't fill in the military school volunteers), and 42% of them answered "Afraid of war" and "Military schools are too strict". Even for national defense students, when answering their intention to join the army after graduation, only 19% want to join the combat troops, followed by "scientific research institutes" (45%), "institutions" (22%) and "logistics departments" (1 1%). After graduation, if "the tuition fee is refunded, you can choose a non-defense department again, okay?" Among the national defense students, 10% said "very willing", 35% said "willing, but considering the economic conditions", and 45% of them were actually not satisfied with the choice of national defense students. According to the Survey Report on Children's Quality in China released on May 38, 2006, only about 24.2% rural children and 15% urban children are eager to become soldiers when they grow up. At the same time, the admirers of sports stars among teenagers have risen sharply. Teenagers' active and martial nature has been restrained, and their vigorous and brave spirit has gradually weakened, while their gentle and weak spirit has increased. In the early 1990s, the writer Ying wrote a reportage "Who Will Defend China in 2000". Now, more and more, we feel that there is an urgent need to train tomorrow's national defense talents, forge a mighty teacher and a great wall of steel in the future, and enhance the masculinity and martial spirit of young people.
Second, the main reasons for the problems in China's national defense education
The reasons for the above problems in China's national defense education are complicated. According to the investigation and analysis, we think the most important aspects are as follows.
1. The long-term peaceful environment has gradually weakened the concept of national defense.
Since 1979 counterattacked Vietnam, China's surrounding environment has become calm and its international status has been improving day by day. The danger of "being attacked between Scylla and Charybdis" in the past has been basically eliminated, and it seems that there will still be a peaceful and beautiful prospect in the foreseeable future. This excellent situation is unprecedented in the history of new China, and we should cherish it even more. However, it is worthy of high vigilance that due to the long-term peaceful environment, some people, especially the vast number of teenagers, have all kinds of lax and paralyzed thoughts. It seems that the world is at peace, and it is time to "put the sword into the warehouse and let the horse go south". From top to bottom, more and more people feel the emotion and phenomenon of belittling national defense and relaxing national defense construction. We can prove this from the following examples.
An example: while emphasizing economic construction as the center, some people put national defense construction in opposition to economic construction, only seeing the squeezing effect of investment in national defense construction on economic construction, but failing to see the protective effect of national defense security on economic construction, and even failing to see that national defense science and technology and national defense industry themselves are catalysts and important components of national economic construction, blindly demanding that national defense departments live a tight life and be patient. This guiding ideology and propaganda function have had a certain negative impact on the people, especially the teenagers.
In recent years, the state attaches great importance to the construction of human resources, but in terms of policy orientation, it actually ranks participation in national defense labor as the least important position. Since kindergarten, children have been strongly instilled with the idea of "going to college" and "making a lot of money". Therefore, in the minds of young people, there is no concept of serving national defense. The country's policy orientation is first to go to college and get employment. This point can be indirectly proved by our repeated cold reception when we went to some universities and middle schools for investigation. Some schools are unwilling to conduct surveys, and they prevaricate or simply refuse on the grounds of "nervous study", "students don't care" and "no time". Therefore, few young people today think that it is their responsibility to defend the country. Only those who fail in the college entrance examination, those who return to their hometowns for employment, and those who are difficult to "get along" in society will consider choosing military camps.
For a long time, the army did not focus on military training and national defense construction, but was keen on generating income, doing business and running enterprises. No matter what causes this situation, the signal it sends to the people of China is that the task of national defense construction is not so urgent, and the people's national defense concept will naturally not be strengthened.
2. Military personnel's social status declines, and their sense of professional honor decreases.
Professional honor is an important factor to stimulate the enthusiasm of workers. For a long time, due to the high social status of our army, national defense workers generally have a high sense of professional honor. However, in recent years, with the development of the country, the social status of the army has decreased. For example, our survey of middle school students and college students shows that most people think that soldiers have low social status. Among high school students, college students and national defense students, 54%, 66% and 65% respectively think that the social status of military personnel is "low" or "average"; Only 16%, 5% and 8% people think it is very high.
According to the survey of relevant departments from 65438 to 0999, among the 35 hot topics concerned by middle school students, the national defense status ranks 23rd. In addition, according to the survey of urban youth in China from September 1998 to June 10, only 4.8% of the youth are most willing to engage in military occupation, which is only 0.2 percentage points higher than that of private or individual workers and 2 1.3 percentage points lower than that of professional and technical personnel. This further proves that the decline in the status of military personnel has affected the sense of professional honor of military personnel and further affected the development of national defense education for young people.
3. The soldiers' own image is damaged, which has some negative effects on national defense education.
First, the bad social atmosphere has widely penetrated into the military camp, which has a very bad influence. Our army has a fine tradition of strict military discipline, decent style and noble style, which is also a magic weapon for our army to March forward bravely and be invincible. Our army's independent management system makes it relatively detached from the secular and maintains a good image. However, since the reform and opening up, some bad ideas and ethos in the society have begun to invade the barracks, and unhealthy practices, abuse of power for personal gain, trading in power and money and even breaking the law and discipline have occurred from time to time, especially on some issues closely related to the interests of the people, and the ethos has become worse and worse, and some of them are still very serious, which has caused negative effects among the people. Second, the management concept lags behind, and many methods do not meet the requirements of the times. Since the founding of the army, our army has accumulated many very successful management experiences. However, with the deepening of the country's reform and opening up, the rapid development of science and technology, and the gradual entry of the only-child generation into the military camp, the conditions and environment we face have changed greatly, and the army must constantly reform and innovate in management in order to keep pace with the times. But realistically speaking, the current management concepts and methods of our army are lagging behind in many aspects and have not kept pace with the times. For example, the information age is an era of open communication, and we are still enjoying the so-called "closed management"; Our officers and men have received more and more education, higher and higher cultural quality, and generally have a strong sense of safeguarding rights. However, our management still arbitrarily infringes on their rights and interests on the grounds of "strictness" and "Excellence", and some even promote rude management methods such as corporal punishment, beating and cursing, and so on. This shows that new management concepts such as "people-oriented", "management according to law" and "scientific management" are far from being established.
Third, explore new ways of national defense education for young people in peacetime.
Continuously improve the ability of national defense human resources development
A Swiss diplomat once famously said, "Swiss citizens are citizens when they step on the ground with their right feet, and soldiers when they step on the ground with their left feet. If you want to ask why there has been no war for more than a hundred years, it is mainly because we are always ready to fight. " Relative peace does not mean that we can relax our vigilance. The more peaceful it is, the more it is necessary to strengthen national defense education for all. However, how to maintain the national defense consciousness of the whole people in relative peace and improve the development ability of China's national defense human resources is indeed a new topic that we must study and explore in depth.
1. Strengthen the leading role of the government and improve the educational function of the government.
The government's emphasis on national defense education is a key factor affecting the effectiveness of national defense education. This is not only because the government bears the highest responsibility for ensuring national defense security, but also because it holds all kinds of administrative resources, public opinion positions and main channels of education, and has strong appeal and guidance. As a foreign military theorist pointed out: "If the government does not take measures to cultivate the people's martial spirit, then all the best measures it has taken to build the army will be in vain." Therefore, all countries in the world attach great importance to the leading role of the government in national defense education, constantly improve the educational function, and emphasize that national defense education is "the primary responsibility of the government" and "the first service of society". There has been no war in China for nearly 30 years, and it will remain in an environment of peaceful construction in the foreseeable future. In order to ensure the national defense consciousness of the whole people, we must give full play to the leading role of the government. First of all, government departments should strengthen the concept that national defense education is the government's "primary responsibility", regard the effectiveness of national defense education as an important basis for evaluating the gains and losses of government work, and establish a reward and punishment mechanism for national defense education in government departments. Secondly, people's governments at all levels should incorporate national defense education into the national economic and social development plan, and effectively ensure that the funds for national defense education are in place. Third, under the new historical conditions, we should actively explore new ways and methods to strengthen the ties between national defense departments and news media, various schools, resident troops, social organizations, enterprises and institutions, and increase publicity efforts, expand publicity scope and enhance publicity effects.
2. Focus on the key points of national defense education and improve the national defense awareness of young people.
Teenagers are potential national defense human resources, and their martial spirit and dedication to national defense directly determine the supply and supplement of national defense human resources. Strengthening youth national defense education can take many forms, which can be summarized as "centralized education" and "infiltration education". The so-called centralized education is an educational activity carried out through centralized military training, the establishment of juvenile military schools, and the holding of military summer camps. This kind of activity can not only enhance the national defense awareness of young people, but also provide sufficient human resources for the national defense department. For example, there are more than 4 million boy scouts in the United States and nearly 3 million boy scouts. More than 300 colleges and universities across the country offer two-year or four-year courses for army reserve officers, more than 600 universities set up air force reserve training groups, and more than 60 universities in the navy set up reserve training groups (Li Baozhong: A Comparison of Chinese and Foreign Military Systems, Commercial Press, 2003, p. 4 12). The Russian Red Star newspaper also revealed that there are currently 16 regular juvenile military schools in the Russian national defense system. The frequent reports and activities of these juvenile military academies and boy scouts in China have played a very important role in cultivating the national defense awareness of teenagers and the whole people. At present, there are similar educational activities in China, but the facts show that the effect is not obvious, which shows that we need to reform educational methods and increase educational efforts. The so-called infiltration education is to infiltrate national defense education into all aspects of teenagers' daily life, especially into students' textbooks, campuses, classrooms and entertainment activities. Students' texts should have the content of national defense education, campus culture construction and classroom layout should reflect the spirit of national defense education and patriotism, and special national defense education activity days can also be determined. For example, in France, it is stipulated that on April 8th every year, young men and women under the age of 17 should report to 2,200 national military centers all over the country to participate in the National Education Day held together with the armed forces, and it is stipulated that they can only take the high school graduation examination after obtaining the certificate issued by the military center. These educational activities are flexible and subtle and play a very important role. In addition, creating a good public opinion environment also plays an important role in enhancing young people's national defense concept.
3. Make full use of modern information means to effectively improve the educational effect.
Like other work, national defense education should be constantly innovated, especially making full use of the latest achievements of modern scientific and technological development, innovating educational means and improving educational effect. For decades, China's national defense education has achieved good results, largely because it can make full use of books, movies, radio, television and other emerging media to entertain and educate. However, with the rapid development of science and technology, especially the arrival of the information age, computer networks are rapidly spreading, and traditional methods have become very inadequate. For example, in the past, watching movies was the most important form of entertainment for people, but now many people, especially teenagers, never go to the cinema; Radio used to be the main news media, but now some people, especially teenagers, don't even watch TV. On the contrary, the Internet has become the biggest media that people are most concerned about. It is reported that there are more than 654.38 billion netizens in China, most of whom are teenagers. For them, the Internet has replaced all the media in the past. They chat online, watch news, play games, find information and watch videos. Therefore, to really improve the effect of national defense education in the new period, we must make full use of modern information network means to seize the youth and seize the future. For example, we can organize forces to develop game software with strong patriotism, heroism and martial spirit; Be able to make online versions of national defense education movies and videos; Various materials, images and information of national defense education can be built into a database with simple query and high appreciation, which will closely link national defense education with the life, study and entertainment of the broad masses of people. How to realize the information networking of national defense education is the key to the success or failure of national defense education in the new period, and it is also the latest and most important topic faced by national defense education departments.
4. Improve the image of soldiers themselves and increase the strength of their own statements.
The national defense consciousness of citizens, especially teenagers, depends not only on theoretical publicity and education, but also on the image and social status of soldiers themselves. In the course of nearly a hundred years of fighting, our army has always adhered to the purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly, is heroic and invincible, and has emerged countless hero models, established a glorious image among the people, and has become a powerful driving force for countless aspiring young people to join the national defense cause. During the period of peace building, there was no bonfire and smoke, and there was no hero like Dong Cunrui who bombed the bunker. On the contrary, in the face of the tide of reform and opening up, the role of the army seems to be "declining", and some bad tendencies in society also appear in military camps, and the tall image of soldiers among the people is damaged. How to maintain the good image of soldiers in a long-term peaceful environment and become the most desirable career for young people is a problem that must be taken seriously and discussed in national defense education. In this regard, the practice of the US military may give us some enlightenment. In the war of aggression against Vietnam and for a period of time thereafter, the image of the US military was very bad, and the sense of honor of soldiers was very low, making it the "most unpopular occupation". Most young Americans are unwilling to join the army. In order to change this situation, the US government and military have taken various measures. On the one hand, they care about the army, greatly improve the living conditions of the soldiers, make use of various opportunities to publicize the "achievements" of the army, publicize the deeds of famous soldiers and fighting "heroes", and commend "excellent" officers and men; On the other hand, it is necessary to educate the army to be self-respecting and self-reliant, pay attention to improving its image and the relationship between the army and the people, complete it "like a combat mission", and encourage officers and men to go out of barracks and participate in activities to help the people. 1several opinion polls at the end of 1986 showed that the US military has become "the most trustworthy group in America". 1June, 1989, The American News and World Herald also pointed out: "Respect for the army has once again become fashionable, and military uniforms have become a symbol of honor rather than failure." Facing the image problem that our army is facing at present, we must make up our minds to strictly manage the army and the army according to law while greatly improving the treatment of soldiers, resolutely curb all kinds of corruption, resolutely correct all kinds of uncivilized behaviors that seriously affect the image of the army, and truly establish a glorious image of a mighty and civilized teacher. At the same time, pay attention to strengthening the flesh-and-blood ties with the people, truly treat the people as parents, and effectively change the image of soldiers.