粉碎“四人帮”以来，特别是改革高等学校招生制度和批判“两个估计”之后，教育战线出现了许多新气象。
There have been many new developments on the educational front since the smashing of the Gang of Four and particularly since the college enrolment system was reformed and the “two appraisals”were criticized.
成绩应当充分肯定。
These achievements should be fully recognized.
在这方面，我们有许多问题要解决，有许多事情要做。
There are many problems to be solved and many things to be done in this connection.
今天，我讲几点意见。
Today, I would like to offer some opinions on the subject.
第一点，提高教育质量，提高科学文化的教学水平，更好地为社会主义建设服务。
First, we must improve the quality of education and raise the level of teaching in the sciences, social sciences and humanities so as to serve socialist construction better.
我们的学校是为社会主义建设培养人才的地方。
Our schools are places for the training of competent personnel for socialist construction.
培养人才有没有质量标准呢？
Are there qualitative standards for such training?
有的。
Yes, there are.
这就是毛泽东同志说的，应该使受教育者在德育、智育、体育几方面都得到发展，成为有社会主义觉悟的有文化的劳动者。
They were stated by Comrade Mao Zedong: We should enable everyone who receives an education to develop morally, intellectually and physically and become a worker possessed of both socialist consciousness and a general education.
“四人帮”反对严格要求学生学习科学文化，反对学生以学习科学文化为主，胡说这是“智育第一”，是“脱离无产阶级政治”。
The Gang of Four were opposed to placing strict demands on students in their study of the sciences, social sciences and humanities, and to making such studies the main concern of the students.
They made the ridiculous claim that that would be “putting intellectual education first'' and thus ”being divorced from proletarian politics''.
他们鼓吹“宁要没有文化的劳动者”，胡说“知识越多越反动”，并把今天掌握了文化的劳动者及其子弟诬蔑成为资产阶级知识分子。
They declared that they would rather have labourers without education and that the more a person knew, the more reactionary he would become.
What is more, they slandered all working people or children of working people who had received some education, calling them “bourgeois intellectuals”.
“四人帮”这些谬论的流毒，现在仍然需要大力肃清。
Even today, much effort is still needed to eliminate the pernicious influence of these absurdities spread by the Gang.
列宁多次强调指出：工人一分钟也不会忘记自己需要知识的力量。
Lenin emphasized time and again that the workers should not for a minute forget their need for knowledge.
没有知识，工人就无法自卫；有了知识，工人就有了力量。
Without knowledge, he said, they would have no way of defending themselves, while with it they would be strong.
这个真理在今天更加显出它的重要性。
The importance of this truth stands out even more clearly today.
我们要掌握和发展现代科学文化知识和各行各业的新技术新工艺，要创造比资本主义更高的劳动生产率，把我国建设成为现代化的社会主义强国，并且在上层建筑领域最终战胜资产阶级的影响，就必须培养具有高度科学文化水平的劳动者，必须造就宏大的又红又专的工人阶级知识分子队伍。
We must train workers with a high level of scientific and general knowledge and build a vast army of working-class intellectuals who are both “red and expert”.
Only then will we be able to master and advance modern science and culture and the new technologies and skills in every trade and profession.
Only then will we be able to attain a productivity of labour higher than that under capitalism, transform China into a modern and powerful socialist country and ultimately defeat bourgeois influences in the superstructure.
这些要求本身就是无产阶级政治的要求。
Proletarian politics demands that all these be done.
但这并不是说要把大量的课时用于思想政治教育。
But this doesn't mean they should devote a great many classroom hours to ideological and political teaching.
学生把坚定正确的政治方向放在第一位，这不仅不排斥学习科学文化，相反，政治觉悟越是高，为革命学习科学文化就应该越加自觉，越加刻苦。
Students must indeed give top priority to a firm and correct political orientation, but that by no means implies that they should abandon the study of the sciences, social sciences and humanities.
On the contrary, the higher the students' political consciousness, the more consciously and diligently they will apply themselves to the study of these subjects for the sake of the revolution.
因此，“四人帮”把在坚持正确的政治方向的前提下大力提高教育质量，大力提高学生的科学文化水平，说成是什么“智育第一”，加以反对，这不但是彻底的荒谬，而且是对于无产阶级政治的实际上的取消和背叛。
Hence the Gang of Four were not only being utterly ridiculous but were actually negating and betraying proletarian politics when they opposed efforts to improve the quality of education and to raise the students' scientific and cultural level on the basis of a firm, correct political orientation and declared that that was “putting intellectual education first”.
但是，同样明显的是，要极大地提高科学文化水平，没有“三老四严”的作风，没有从难从严的要求，没有严格训练，也不能达到目的。
But it is equally obvious that we will not be able to raise the level of our scientific and cultural knowledge substantially unless we maintain the work style of the “three honests and four stricts”, and unless demands are exacting and training rigorous.
我们要在科学技术上赶超世界先进水平，不但要提高高等教育的质量，而且首先要提高中小学教育的质量，按照中小学生所能接受的程度，用先进的科学知识来充实中小学的教育内容。
If we are to catch up with and surpass the advanced countries in science and technology, we must improve not only the quality of our higher education but, first of all, that of our primary and secondary education.
In other words, the primary and secondary school courses should be enriched with advanced scientific knowledge, presented in ways the pupils at these levels can understand.
考试是检查学习情况和教学效果的一种重要方法，如同检验产品质量是保证工厂生产水平的必要制度一样。
Examinations are a necessary way of checking on the performance of students and teachers, just as the testing of factory products is a necessary means of quality control.
当然也不能迷信考试，把它当作检查学习效果的唯一方法。
Of course, we must not put blind faith in examinations or consider them the only method for checking up on study.