1950 年代初期中華人民共和國政府對比較混亂和分散的教科書 市場進行規整，嚴格控制和統一中小學教學用書。為此，採取了分步 走的辦法：頒布教科用書目錄，成立教科書統一編審出版機構，確立 了教科書全國統一供應的方針。高度統一的教科書是灌輸新國家意識 形態的重要手段，有利於確保教科書的基本品質。但這樣做弱化了課 程標準或教學大綱的威權性，過度強化了教科書的作用；導致教科書 難度不一，無法適應千差萬別的地方和學生差異，教育部被這個問題 糾纏了半個世紀。

Following liberation, regulating the confusing and decentralized textbook market, strictly controlling and unifying teacher’s books used in primary and secondary schools was a top priority for the new political regime. For this purpose, a step by step approach was taken which included issuing textbook catalogs, setting up publishers, and framing a national unified textbook policy. The fact that the highly unified textbooks were an important means to indoctrinating the populace with the national ideology helped ensure the fundamental quality of the textbooks, but the inevitable weakening of curriculum standards and the authority of the syllabus overemphasized the effects of textbooks, making them unsuitable for use with students and localities characterized by diversity. This created a problem with textbooks that the Ministry of Education was unable to resolve for half a century.