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Training Qualified Personnel

The aviation industry needed large number of qualified personnel and the only solution was to set up more universities to train more people. According to the instructions of Premier Zhou Enlai that "we should be determined to set up our own aviation universities", the aviation industry treated the constructions of universities and production facilities with equal importance.

The three aviation universities of new China were established in 1952. The aviation majors of the existed universities in China were adjusted primarily in 1951 and in October the following year, with the general adjustment of universities in China, the aviation universities were further adjusted by the government. The BIAA was formed by combining Aviation Institute of Qinghua University and aviation departments of Sichuan University and Beijing Polytechnic College; the East-China Institute of Aviation, later called Xi'an Aviation Institute when it was moved to Xi'an in 1956, was established by a merger of aviation departments of the former Central University, Jiaotong University and Zhejiang University; The Xi'an Aviation Institute was merged with Northwest Polytechnic in 1957 and formed the present NPU ( North-west Polytechnic University ). 1952 also saw the establishment of Nanjing Aviation Industrial School, which later was upgraded to NAI ( Nanjing Aeronautical Institute ) in 1956.

Meanwhile, the secondary technical schools and the skilled workers training schools were set up in large numbers by the Bureau of Aviation Industry. There were about 8 secondary technical schools and 11 skilled workers training schools being set up during the First Five-year Plan period. Those schools were built up from nothing and under very difficult conditions. Students learned and carried on the tradition of hard struggle of the Yan'an Military and Political University of Resistance Against Japan. Old houses were used for their classrooms in day time and for bedrooms at night. Teaching facilities were self made and classes started while schools were still in construction.

The first year students were already at grade three when the construction work of school was nearly completed in 1954. Thousands of students graduated from these colleges and universities by the end of the First Five-year Plan, among them were 96 graduate students, 1,980 university undergraduates, 2,137 college students, 5,558 secondary technical school graduates and 26,144 students of skilled workers training schools. This technical force had met the urgent demand of the development of aviation industry. While students were educated in these schools experiences of running schools were accumulated simultaneously. Chairman Mao highly praised the Kunming Aviation Industrial School and Xi'an Aviation School at a Supreme State Conference in 1957 and at a Nanning Conference of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1958, asking people to learn from their hard working spirit as well as their experiences of running schools.

Training staff and workers was another important way of improving their quality. After the First Five-year Plan and under the slogan of "Learning from the Soviet experts" and "Marching forward to science", an atmosphere of learning business, techniques, foreign language and political theory were created among the leading members, technicians as well as workers of the aviation industry. Here and there early in the morning, one could see people reading and studying in offices, factories or institutes. Every one was busy in the day time at his work, while in the evening workers and staff members including directors and Party Secretaries of factories all went to classrooms. By the year of 1956, 7 spare time colleges and 7 spare time technical schools were run by aviation industry. Total number of students in those schools reached 21,000 which was one quarter of the total number of staff and workers of the industry. Short term training classes in factories and institutes were sprung up like mushrooms. Besides, about one thousand cadres were released from their work to learn technology. Young cadres with less education background were sent to study in the Workers and Peasants Accelerated Middle School, while the leading members with good education background were sent directly to special classes of BIAA which speeded up the technical training of cadres.

More and more graduates were assigned to aviation industry continuously thanks to the fast development of education. The educational and technological quality of the working force was greatly improved. By the end of 1957, technical personnel of the whole industry reached 15,000, that was 14.3% of the total number of workers compared with 500 in 1952. Technical school graduates and workers who were specially trained with aviation technology occupied half of the total number of employees in most factories. This industrial working force of the first generation of the aviation industry formed after the founding of new China not only ensured the smooth transition from repair to manufacture, but also was the backbones in the development of aviation industry all the time. Aviation colleges and universities also educated large number of graduates for space industry, People's Air Force, shipbuilding industry and other sectors of national economy, making contributions to the establishment and development of these newly established organizations.