Students who begin Grade 1 this year will find ancient Chinese literature and science in their textbooks - the first time such material has been introduced to new students since the establishment of the People's Republic of China.

According to education authorities, the set of Chinese language textbooks for the six primary grades contain 132 works of ancient Chinese literature, taking up about 30 percent of the content of each textbook.

That's an increase of 80 percent over the set of textbooks previously published by People's Education Press, a publishing company under the Ministry of Education.