ChinaTextbook

Breaking Down Educational Barriers with Open Source: A Mathematics Textbook Initiative for Universal Access

In the digital age, educational resources should be more accessible and equitable. Yet, many high-quality materials remain fragmented across platforms or restricted by artificial barriers, making them difficult for the general public to obtain. Worse, some textbook resources are watermarked and resold at exorbitant prices on e-commerce platforms.

To address this issue, an open-source educational project has emerged, targeting all citizens - particularly overseas Chinese families. This initiative systematically organizes mathematics textbooks from primary school to university level, freely shared through public repositories to promote educational equity and improve resource distribution across regions.

Project Background and Origins

Although numerous official and non-official platforms have opened up compulsory education resources, users still face limitations from platform restrictions, network environments, and information retrieval capabilities. This information asymmetry leads to the 'commodification' of educational resources, contradicting the principle of public education.

More importantly, overseas Chinese families desperately want their children to continue receiving Chinese basic education, especially maintaining the domestic teaching system in core subjects like mathematics. This open-source project aims to build a bridge in this context.

Project Resource Overview

The project covers mathematics textbooks from primary to university levels, organized by semester and difficulty level with clear structures and abundant resources:

Primary School Mathematics (Grades 1-6)

• Full PDF files for both semesters
• Corresponding to national compulsory education textbook editions

Middle School Mathematics (Grades 7-9)

• Organized according to the nine-year compulsory education curriculum
• Each volume is independently labeled for easy reference and printing

High School Mathematics

• Includes core and elective modules
• Covers key topics like functions, analytical geometry, and derivatives

University Mathematics

• Advanced Mathematics
• Linear Algebra
• Discrete Mathematics
• Fundamentals of Probability Theory
• Additional materials sourced from open mathematics communities

Technical Solution: Merging Large Files

Considering GitHub's 100MB file size limit, some textbooks are split into multiple files under 50MB, such as:

math_grade1_term1.pdf.1
math_grade1_term1.pdf.2

To address this, developers provided a small merging tool: mergePDFs.exe. Users simply place this tool in the directory containing the PDF fragments, run it, and the system automatically merges the files.

Simple Usage Guide:

1. Download the mergePDFs.exe program
2. Place it in the folder containing split files
3. Double-click to run, allowing the system to automatically identify and merge files
4. Generate complete PDF files without modifying original documents

This approach significantly improves accessibility for users without professional tools, enhancing the project's practicality and usability.

Download Recommendations for Global Users

Domestic Users:

Use the community project tchMaterial-parser to automatically download original textbook resources. The fully open-source code supports batch downloading and updates.

Overseas Users:

Due to network restrictions accessing domestic resources, it's recommended to directly obtain compressed packages from this GitHub repository or clone the entire project using a Git client. This minimizes issues with mid-process disconnections or speed limitations.

Social Impact and Future Vision

Under the exam-oriented education system, learning often becomes a tool. However, this project expresses a more pure vision: hoping to foster more individuals like the self-taught "middle school ginger sprout" who learn out of genuine interest rather than just for exams.

This project is not merely a textbook collection but a technical implementation of the 'educational public welfare' concept. It focuses not only on educational content itself but also on the accessibility of education, which is particularly significant for families restricted by geography, identity, or language.