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Sunday, 7 February 2010
China’s top universities ‘to rival Ivy League’
The president of Yale University says China’s top universities will rival the elite ones in the United States and Britain in 25 years, a week after Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to make the country’s universities “world class”.
The president of Yale University says China’s top universities will rival the elite ones in the United States and Britain in 25 years, a week after Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to make the country’s universities “world class”.
In a Guardian interview published on Tuesday in London, Dr Richard Levin said the fact that Beijing spends 1.5 per cent of its gross domestic product on higher education every year to propel its best institutions may narrow the gap in a generation’s time.
He also said he does not regard the rise of Asian universities as a threat and criticised most mainland universities for lacking the necessary multidisciplinary breadth and the cultivation of critical thinking - prerequisites for a university to earn a worldwide reputation.
Beijing has vowed to turn the nation’s colleges into world-class ones since 1998 through market-oriented reform of the tertiary education sector. But that campaign has crumbled amid continued reports of corruption, widespread plagiarism, plummeting quality and complaints from employers that colleges did not prepare graduates to join the workforce.
Wen told a conference in Beijing last month that a lack of independent thinking and freedom of speech, rather than a shortage of money, had impeded universities. “Only independent spirit makes good universities,” he said. “[The current] stereotyped development method doesn’t work. Universities should be given decision-making power in administration and curriculums.”
Universities are still required to strictly follow the government curriculum, which includes Marxism and Deng Xiaoping theories.
Although universities say they have tried to encourage critical thinking, undergraduates who express different political standpoints are either given counselling or are punished.
Professor Shi Yigong , the dean of the School of Life Sciences at Tsinghua University, condemned depriving students of free thinking. He said it made colleges tedious.
“[Overseas] universities are always the most creative places, filled with academic contention, but China’s rigid system has long hindered undergraduates’ creativity,” Xinhua quoted Shi as saying at the Beijing conference.
Dr Zhu Qingshi , the president of South University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen and an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said mainland universities have a long way to go to become world-recognised institutes.
“A world-class university is neither about hardware nor grades given by educators, but whether it has accelerated the world’s general advancement,” he said.
“It has to help cultivate the public, and its graduates have to be well recognised by society. Elite universities always give an impetus to the world’s development.”
One telling factor could be the story of a US$9 million contribution last month. A Chinese businessman who attended both Renmin and Yale universities made a donation to the latter, saying the educational system at Yale, one of the famed Ivy League schools, had “changed his life”. His decision to not donate to any Chinese university has been regarded as a silent protest against the mainland’s tertiary educational system.
Many internet users have said mainland schools are not worthy of such largesse, as the donation may go straight into corrupt school officials’ pockets.
In Hubei province , nearly one-third of the higher education institutions had been hit by corruption scandals, state media reported.
More than 26 principals or directors from 19 universities and colleges in the province were arrested for taking bribes in the past 10 years.
Universities were permitted to expand their enrolment massively from 1999. This led to large-scale construction of new facilities and campuses, which have proven tempting targets for school officials looking to skim a little off the top.
1 comment:
China’s top universities ‘to rival Ivy League’
Fiona Tam
04 February 2010
The president of Yale University says China’s top universities will rival the elite ones in the United States and Britain in 25 years, a week after Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to make the country’s universities “world class”.
In a Guardian interview published on Tuesday in London, Dr Richard Levin said the fact that Beijing spends 1.5 per cent of its gross domestic product on higher education every year to propel its best institutions may narrow the gap in a generation’s time.
He also said he does not regard the rise of Asian universities as a threat and criticised most mainland universities for lacking the necessary multidisciplinary breadth and the cultivation of critical thinking - prerequisites for a university to earn a worldwide reputation.
Beijing has vowed to turn the nation’s colleges into world-class ones since 1998 through market-oriented reform of the tertiary education sector. But that campaign has crumbled amid continued reports of corruption, widespread plagiarism, plummeting quality and complaints from employers that colleges did not prepare graduates to join the workforce.
Wen told a conference in Beijing last month that a lack of independent thinking and freedom of speech, rather than a shortage of money, had impeded universities. “Only independent spirit makes good universities,” he said. “[The current] stereotyped development method doesn’t work. Universities should be given decision-making power in administration and curriculums.”
Universities are still required to strictly follow the government curriculum, which includes Marxism and Deng Xiaoping theories.
Although universities say they have tried to encourage critical thinking, undergraduates who express different political standpoints are either given counselling or are punished.
Professor Shi Yigong , the dean of the School of Life Sciences at Tsinghua University, condemned depriving students of free thinking. He said it made colleges tedious.
“[Overseas] universities are always the most creative places, filled with academic contention, but China’s rigid system has long hindered undergraduates’ creativity,” Xinhua quoted Shi as saying at the Beijing conference.
Dr Zhu Qingshi , the president of South University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen and an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said mainland universities have a long way to go to become world-recognised institutes.
“A world-class university is neither about hardware nor grades given by educators, but whether it has accelerated the world’s general advancement,” he said.
“It has to help cultivate the public, and its graduates have to be well recognised by society. Elite universities always give an impetus to the world’s development.”
One telling factor could be the story of a US$9 million contribution last month. A Chinese businessman who attended both Renmin and Yale universities made a donation to the latter, saying the educational system at Yale, one of the famed Ivy League schools, had “changed his life”. His decision to not donate to any Chinese university has been regarded as a silent protest against the mainland’s tertiary educational system.
Many internet users have said mainland schools are not worthy of such largesse, as the donation may go straight into corrupt school officials’ pockets.
In Hubei province , nearly one-third of the higher education institutions had been hit by corruption scandals, state media reported.
More than 26 principals or directors from 19 universities and colleges in the province were arrested for taking bribes in the past 10 years.
Universities were permitted to expand their enrolment massively from 1999. This led to large-scale construction of new facilities and campuses, which have proven tempting targets for school officials looking to skim a little off the top.
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