China's higher education is facing a precious improvement opportunity, but it is also facing a serious challenge, said Minister of Education Zhou Ji, in an interview with Xinhua.

Last year, China's colleges had 160 million enrolled students, and the admission rate was roughly over 15 percent, which is a great progress compared with a decade ago. In spite of that, colleges still lack effectiveness and vigor to foster young talented people applicable for current and future economic construction, said the official.

China is a country with a huge population, and it must take advantage of its human resources if it wants to achieve its ambitious economic goals, said Wang Shuguo, president of the prestigious Harbin Polytechnical University.

Colleges need to shed traditional concepts, and learn from the mature mechanism of higher education in the West in order to upgrade their administration and operation. They should enhance communication with each other, and strengthen links with overseas institutes, since China is becoming more involved on the world stage than ever nowadays, Wang said.

Zhu Qingshi, president of the Chinese University of Science and Technology, said Chinese colleges should aim to train first-class graduates if they want to earn international reputations.

According to Zhu, his university has set up programs to encourage college students to participate in workshops and practice work that is designed to train their creativity and awareness of service to the community. Special funds have also been established to assist education programs for moral, physical and aesthetic training.

Colleges and professors used to pay too much attention to students' test scores rather than performance in other fields, which seems impractical and a waste of human resources. Diversity must be encouraged on campus, and higher education should be able to lay a solid foundation for the future development of students in a variety of ways, said Zhu.
 
(Xinhua News Agency December 25, 2003)