Modern-day China cannot simply offer training courses which cater to elite women, such as executives or managers. To truly achieve gender equality, these courses need to be accessible to female university and even high school students, said Xu Liping, vice president, of China Higher Education Press’ Superior Liberal Arts Department on March 25.

 

Xu was speaking at a seminar, seeking to address problems facing female students. The seminar was based on the findings of The Classroom of Women’s Growth, a book written by Xu Guojing, the head of Scientific Institute of China Juvenile Education. Its academic punch came from its speakers, who hailed from some of China’s foremost universities such as Peking University, Beijing Normal University, Agriculture University of China and Jilin University.

 

When quizzed about how they view their social status, female students provided a fairly negative overview. Problems ranged from developing inferiority complexes vis-à-vis boys, the too many fluctuations that bombard a woman’s social life and parents believing that girls cannot surpass boys academically.

 

The Classroom of Women’s Growth seeks to shed light on the modern woman’s life by analyzing the social factors that can either impair or aid a woman’s development. Distributed to many female students, it will hopefully provide them with sound advice to overcome some of life’s more piquant social problems. 

 

Published by the Higher Education Press, the book and its accompanying materials will be available both in traditional and multi-media formats.

 

According to Xu, this new teaching method uses cutting-edge techniques to bring China’s latest educational theories to university students, often woefully deficient in independent study and research methods.

 

As it stands, no training courses tailored specifically to women exist, except for specialized senior-executive level programs. Xu is thus sounding a clarion call for this kind of seminar to become a regular activity nationwide, and ultimately filter down to creating women’s studies courses in universities.

 

(China.org.cn by Zhang Ting, March 30, 2007)