Bai Chunli, president of the GUCAS, said that during the past 30 years GUCAS took the national lead in restoring a graduate recruitment system, trained China’s first doctor of Science and first doctor of Engineering and trained China’s first female doctor.

The GUCAS also is able to boast the largest number of graduate students. Currently, there are 34,200 graduate students studying at GUCAS and about 50% are pursuing doctoral degrees.

Lu Yongxiang, vice-chairman of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee and president of Chinese Academy of Sciences, (seen in our illustration) praised the achievements and contributions made by the GUCAS during the past 30 years.

He also requested that GUCAS adhered to the ‘people first’ education principle, to pursue reform and innovation in education, to build an environment and a system that is conducive to training talents. Thus it can foster more outstanding science and technology professionals with innovative spirits who can make bigger contributions in building an innovative country and in the nation’s renaissance. Stirring stuff.
Source: China View

According to a report released by the Ministry by the end of 2007, 19.9 million students were studying in the vocational institutions, an increase of about 1.8 million over the previous year.

In China, students can choose to pursue further study in high school and then go to college after nine years compulsory education (including six years in primary school and three years in middle school), or they can go to vocational schools to learn applicable and useful techniques, which are important for them to hunt jobs such as technicians.

The report also says that 99.46% of the school age boys go to primary schools while the figure is 99.52% for girls.

More than 27 million students went to higher institutions last year, with a gross rate of higher education admission hitting 23%, said the report, adding that the postgraduate enrollment saw an increase of 5.2% over the previous year.

The country has 22,322 private training institutions, which offers on-the-job or part time training for more than 8.8 million people.
Source: English People’s Daily Online

It is sometimes not clearly understood how difficult it is for an Asian student to learn English, certainly well enough to pass the test.
English, as a grammatical language is intensely difficult. Its grammar is complex; its dictionary vastly more extensive and the regional differences massive.

Let us take an example that arose yesterday. This computer needs to be connected with two other computers using a wireless router. Using all the laws of English that is pronounced as it is spelled — router. But not in England. There it is pronounced ‘rooter’ and no, there is no rational explanation available.

It is into this quagmire of a language the students for TOEFL are submerged and that so many survive says much for the assorted TOEFL teaching methods.

The mean score for Chinese test takers was 78 in the year, a two-point increase over 2006, matching the worldwide average of 78.

The official statement said, ‘The results show that the (Chinese) students are making strong progress in mastering the communicative English skills necessary to succeed at the world’s leading universities.’

Paul Ramsey, Senior Vice President of ETS Global, said, ‘These results show that the hard work of intensive study of English and practice by Chinese test takers has had positive results.
‘Chinese students will be able to show that in addition to their very strong academic abilities, they are able to use English for communication at the university level.’

Whether one approves of it or not English is now the language of commerce around the world and mult-lingual companies often chose it as the official language of communiation.

The TOEFL test is the most widely accepted English-language test in the world.

More than 6,000 institutions in 110 countries accept TOEFL scores, including the world’s top universities and institutions in the UK., Europe and all 4,300 colleges and universities in the United States, according to ETS.

In truth, there has always been a slight smell of commercial hustle about TOEFL and its recruiting of teachers sometimes seems a little suss and the scores accepted by many universities very low. But it has become the standard test and seems each year to be further cementing that position.
Source: China View

Besides providing information about international student exchanges, the expo also focuses on the capital’s own educational resources.

The expo showcases latest developments in the capital’s education system although the expo is more international than ever before. About 200 colleges and universities from 18 countries have joined.

For the first time, students are able to go through the simulated process of studying abroad at the simulation gallery.

Beijing is not only the center of education in China but it has been attracting more overseas students for study in Beijing.

Another new element focuses on providing better education for the children of foreigners living in Beijing. The fifth Beijing International Education Expo runs to Saturday at the Beijing International Exhibition Center.
Source: China View

This is probably the most widely used test of its kind in the world although I have never taken it despite English being a foreign language to me. They apparently don’s use TOEFL in Wales. At least, not the part I came from.

The US Educational Testing Service (ETS) has announced that the seats of internet-based TOEFL tests in China will expand from 1,950 in June to over 3,550 by the end of 2007, an increase of 80% in only six months.

ETS states the expansion is a result of proactive network construction and optimization efforts made by ETS and China’s National Education Examinations Authority (NEEA) jointly to meet increased demand for TOEFL tests in China.

Paul A. Ramsey, Senior Vice President of ETS’s Global Division said, ‘ETS is committed to ensuring that everyone in China who wishes to take the test has an opportunity to do so.’

The current 73 internet-based TOEFL test sites are located in 28 cities throughout China, including 19 sites in Beijing, eight in Shanghai, five in Nanjing, four in Hangzhou, and four in Tianjin.

TOEFL scores are accepted by more than 6,000 colleges and universities in over 110 countries, and the number of TOEFL test takers in China has been growing steadily in recent years.
Source: China.org.cn

Li Changchun, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and seen in our illustration, made the remarks at a seminar during his visit to the Northeastern University in Shenyang, capital city of northeast China’s Liaoning Province.

He said efforts should be made to innovate the teaching method of ideological and political education in the higher-learning institutions and strengthen the training of teachers to make it a subject favored by the students.

He called for joint efforts by all circles to accomplish the task.
Source: China View

The fund aims to aid 150 to 180 students each year with between RMB8,000 ($1,143) and RMB15,000 to cover part of their short-term study costs at foreign universities.

Only needy students with families living below the poverty line and a performance rank in the top 20% of their class are eligible.

Since 2005, Jiao Tong has had an overseas study scheme that encourages and provides opportunities for undergraduate students to participate in degree programs, short-term exchange programs or summer school or internships at foreign partner universities.

Jiao Tong officials said that about 14% of the university’s nearly 20,000 undergraduates have obtained such overseas experience at about 50 universities to date.

Jiao Tong officials said that they would continue seeking donations to expand the fund.
Source: China View

According to the Shanghai-based Evening News, Yang Yuliang, who heads the office of the State Council Academic Degrees Committee, said China produced about 50,000 doctors in 2006. This is a similar figure to that of the United States.

According to the statistics the national expenditure on research and development was roughly one ninth of the U.S. federal R&D spending in the same year.

Taking the base of 50,000 in 2006 and the average annual growth rate of PhD candidates’ admission of 26.7% from 1999 to 2003, probably more than 60,000 people obtained their highest academic degrees from Chinese universities, which made the country the biggest producer of PhDs in the world.

Unlike the U.S. where most doctoral degree holders go to higher learning and research institutions in China more than half of graduating doctors go into government.

With irrefutable logic Yang Yuliang said that due to the fact that tuitions and living expenses of doctoral candidates are mostly covered by the tax money it is a waste to produce so many doctors for non-academic organizations.

Yang said the ministry is going to keep the doctoral program admission growth rate under 2% each year while setting aside more resources for professional graduate training, such as masters of business administration, law and education.
Source: China View

Hu called upon the 110-year-old elite institution of higher learning on the eve of its anniversary, extending congratulations and greetings to the students, faculty and alumni.

The President joined in students at the university library, shaking hands and chatting with them.

‘College life is the golden time in a person’s life. You should make the most of the time to study hard, think hard and practise hard,’ he said. ‘You should also actively engage in social activities so as to not only learn the knowledge but also improve your ability to serve the country.’

His remarks found a resonance in many students. ‘I know that patriotism is not just in words but also in action. What we should do now to love our country is to study hard,’ said Yang Zhehao, a postgraduate student from the university’s College of Marxism.
Source: China View

32 years after his death he is being reinvented in some quarters as a business guru.

A recent study published in the Harvard Business Review found that 14 out of 15 Chinese CEOs said they turned to Mao for inspiration.

Although looking to Mao for business inspiration may seem, at the least odd, some argue that grappling with such contradictions is key to understanding China.

Sheila Melvin, who spent seven years at the United States-China Business Council, notes that Mao argued that ‘the unity of opposites or contradictions was the fundamental law of the universe.’

Sheila Melvin has written The Little Red Book of Business, a somewhat unlikely primer on doing business in China, based on some of Mao’s core principles.

She said, ‘It does seem rather bizarre. I believe foreigners can learn a lot from studying Chairman Mao’s worldview and philosophy, which still have great influence in China on government and government leaders.’

She applies Mao’s aphorisms to the world of business — ‘Make foreign things serve China.’

Sheila Melvin said, ‘That was Mao’s basic idea. Everything he did was in the service of China.
‘Foreign companies should understand that if they’re coming here, they’re being used. This seems kind of bad in the beginning. But if you accept the fact that you’re being used, you can be . . .  quite successful.’

Melvin says many companies draw upon Mao’s strategic prowess, including his guerrilla warfare techniques.

One example is of Wahaha, a Chinese soft-drink maker that at first declined to take on Coca-Cola in the cities. Instead, it decided to surround the American behemoth from the countryside, just as Mao surrounded Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists during the Chinese civil war.

The company ’started in third-tier cities, then went to second-tier, then it went to attack Coke on its own ground in the cities.’

Some Chinese executives even take inspiration from Mao’s darker years, including those during the chaos of the Cultural Revolution that swept China in the late 1960s and early ’70s.

At appliance maker Hai’er, for example, employees are made to detail their own failings at self-criticism sessions, similar to those during the Cultural Revolution.

Xiao Zhixing, a professor at China Europe International Business School, says that in the early 1990s most Chinese businessmen modeled themselves on Mao. He says that even today the influence of the Great Helmsman resonates among older executives, he says, especially those in state-run industries and in China’s interior.

Xio Zhixing said, ‘They just don’t have other possible models to learn from.’

Patrick Moreton, who manages an executive MBA program in Shanghai for Washington University and Fudan University, says Mao’s example has limitations.

Effective management requires ‘candor and direct conversations on what needs to get done,’ a ’straightforwardness and trust.’ He says Mao’s spirit of rebellion ultimately caused economic mismanagement, chaos and millions of deaths. Sheila Melvin, the author, says she thinks Mao also serves as a good teacher in terms of what not to do.

Xiao Zhixing, the professor, says that in the long term, using Maoist strategy tends to be counterproductive in business. He quotes the example of the founder of the Wahaha soft drink company, Zong Qinghou, who credits Mao with his management style — and who is reportedly under investigation for tax evasion.

He said, ‘Deep down inside, this kind of Maoist manager tends to disregard rules and regulations. They tend to disregard the value of respect for the individual, respect for the rules of the game.’
Source: NPR