Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, August 16, 2003
Chinese Officials Leave for Harvard Training
Fifty-nine Chinese officials from regional governments left Beijing on Saturday to take a six-week training course on public administration and international development issues.
Fifty-nine Chinese officials from regional governments left Beijing on Saturday to take a six-week training course on public administration and international development issues.
The education mission is expected to help those officials improve their skills involving public management strategies and analysis, the English-language newspaper China Daily reported on Saturday.
The trip is part of a "China's Leaders in Development Program" kicked off by the State Council Development Research Center, a think tank for the Chinese central government, Beijing-based Tsinghua University and Harvard University last year.
According to the program, around 60 Chinese local officials will be trained each year until 2006.
Candidates for the program are usually high-ranking local government leaders under 45 years of age, but the selected trainees for this year seem to be younger, and nearly 10 of them are women, according to the report.
Anthony Saich, faculty chair of Asia Program, who is responsible for the training project at Harvard, was quoted by thepaper as saying last year all the Harvard faculties were "enormously impressed" with the quality of the Chinese students in the program.
"This year, our main objective remains the same: to provide these officials with the tools to think strategically about local government management and to introduce a number of the best practices from around the world for their consideration," he said.
Before their trip to the United States, the trainees had finished a three-week crash course at Tsinghua University, focusing on key economic and social issues in China, said the report.