NSA: Cradle of China's Public ServantsThe annual conference of the International Association of School and Institutes of Administration (IASIA), which was opened in Beijing Monday, has brought to light the rarely publicized National School of Administration of China.NSA is seen as one of the direct results of China's ongoing political reform as it was set up in line with resolutions made by the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1987 and the Eighth National People's Congress conference in 1988. At present, State Councilor Wang Zhongyu is the president of the NSA. NSA president must be a leading member of the State Council, the Chinese cabinet. NSA's campus was built in the western part of this national capital, covering a dozen ha., with a floor space of 110,000 sq.m., at a cost of nearly 400 million yuan. Besides teaching and dormitory buildings, NSA has built up a complete set of advanced auxiliary facilities including a library, an information center, an electronic teaching center, a computer center, and an audio and video center. Currently, NSA has employed over 200 full-time and part-time teachers, some of them being experienced government officials. Between 1988 and June 2000, NSA had sponsored 160 training courses attended by 7,467 senior and ordinary public servants in central and local government departments. Since 1995, the NSA has also helped train hundreds of public servants for the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administration Region. NSA has established close ties with similar institutions in more than 20 countries and regions. While inviting many foreign officials and noted figures to give lectures, NSA has sent its teaching staff and researchers to study abroad. David Lee, a senior advisory technician from the government of the Macao Special Administrative Region, has just completed his training at the NSA. "The teachers are very experienced scholarly officials from the central government and we have benefited a lot from their lectures," he said. Furthermore, NSA is going to hold training classes for foreign government officials beginning later this year. NSA has become a major base in China for training both senior and ordinary government officials and managers of large and medium- sized enterprises on the science of administration, said Zhang Xiuxue, a vice president of NSA since 1994 when it was officially inaugurated. |
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