College Enrollment Expansion Causes Mixed Feelings

Chinese universities and colleges planed to enroll a total of 2.04 million students this year, up 24.4 percent from last year's, which has caused mixed feelings among some Beijing-based schools.

In the past two or three years, Chinese universities and colleges kept expanding their enrollment, partly decided by the government.

Beijing University of Science and Engineering (BUSE) plans to enroll 3,100 students, up 25 percent over last year. The most tough issue it facing now is inadequate infrastructure.

To solve the problem, the university built a new apartment building and rebuilt its dinner hall. However, excessive construction pressed a lot on the campus environment.

"We solved the problem eventually this year, how about next year?" said the dean with BUSE.

Moreover, for those infrastructure-guaranteed universities, increased enrollment sticks out the problem of teachers.

Since the enrollment expansion last year, teachers of computer science, foreign languages and some newly-established majors in BUST have been inadequate.

Facing the conflict between increased students and deficient facilities, some universities had to give its added quota to the local students who are day-boarders.

This practice inevitably led to downslide of enrollment quality, according to some educational experts.

The prestigious People's University of China (PUC) recruited 200 local students last year to release dormitory shortage pressure.

Zhang Jianming, vice secretary of the school's CPC committee, was regretful at the decision. "We had to lower the enrollment score line to take in these students, and this decreased the student quality."

The university will never repeat the practice which depressed its own prestige just for sake of enrollment expansion, Zhang added.

He also called for policy support from the local government or education department.

"After all, capability of the university is limited," the newspaper quoted Zhang as saying.





People's Daily Online --- http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/