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Universities Encouraged to Go Public
South China's Guangdong Province Friday encouraged science companies run by universities and colleges to sell stocks and go public for money to make their schools as first-rate as today's best in China.
"We will try to introduce more preferential policies to help the province's college-operated scientific firms issue stocks and go public in the future,"said Guangdong Party Secretary Li Changchun at an education work conference yesterday in the provincial capital, Guangzhou.
Guangdong, which has taken the lead in China to introduce a market economy, should offer different ways to raise funds for higher education, which lags behind the province's rapid economic growth, Li said.
He also urged improvements in teaching conditions and the well-being of teachers.
Guangdong will make changes to its higher education to train more personnel to support economic growth.
To this end, the province will import foreign university management skills and advanced teaching equipment, and its universities will do more academic exchanges with prestigious higher education institutions.
Although Guangdong has done well with economic development, Li said the province still needs more scientists, economists, technicians, engineers, lawyers and other experts. Universities and colleges can produce these people to advance economic growth, Li added.
Guangdong aims to generate one or two schools that can compete with Qinghua, Beijing and Fudan universities in academic and scientific research.
The province's Zhongshan University and Zhongshan Medical University will merge this month to help match China's best schools.
The provincial government and the Ministry of Education will spend more than 1.2 billion (US$145 million) over three years to beef up the new Zhongshan University.
Meanwhile, universities and colleges will make more of their own decisions on entrance examinations and enrolment.
Guangdong now has more than 60 registered universities with a combined enrolment of about 220,000 students.
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