State Council adjusts approvals in Beijing

far less enthusiastic than schools, the commission said.

The document aims to further connect occupational and higher education with demands of the market and enterprises, which in turn will be encouraged to participate in the endeavors of improving these educational institutes, the commission said.

Yan Humin, director of the education and research department at Tianjin University of Technology and Education, said the move would be a good way to boost the development of vocational education and help relieve enterprises from the dilemma of finding competent employees.

“My students can intern in manufacturing companies, but many teachers don’t know what the real demands are from the perspectives of enterprises. Now key enterprises can join in and tell us how to make good employees for them,” Yan said.

The document clarifies the important role enterprises should take, targeting the bottleneck for the integration of schools with enterprises, said Guo Jianru, a professor at the Graduate School of Education at Peking University.

Over the past 10 years, the country has made progress in moving forward the integration but only schools on their own cannot get the job done, Guo said. The key to successful integration lies in the vital role of enterprises, which should be fully aware of how to improve students’ skills and meet their demands, he said.

The central government expands the integration from vocational schools to universities, which provides policy support to further cooperation between universities and enterprises, Guo said.

One spotlight of the notice is that key State-owned enterprises, especially those directly administered by the central government, should play a bigger role in boosting the integration, he said.

The notice will be beneficial to promote universities focusing on applied technologies, further transform research achievements into industrial output and improve the competitiveness of China’s industries, said Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute in Beijing.

Xiong suggested a reasonable assessment system for education should be established to promote equal competition and development among all institutes. Meanwhile, schools should be given more autonomy to introduce enterprises to join their management and contribute to the cultivation of high-quality graduates, he said. The State Council decided to make temporary adjustments to a number of administrative regulations as well as rules for market access in Beijing. Adjustments were mainly related to areas concerning foreign banks, entertainment venues, foreign-invested aviation, allowing foreign businesses to invest in these fields in Beijing. For example, the new adjustment has canceled the previous upper limits for the proportion on foreign investment in the culture and entertainment industry in Beijing. The General Offices of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council jointly issued a document on Dec 17, announcing that China will establish a comprehensive damage compensation system to protect and improve the ecosystem by the year 2020. It announced that China will expand a pilot reform nationwide starting next year, obliging polluters to repair the environment or pay a compensation. The reform has already been piloted in Chongqing municipality and the provinces of Jilin, Jiangsu, Shandong, Hunan, Guizhou and Yunnan and has seen progress. The ministry will also work to develop an environmental damage assessment system and regulate the assessment procedures. China has launched a series of campaigns to fight pollution and environmental degradation, and more than 1,000 officials have been held accountable for environmental damage.