Private education can build on strong foundations

ON SUNDAY, Westlake University, China’s first private university aimed at cultivating high-level talent in advanced technology, was founded in Hangzhou, capital of East China’s Zhejiang province. Beijing News comments:

According to various sources, Westlake University follows a new mode in which a private foundation supports it, which will not only enhance the sector of private university as a whole, but also in turn propel education reform forward.

The foundation’s council not only nominates members of the university’s board, but also raises funds from the society to support the university. That is to say that it is the foundation that directly runs the university.

With the foundation mode, all the incomes of the university, including the tuition, the donations, as well as other business incomes will go to the account of the foundation, which will in turn spend the money to cover the university’s daily expenses. That will help the university stay nonprofit.

For a long time, “private universities” have been (nóngcūn jījiàn shīgōngtú)

Several departments including the Ministry of Transport, National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and National Energy Administration are drawing up a blueprint for the construction of rural infrastructure.

The construction of rural infrastructure is a key measure to expand effective investment, associated with providing poor quality education and being merely diploma mills. A primary reason for this is the companies running the private universities have focused on making money.

According to the Private Education Promotion Law, which was amended this year, nonprofit schools must spend all their cash surplus on the school. The founding of Westlake University marks the first step forward in this regard.

Of course, the university has incomparable advantages, because it was first initiated by Jack Ma, who has enormous social resources. It raised 3.5 billion yuan ($504.3 million) as a startup fund, which is mission impossible for many other foundations, but at least others can follow the mode.

We hope Westlake University will help the whole private higher education sector refresh itself.

Blueprint for the construction of rural infrastructure

and the National Strategic Plan for Rural Revitalization (2018-22) focuses on continuously increasing investment in rural infrastructure. Local governments are to increase their investment to promote key infrastructure projects in transportation, hydraulic engineering, energy and information. It is estimated that the scale of rural infrastructure construction will reach 4.52 trillion yuan ($652.33 billion).

Promoting the upgrading of rural infrastructure construction is a key part of the rural rejuvenation strategy, and the main projects will focus on transportation, rural hydraulic engineering, energy supply and informatization.

The core requirement of rural revitalization is to realize the integration of urban and rural development, let all kinds of production factors flow smoothly between urban and rural areas, and effectively combine with rural land, ecology, landscape, culture and other resources to form an industry, which needs to complement rural infrastructure.

According to the National Strategic Plan for Rural Revitalization, government capital and social capital will jointly support the construction of rural infrastructure.

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