China to cultivate top talent at universities

Aprogramme was launched on Monday to encourage China’s universities to foster more outstanding talent, according to a press conference. Jointly launched by the Ministry of Education, the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and 11 other departments, the programme aims to improve China’s higher education in engineering, medicine, agriculture, as well as liberal arts from 2019 to 2021, to enhance universities’ capabilities to serve the country’s social and economic development, authorities said.

The programme will help universities fully optimise their structure of majors and expand their reform of majors, and inspire students’ interest and potential, to comprehensively

vitalise undergraduate education and improve the quality of talent cultivation, said Minister of Education Chen Baosheng.

It is a combination of two previous higher education programmes. One starting 2009 focused on top talent cultivation in mathematics, physics, chemistry and computer science at 20 universities including Tsinghua University and Peking University, and has benefitted 9800 college students over the past 10 years.

Another programme was launched in 2010 in universities in co-operation with research institutions, authorities and enterprises, on fostering talent in engineering, law, journalism and mass communication, agriculture and forestry, as well as medicine.