May 14th, 30 opinion leaders of Chinese ideological, educational and industrial circles such as Economist Mao Yushi, Prof Ding Xueliang of Hong Kong University, famous educator Ding Gang, gathered in the Huaishi Hall, SYSU to talk about the Education and the future of China. During the two days, all the distinguished guests discussed around the vision and mission of education, educational reform, where should higher education go and other critical issues on education.

Viewpoint 1: Nongovernmental education has been very stagnant

At the forum, Xin Lijian, Chairman of the Xinfu Educational Group, argued that although the Educational reform has given nongovernmental education some room in long-term planning, things are still not optimistic these years, “several years ago more than 200 nongovernmental colleges were passed, but now they’ve all stopped. the Ministry of Education hasn’t launched even one new college over the past five to six years . No more new high schools were opened in Guangzhou over these years. And Nine-year compulsory education has shrunk in number, too. It is a serious problem. I think the Ministry of Education should attach importance to it.”

Sheng Hongze, economist and the head of Tianze Economy Research Institute, pointed out that, compared to economic reform, the reform of educational system is lagged behind obviously, “all the administration methods we use in the educational field are the same to the administration used by the government in the planned economy period. For instance, entry regulation, accreditation, etc. Schools are not established freely, but accredited by the education administrators.”

Viewpoint 2: Reform of governmental education having a difficult time

Yang Dongping, head of the Teaching and Researching Institute of the Beijing University of Science and Technology, thought that the Medium and Long Term Education Reform and Development Planning Outline had been passed by our country, so the basic features, framework, objectives and tasks have all been clear. Briefly speaking, it should be sanctioned. Especially, there are lots of bright spots about the system reform, and perhaps the real problem follows is to practice and materialize it.

Yang Dongping believed that the public’s disappointments about the education are mainly on the governmental education, but it is very hard to change the governmental schools, especially the governmental colleges. It won’t do any good to solve the real problems of China simply through the system intrinsic or government oriented education.