Source: Guangming Daily 2013-03-10 Page 02
Written by: Wang Yiyin
Translated by: Zhang Saijia

In Guangdong delegation, Xu Ningsheng, Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and President of Sun Yat-sen University, has been a focus of media reports. During the short interview with the scholarly academician and president, he patiently talked about the issue of higher education competition with the reporter.

"We should have an open mind, and actively participate in educational globalization.” Xu Ningsheng reemphasized.

Reporter: Since Guangdong is located in the forefront of reform and opening up, and is close to Hong Kong and Macao, do you have any pressure in student drain?

Xu Ningsheng: Yes, there is pressure, but not much. Relatively speaking, more students would go to the United States.

Reporter: From the University of Nottingham Ningbo China established many years ago, to New York University of Shanghai, and to the fact that some colleges and universities in Australia recognize the college entrance examination results of China, we may find that the competition for student resources are getting fiercer and fiercer. What do you think of it?

Xu Ningsheng: First, we should have an open mind. Chinese students are going abroad while foreign students are coming to China, which is a good thing from the perspective of education. Although the global economy is in recession, the trend of globalization cannot be changed or stopped. Actually, it is a progress for more Chinese students to go abroad and broaden their horizons. Second, at the present stage of development of Chinese higher education, we should have confidence in competing with others. In terms of teaching quality, we are competitive. However, in educational environment, there is still room for improvement.

Reporter: Where does this competitiveness come from?

Xu Ningsheng: It comes from hard training. Just take Sun Yat-sen University as an example. We have advocated the idea of "Dedication to Teaching, Students and Learning” in recent years, emphasizing that the improvement of teaching quality must start from undergraduate education. First, in 2012, our input in undergraduate education was increased by 17% compared with the previous year, which was directly used for teachers and students, not including the special fund for books and other special funds. Second, we are strict with classroom teaching, and require that professors must teach courses to undergraduates, which has been welcomed by students. Moreover, various schools have started their own actions, for example, in recent years, Lingnan College, a business school, has spent a lot of efforts in reforming undergraduate education while it still keeps great quality in MBA and EMBA program.

We also put a lot of emphasis on social practice. For instance, students majoring in news media, used to have opportunities of internship and practice only after they became senior students. But now what we consider more is that we should link the whole course system and social demand together and start training students’ ability of social practice from the beginning. Nowadays, there is an entrance examination in many industries, which is actually a threshold. This has never been neglected at SYSU. The passing rates of our students in national qualification examinations for doctors and in National Judicial Exam are much higher than the national average level. This shows our competitiveness.

Reporter: It has been reported recently that the education sector in Europe and America, in their reflection, think that Chinese students have solid foundations and they should learn from the education sector of China.

Xu Ningsheng: Here it is. Nowadays foreign countries are highly motivated to come to China to “learn from our experience”. For example, Carnegie Mellon University in the U.S. excels in computer science. The collaborative education between CMU and SYSU has officially started. The CMU representative in charge of the joint project told me that they come to China to “learn from our experience” instead of copying their practice in the U.S., and that they want to explore with us a whole new educational model. I think that during this process, universities in China should actively participate in the waves of educational globalization, and spread good experience. The joint project will enroll students worldwide, which can attract students from other countries.

And even longer ago, we established the Sino-French Institute of Nuclear Engineering and Technology under the collaboration between SYSU and five engineering schools in France to train world-class talents who will be involved in the nuclear industry. While a recent move is, just a few days ago, we signed a collaboration agreement with Johns Hopkins University to train high-end medical talents, which is also a very big collaborative program. All of these can help improve our educational quality.

I think when you interview me next time, maybe I can tell you a story about our going abroad to set up a new school.