Chinese educational sectors will open wider, as economic, scientific and educational sectors join international competitions with China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), a top educational official said.

"Higher-learning, vocational, adult and secondary technical education institutions will work with overseas partners to run corresponding schools in China,'' Minister of Education Chen Zhili said in an interview with China Daily.

To help foreign institutions learn more about China's educational policies, the Chinese Government will work out a set of provisions on Sino-foreign joint schools to guarantee their quality,'' Chen said.

Policies concerning the investment from overseas individuals for operating schools on the Chinese mainland will also be stipulated, said Chen.

Moreover, efforts will be made to expand bilateral and multilateral educational exchanges, and to accelerate the work of mutual recognition on academic degrees between colleges and universities of China and other countries.

However, such institutions involving military affairs, police, politics, party schools and preliminary education will not open to any foreign organizations, though the country has become a WTO member, said the minister.

Another important goal is to cultivate higher-level talents to boost the country's high-tech industries.

"Priority will be given to the nurture of talents with finance, trade, law, accounting and management expertise in order to meet the demand of economic restructuring that is caused by the country's entry to the WTO,'' said Chen, China's first woman education minister.

"Meanwhile, in-depth training programs covering WTO rules will be launched among governmental civil servants and enterprise executives to help bring their performances closer to international standards,'' she added.

The minister pins a high hope on overseas Chinese scholars as well as domestic university teachers.

"Chinese students and scholars who study abroad are encouraged to contribute to the country's economic development through various ways, such as returning to the motherland, operating laboratories and technological firms, or giving regular academic seminars,'' she said

The ministry will continue to implement the Hong Kong-based Cheung Kong Scholars Program and the Cross-Century Talent Program, to assist outstanding university teachers to gain breakthroughs in cutting-edge academic fields, Chen pledged.

Higher learning institutions have played an active role in the country's major scientific programs in the recent few years.

Last year, for example, universities undertook one third of studies for 18 national basic scientific programs. Some 22 university-born scientific parks and six university-based centers for commercializing technological findings have sprung up.

These parks and centers will be further developed to help reinforce technological innovation and fuel the development of information technology, biotechnology and other high-tech industries, Chen said.

Regional education departments should further improve efficiency of vocational schools, in order to upgrade skills of massive laborers throughout China.

The country's 20,000 vocational schools had trained more than 10 million specialized workers over the past few decades for agricultural, industrial, medical, health, and financial sectors.

"But industrial and service sectors are still in need of highly-skilled specialists. Widening the recruitment of senior-level vocational schools is significant for labourers to compete in today's job markets,'' Chen pointed out.

"Providing lifelong education opportunities for the 1.3 billion population is a long-term task. Plus regular school education, the Chinese Government will speed up distance-learning projects via broadcast, television and the Internet-based facilities to open diversified learning courses for people of different ages,'' said Chen.

In addition, 28 pilot centers have been set up across the country to promote community-based education programs. Such centers are expected to be expanded to offer pre-employment and job-training programs for people, said Chen.

The minister, who was born in a teachers' family, also concerns more about education development in remote and poor areas. She revealed that the State has allocated 5 billion yuan (US$602 million) to further popularize primary and middle school level education in the central and western regions for the 10th Five-Year Plan (2001-05) period.

China's better-developed eastern areas have basically popularized primary and middle school education. While the underdeveloped central and western regions have much to be desired in this respect, due to adverse geographical and relatively poor economic conditions, sources from the Ministry of Education said.

(China Daily January 22, 2002)