It was reported there were difficulties in carrying out the textbook scheme. I believe that the opposition was from publishing houses and schools. Some reports mentioned that publishing houses would suffer if fewer textbooks were printed, and so would schools, some of which benefit from selling textbooks to students by getting kickbacks from the publishers.

Nevertheless, our policymakers should never take the side of interest groups when mapping out policies. Instead, they must take a long-term view for the sustainable development of our country.

I was impressed with what Premier Wen Jiabao said in his speech at Harvard: "No matter how small an issue is, it turns out to be a big one when it multiplies the population of 1.3 billion; however huge the financial resources and commodities are, they can be very small when they are divided by such a large population."

This should be the basic philosophy that underlines whatever policy our government implements.

We are happy to see that the textbook reuse scheme is being put in place in some rural areas, and it should be applied in urban areas as well. This is because we need to cultivate the awareness of thriftiness among students, apart from saving on resources.

A couple of years ago, I noticed that some students were selling their used textbooks on the campus of Peking University. I told my daughter that she should buy some of the books, but she never did for fear that the books had not sterilized.

If the school could have sterilized the books, I believe my daughter and her schoolmates would have had no hesitation in buying them.

I always believe it is a great idea for students to have a place on campus or the Internet to swap textbooks, which will not only save money but also cultivate an awareness of thriftiness.

Governments and schools need to do something to facilitate the second-hand textbook business on campus or on the Internet.

From a long-term point of view, a sense of thriftiness should be instilled in students in the reuse of textbooks and the swapping of these books, it could play a significant role in the saving of resources and protection of the environment.

We always say that we need to be concerned about the future generation, but we also must be concerned about their consumption and how it will impact on generations to follow. So we should never underestimate the accumulative effect of whatever dispense with in our daily lives.

The government must forge ahead with the project as it constitutes part of the country's sustainable development.

(China Daily, March 7, 2008)