If a mainland Chinese is ever to win a Nobel prize for science or academic works, the country must first initiate wide reforms in higher education, according to Yang Fujia, a physics expert from Shanghai and the current chancellor of Britain's University of Nottingham.

Noting that no Chinese living and working on the Chinese mainland has ever won the prestigious award in its 100-year history, the former president of Shanghai's Fudan University called for specific changes during an interview with Shanghai Daily yesterday following his talk on the Nobel awards at the Shanghai Library.

Yang, 65, who currently serves as director of the Shanghai Institute of Nuclear Research, had just returned home from Britain, where he presided over the annual meeting of the southern English university's board of directors.

Though six Chinese have received Nobel prizes, Yang said, none of them did so by virtue of their achievements in China.

"In more-advanced countries, the higher the level at which one studies, the more diligent he will be," said Yang. "In China, it's the other way around. Here, our Ph.D. students are not even as diligent as our high school students, who tend to work harder because they are under greater pressure."

He asserted that while high school students burn the midnight oil vying for the limited opportunity to study in the best universities, the postgraduates pass exams and obtain diplomas easily and spend little time and energy on research.

In a century of Nobel awards, Yang noted that most prizewinners' discoveries and theories were made and developed during their youth, while they were involved in research at university.

Yang called for a "reasonable" mechanism for change.

(eastday.com December 27, 2001)