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北京大学英语新闻网/Peking University News
chemistry.
The University of Science and Technology of China has been under great pressure
in the past decade. USTC, directly under the Chinese Academy of Sciences,
considers as its goal producing elites and developing subjects with USTC
characteristics on the basis of a small school size but intensive and efficient training.
In the past decade, USTC has focused on the development of existing strong
disciplines against various pressures. Some of our students and faculty do not
understand why USTC has not joined the nation-wide fad I just mentioned. Also,
since university ranking became popular just a few years ago, in which our university
was placed out of the Top 10 or even Top 20, lagging far behind some of our
counterparts that were larger in size and more comprehensive. In fact, the criteria for
such ranking were merely the overall conditions of a university, like its total funds,
total assets and total academic achievements. Many people from our school
leadership and alumni questioned the school performance in the ranking; our
enlistment of new students had been hampered, too. That was a tough time for us.
Thanks to the university board, we have, in a down-to-the-earth way, withstood all
these pressures.
In recent years things begin to change. Problems are emerging in those large-sized
comprehensive universities---the products of hasty mergers. There are mainly four
problems. First, the salaries all keep up with the highest of the campuses, thus
sharply increasing the school costs. Second, the professors are all trying to meet the
lowest standards, because otherwise there would be much fewer qualified ones after
merger. Third, the working efficiency is lowered. For example, recently one of those
comprehensive universities was reported to have failed to pay its loan interests. It is
unusual to see a university disclosing its own troubles to the media; that university
did so just to call for aides from its students and faculty. Fourth, sharp increase in
enlisting scale sees a lowered total quality of students, lack in faculty and hindered
education. That is why some universities opt for a remedy by establishing special
classes called ―better performance class‖ or ―talents class‖ (quite similar to the
practice of setting up ―younger students class‖ that USTC boasts), where relatively
better performing students could enjoy special training. Alas, how should they divide
their own students into two groups! This is the most unwanted results.
There was one important sentence centered in the documents of the Ministry of
Education and the speeches made by Ms. Chen Zhili last year: ―We should readjust
the education system to improve the quality of higher education.‖ USTC has been
better understood now, and we are having better foundation for the existing
disciplines and better enlistment. In 2007, the USTC enlistment score line in the
National College Entrance Examination ranks the third in Beijing, after Peking
University and Tsinghua University. Parents have realized that it is the academic
atmosphere and tradition of the university that determines their children‘s education,
rather than its location. Superficial attraction is like beautiful but instant bubbles.
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