Translated by: Zhang Tianhong 14', Zheng Yuxin 14', Deng Lu 14'
This article was translated from a
previously published story. It was published by The Time Weekly, a
Chinese newspaper in Guangzhou.
On September 24, Zhu Qingshi then president of South University of
Science and Technology of China gave his fourth speech for freshmen in
at the university in Shenzhen. It was his last time speech before he
stepped down as president. Zhu was so popular that everyone crowed
around him to get his autograph when he walked into the lecture hall.
During the last five years, South University of Science and Technology
of China has been in the public eye because of its courage to depart
from the traditional education system.
Actually, the appearance of South University of Science and Technology
of China in Shenzhen is not a coincidence. The Shenzhen government spent
RMB 100 million to invite top domestic scholars in the 1980s to give
lectures in Shenzhen even though the budget was only several hundred
million. Shenzhen has continued to create education miracles over the
past 30 years regardless of the economic and political situation. New
educational ventures in Shenzhen include Shenzhen University, South
University of Science and Technology of China, and the Shenzhen campus
of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, as well as other partnerships
with world-famous universities In order to develop a well-educated
workforce for Shenzhen, local government is always seeking education
innovation.
“Considering the development during the last 30 years, the educational
structure of Shenzhen is feasible but far from enough,” said Professor
Hai Wen, dean of Peking University HSBC Business School. “The industrial
upgrade of Shenzhen indicates there is a huge demand for talent in many
fields, including biology, physics, chemistry, finance, law, the arts,
and health care. Developing talent not only increases GDP but also
improve our lives.”
Dean Hai went on to say that while the city focused on solving people’s
survival problems with a lower-level industrial structure during
Shenzhen’s early development, now the city should focus more on
education, research and so on.
“Shenzhen Speed”
The well-known Internet company Tencent was founded by Ma Huateng , a
Shenzhen University graduate, and his company is only blocks away from
his alma mater. Shenzhen’s economic power, especially its finance and IT
fields, has attracted a number of top universities.
However, money doesn’t mean everything. One teacher at Shenzhen
University said that his tutor was a specialist in military strategy and
was enticed by Shenzhen University with a lot of money, but finally he
decided to leave because there weren’t any relevant industries here.
Liu Yunchuan, a PhD candidate at SZU said, ”Considering the history of
Shenzhen University, it has moved in zigzags. There were a lot of famous
scholars here when the university was founded. First, there was
president Zhang Wei the vice president of Tsinghua University, then Tang
Yijie and his wife Le Daiyun were teachers in the Language School.” He
went on “The Shenzhen government spent one fourth of its fiscal budget
to support Shenzhen University, which is impossible nowadays.”
However, Shenzhen University’s reputation has fallen since then. Li
Dong, a staff member at Shenzhen University, said, ”Shenzhen University
wanted to become famous in academics, but the government wanted it to
provide a lot of professional workers in photography, business
administration and so on. Therefore, Shenzhen University missed its best
time to develop because of the negligence of fundamental education.”
New mode, newer mode
The prosperity of Shenzhen University when first built is somewhat
similar to the case with South University of Science and Technology
(SUST) which has been the focus of public opinion in the past five
years.
Zhu Qingshi was appointed president of SUST in September 2009. Since
then, SUST has risen straight up on the east side of the University Town
in Xili, Shenzhen. The Shenzhen government’s investment is in the
billions as the second phase is still under construction. Tanglang
Station, the subway station closest to SUST is labelled “SUST” below
“Tanglang,” showing that SUST is highly valued by the city of Shenzhen.
But there have been philosophical differences between SUST and the
Shenzhen government, one of which is enrollment. The local government
hopes that SUST can provide large significant talented for the
development of the city, which contradicts SUST’s plans. Insiders
revealed that in 2012 the local government intended 2000 enrollees –
over ten times of that planned by the university. The actual numbers
were 188 students in 2012, then 325 enrollees in 2012, and 608 in 2013.
As SUST was struggling to survive, a new kind of educational partnership
system emerged in which prestigious universities cooperate with local
schools. For example, Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is
collaborating with Shenzhen University and admitted more than 300
undergraduates in its Shenzhen program this year.
“The first thing about running a school is establishing a fine
mechanism. I’m not saying that Shenzhen University is not good, but when
we start new schools, it is better to break convention and introduce a
new mechanism,” Xu Yangsheng, the president of CUHK (Shenzhen), told the
reporters from the Times Weekly.
When selecting the location for the university, Xu received several
invitations from cities situated in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl
River Delta. After personally investigating Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen
and Guangzhou, he chose Shenzhen because the university was most needed
there. The number of top tier, ‘native-born’ universities then was 37 in
Beijing, 16 in Shanghai, but few in Shenzhen. Even in Guangdong
Province where Shenzhen is located, the number of high-level
universities is much smaller than that in cities close to Shanghai and
Beijing. The case with the location of national research institutes was
the same. “Having seen this, we believed if we decided to found a
university, Shenzhen was the place where it should be located,” Xu
recalled.
The setting of majors was also relevant to Xu’s investigation,
considering the need for upgrading industry in the Pearl River Delta.
“We mainly considered three aspects. First was local demand, second were
the traditional advantages that CUHK can offer, and third was the
global trend. We found that IT, biomedicine, new energy, finance, and
management were in huge demand,” said Xu. Some newly founded majors at
CUHK (Shenzhen) include genetics and urbanology. “Urbanology is so
important to China because modernization is the process of urbanization,
and China is going through it now and will still experience it in the
future. How to arrange the city traffic, how to supervise the city
population, how to plan for education: these all create new challenges
for city planning.”
Xu Yangsheng is not alone. Hai Wen, dean of the Peking University HSBC
Business School, also told reporters from the Times Weekly that Peking
University Shenzhen Graduate School also took Shenzhen’s long-term
industrial development into consideration when designing disciplines.
“We focus on four points: new frontiers, interdisciplinary studies,
applied research, and international standards. The School of
Transnational Law and the HSBC Business School under PKU (Shenzhen) both
provide Shenzhen and other cities in China with talent that those
cities need. Our School of Transnational Law is unique in China. At
present many graduates of our schools can be seen in financial
institutions all over Shenzhen, including Qianhai New District. We hope
to offer two kinds of talent, one specializing in high-end international
finance and the other in international law.”
Not only a Stanford, Shenzhen might also want a Harvard
The Shenzhen branch campus of Chinese University of Hong Kong is thought
to be a “rather good model” among all Shenzhen’s effort to merge
colleges or build branch campuses of well-known universities. However,
one of the big problems is that the administration of these universities
is impossible to be migrated. Sometimes the merged colleges or branch
campuses are even reduced to second-rate schools.
But for the Shenzhen government, this model will not change. According
to a local government publication, Shenzhen will construct 10 specialty
colleges that will offer educational focus areas for strategically
emerging industries, such as biology, the Internet, new energy, new
materials, and information technology, as well as and other areas such
as medical and health, environmental protection, finance. These are
planned for the government’s “12th five-year” period. The cost is
projected at one billion for each of the five years.
The specialty colleges are common in Shenzhen. A government magazine has
also pointed out that the purpose of these specialty colleges is to
make full use of the science and technology innovation environment and
the support of advantageous industries in Shenzhen. According to the
principle of“small but good,” specialty colleges can focus on talent
development in specialized areas where well-known international and
domestic universities, institutions and enterprises can partner together
and mainly focus on undergraduate and graduate education. According to
the current national higher education policy, domestic universities
should be the top 30 for national comprehensive ranking and top 5 for
rank of majors. Rather, international universities should be the top 100
for global comprehensive ranking and top 20 with rank of majors.
“In Shenzhen’s current industrial situation and with its medium and long
term plans, we can see that Shenzhen and the Pearl River Delta focus on
the construction of modern industry, including advanced manufacturing
and the modern service industry,” said Dr. Wang Mei, of the Think Tank
Development Institute. “Shenzhen has also put forward six strategically
merging industries and even future industries, such as aerospace and
military. Therefore demand for talent in these areas will be relatively
large. In terms of industry weights, tertiary industry accounts for more
than 50% of GDP. In addition, for the past few years, many labor
intensive industries have moved out of Shenzhen. Therefore, Shenzhen
needs more modern service talent.”
Said Lin Jiang, the director of the fiscal and tax department of Ling
Nan College, Sun Yat-Sen University, “Although the Pearl River Delta
region, including Shenzhen, has focused on manufacturing, it attaches
importance to processing and manufacturing rather than advanced
manufacturing. Transformation needs diverse talent, including senior
technical workers.”
Shenzhen needs high technology management talent and a lot of technical
personnel and senior technicians. And Shenzhen Vocational-Technical
School, called by many the best vocational technical school in China,
has done much for Shenzhen. “In my vision, the 1000-acre property on
which Shenzhen Vocational-Technical School sits can be used to construct
a college within Bao'an District where there will be millions of
laborers,” said Yu Zhongwen, the founding dean of Shenzhen
Vocational-Technical School. “If the professional technical force of the
front line workers can be improved, Shenzhen will develop better.”
After several rounds of industry change for more than 30 years, the
present key phrase for Shenzhen’s economy is “renaissance of hardware.”
In a report about innovation by the Economist, Shenzhen is described as
“the capital of hardware all over the world.”
“One can find all the needed raw materials within one kilometer in
Shenzhen, which is impossible in America, Europe and any other place in
the world,” said Cyril Ebersweiler, the founder of Haxlr8r.
Optimists give examples of the success of Stanford University supported
by Silicon Valley. It’s due to the boom in California’s high technology
that Stanford University has risen to its current status.“Technology
and economy have positive effects on the development of local higher
education. Silicon Valley is such a case,” said Christopher A.
Pissarides, the dean of London School of Economics and Political Science
and the 2010 Nobel Laureate in economics.
Said Chen Chaochao, the director of Shenzhen investment promotion
division , “Renaissance of hardware needs more talent. Huawei and
Tencent are the past. At present there’s no world-class company which
can represent the new Shenzhen.”
Whether the talent needed by Shenzhen can be satisfied by local higher education is a question long under consideration.
“As a metropolis, Shenzhen has been doing a lot of work in attracting
overseas talent,”said Wang Mei, of the Think Tank Development Institute.
“Therefore the demand for local talent is not necessarily a big
motivation for the development of higher education in Shenzhen. I think
one function of the development of higher education is to build a good
platform for industry innovation. So the development of higher education
in Shenzhen is for cultural output rather than talent output.”
Xu Yangsheng and Hai Wen have different viewpoints on this. “A number of
social surveys found that Shenzhen should bring in the talent of about
2000 international hires if it wants to become a real financial center.
The number is ten to twenty each year, at present.”
Said Haiwen, “Most people find a job near the university where they
study. This is a rule. Therefore, the talent quality can’t be improved
if there are no good local universities. On the other hand, people
choose the workplace not only for wages but also for the future
development of the overall environment and children’s education. So I
have been saying that Shenzhen must improve health care and education,
otherwise it’s difficult to retain talent. Why do people still go to
Beijing although it’s so crowded? Many people are there for the higher
education. How to change this situation? The only way is to found a
better top university in Shenzhen. I think Shenzhen also wants to become
Silicon Valley. In addition, Shenzhen hopes to have not only Stanford,
but also Harvard.”
