From a historical height and a strategically advantageous position, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China answers in its report a series of major theoretical and practical issues of adhering to and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era. This report not only indicates the direction for the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics, but also provides a blueprint for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. It makes education the priority of future development and sets it as the foundation of the great rejuvenation to strengthen the country. Against this backdrop, it is required by a connotative development to promote the construction of a first-class university and first-class disciplines, in other words, the Double First-Class construction.
The past five years have witnessed the brilliant achievements under the leadership of the party Central Committee with General Secretary Xi Jinping at the core. The Party has in depth implemented the people-centered development thinking. The 19th NCCPC report has repeatedly mentioned such expressions as "always putting people’s aspiration for a better life as our goal "and "ensure all the people more sense of gain in the development of co-construction and co-sharing ". To thoroughly study and implement Xi Jinping's socialist ideology and basic strategy with Chinese characteristics, we must continue to uphold the people-centered development thinking and carry out the party's mass line in all the activities of state governance. Also, people's longing for a better life should always be an unchanging Goal. It is a new demand put forward by the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation for the reform and development of universities and a new expectation of people for a satisfactory education to accelerate the construction of first-class universities and first-class disciplines and realize the connotative development of higher education. The comprehensive "Double First-class" construction ought to be conducted with the 19th NCCPC spirit as the guideline. Meanwhile, we should resort to Xi’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to arm and instruct ourselves. We should fully implement the Party’s education policy, foster virtue through education, focus on our students’ well-rounded development and promote the carrying-out of all the campus work so as to develop education that people are satisfied with and nurture a new generation of capable young people who have a good and all-round moral, intellectual, physical, and aesthetical grounding and are well-prepared to join the socialist cause.
Firstly, “what sort of students to be cultivate and how to cultivate” is a vital question to start with when accelerating the construction of “Double First Class” with the core of students’ well-rounded development.
The cultivation of talents lays the foundation and form the basic content of “Double First Class” construction. The construction of a world-class university taken root in China must initially answer the vital question of “what sort of students to be cultivate and how to cultivate”. We must decisively adhere to the socialist direction of schooling, thoroughly implement the spirit of the ideological and political work conference in universities, firmly stick to the central position of personnel training in campus work, strive to improve students' sense of social responsibility in serving the nation and the people, their innovative spirit of bold exploration, and their abilities of solving practical problems, so as to truly nurture a new generation of capable young people who have a good and all-round moral, intellectual, physical, and aesthetical grounding and are well-prepared to join the socialist cause.
All those tasks mentioned above need to be conducted around the core of “students well-rounded development and cultivation” by truly establishing a “students-oriented” thought instead of leaving it a mere slogan. It is required to provide students with first-class education, better living conditions, and truly care about their learning, living, thinking, psychological conditions. The management should fall into place to guarantee the students’ healthy growth and development. Down-to-earth efforts should be made to build a team of highly qualified teachers, featuring the integrity of teaching and educating, words and deeds, the academic devotion and the social consciousness, the academic freedom and the academic discipline. The teachers ought to enter the undergraduate education front-line and inspire the students with their academic quality, morality and personality. Also, innovative ideas, modes, methodologies and approaches of teaching are to be applied for improving the talent cultivation. We will promote the feedback of scientific researches on teaching and the favorable interaction between them. For example, students are encouraged to participate in the research projects and laboratory investigation, which is believed to improve their practical and innovative skills. A beneficial soft campus environment is likely to come into being through the practice and promotion of the Socialist Core Values and the fostering of a good campus atmosphere. This helps to enhance the construction of an ideological and cultural base where knowledge is respected and academic dignity is maintained. The hardware facilities such as student dormitories, dining halls, and public sport equipment are equally bettered to give students more practical sense of gain in their daily life.
Secondly, the core strategy of building a high-end talent team is the key to accelerate the construction of “Double First Class” with the core of students’ well-rounded development.
The universal law of world-class university development indicates that the talent element is the essential component whether in strengthening the disciplinary competitiveness, or enhancing the quality of student, independent innovation and social services, which can be especially reflected in the quantity and quality of the leading talent with a strategic thinking and international influence. The team of highly qualified faculty is the most important resource for the development of colleges and universities, the basic component of independent innovation capability and the key to the core competitiveness of a university.
Last weekend, at the founding ceremony of the Wuhan University Talent Acquisition Fund Board, Ruan Liping, the alumnus of WHU from the Bulls Group, put it well. He said that the core competitiveness of enterprises is reflected in products. This is also the case with universities, whose “products” includes the quality of students and the scientific research achievements. The building of a talent team is the basis and hinge of producing these two “products”. For schools, student quality is the first element to test that of a university. High-level teachers teach high-level students and extraordinary instructors make outstanding learners. This year, we implemented the strategy of “strengthening our university with talents”, and achieved major breakthroughs in various indicators of personnel work by reforming the personnel system, setting up a high-level innovation platform and improving the talent service system. The university will further step up its efforts to build a faculty team. Apart from “building a nest to attract the phoenix” and extensive collecting of talents, the university will also improve its faculty training and work hard in such aspects as the number of high-end talents and the per-unit output of high-level achievements. Luojia talents team is therefore tempered by attracting, fostering, utilizing and cherishing talents, thus making WHU a height of gathering masters and brilliant learners.
Thirdly, the in-depth and comprehensive reform is the strong driving force to accelerate the construction of “Double First Class” with the core of students’ well-rounded development.
The 19th NCCPC report points out, to uphold and improve the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, we must deepen the reform in an all-round way, continuously promote the modernization of the state governance system and governance capacity, and resolutely set aside all outdated ideas, systems and mechanisms.
The central party has made explicit demands for deepening the reform of the education system and mechanism: the comprehensive reform in the field of education should be deepened in an all-round manner; the reform should be systematically promoted on the mode of educating and schooling as well as on the administrative mechanism and the safeguard mechanism; the independent schooling mechanism should be fulfilled in universities to ensure a modern university system characterized by schooling in accordance with law, self-administration, democratic supervision and social participation. A deepening reform is not only the corollary resulting from the external situation, but also an inevitable path for universities to improve their own educational quality. We must continue to deepen the comprehensive reform of universities by improving the two-level (the university and the school level) management system, perfecting the new mechanism for resource allocation, promoting the science nature of policies carried out with supporting work, and advancing the level of service for students so as to stimulate the passion and vitality at every level and to provide a strong guarantee for the educational quality.
“Only the universities of first-class talents can become the world-class ones.” Some time ago, our university revised and perfected the relevant policies for undergraduates to switch their major. This focuses on students’ long-term development for it bases on students’ actual conditions so that students’ interests can be fully realized. Moreover, the schools will be stimulated to improve the teaching quality through reform. We must appropriately handle the relationship between scale, structure, quality and effectiveness. Also, the limited schooling resources are to be used in the key areas for student cultivation. Only by improving the construction efficiency with a performance-oriented method of resource allocation can our university stand out in the fierce competition of “Double-First Class” construction.
Rewritten by Shen Yuxi
Edited by Hu Sijia
