Soft power key for fostering leading innovative talent, says CPPCC member

Chinese universities should enhance library studies to build science and technology majors' soft power, suggests Zeng Yong, a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese Political Consultative Conference, on Sunday in Beijing.

Zeng, also vice-president of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, told China Daily website that he had noticed most graduates might have "good enough" special technical skills, which composed their "hard power", but there is a gap between them and top-level innovators.

"China still lacks leading innovative talents in many industries and disciplines," said Zeng.

He said that his university has opened more liberal courses for undergraduates over the past several years.

Such courses, including Chinese and Western philosophies, comprise 13 credits now, accounting for about one-tenth of the entire credits needed for a science and technology major to graduate from his university, said Zeng, who started to serve in this university as early as 1988.

He added that in the past these courses only took four to nine credits.

In addition to this suggestion, Zeng also made a formal proposal on enhancing preschool education for regions inhabited by ethnic minority people.

He said preschool education, which is still not part of the compulsory education, is especially important for reducing poverty.

"Education is the long-term mechanism for lifting people out of poverty, as we could see more and more people have become better off after receiving higher education," Zeng said.

"However, there are still difficulties for ethnic minority students to do very well at college as they have not received good basic education before entering universities, especially bilingual education," he explained.

He thus suggested that society should pay enough attention to preschool education in ethnic minority regions, lawmakers should include such education in the compulsory education, and the central government should support these regions financially so that they could enhance teachers' capabilities.