Government goes to public in search for 3 school chiefs

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The Ministry of Education has launched a recruitment campaign as it seeks high-end talent to fill the top positions at three domestic universities.

From Dec 4 to 23, interested candidates can check the official website of the ministry at www.moe.edu.cn and apply for the positions of president at one of three universities -the University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, and China Pharmaceutical University, in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.

This is the second time the Ministry of Education has publicly recruited top leaders for its universities.

The previous round, which began in December 2011, included openings for two university presidents and six university chief accountants, and had multiple layers of screening that ended in March.

In this round of recruitment, the ministry adapted requirements for candidates that focused on two things: the candidates must have rich experience in management of high-level universities and possess administrative skills, and they have to guarantee their complete immersion in university management once they are selected.

China has 76 universities affiliated with the Ministry of Education. Presidents and deans at these universities have administrative rankings corresponding to official levels in the ministry. And almost all university presidents were designated by the ministry or by the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

"The new requirement means that once they are selected as university presidents, they have to quit their own scientific research, and dedicate themselves to university affairs full time," said Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute.

"The new requirements reflect the ministry's purpose in recruiting the university presidents publicly - ministry officials want our universities to have professional presidents who are impervious to the influence of administrative power," he said.

The power of bureaucrats at China's universities has been widely criticized since 2007, when Zhang Ming, a professor at Renmin University of China, showed on the Internet how deans abuse their administrative power to influence academic research.

In the following years, many universities in China have tried various attempts to break administrative power. One of the most famous cases is that of Zhu Qingshi, principal at the South University of Science and Technology, who tried to start a university from scratch so that the university could stand independently, apart from bureaucracy.

Questions:

1. How is the Ministry of Education recruiting for top positions?

2. What are the jobs?

3. Where are the openings?

Answers:

1. Through public websites.

2. 3 university president positions.

3. University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, and China Pharmaceutical University, in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.

（中國日報網英語點津 Helen 編輯）

About the broadcaster:

Nelly Min is an editor at China Daily with more than 10 years of experience as a newspaper editor and photographer. She has worked at major newspapers in the U.S., including the Los Angeles Times and the Detroit Free Press. She is also fluent in Korean.