I thought I would have a chance to meet up with a friend of mine during a recent trip to the United States. I didn't, because he was too busy with a full course load for his master's degree of business administration programme at a Delaware college.

I didn't even get to ask what motivated him an accomplished businessman already in his early 60s to return to school and study along with classmates younger than half his age.

He told my sister that he entered the programme to keep up with the rapid development and changes in businesses and finance.

Sonia Gunderson, a new friend I made during four weeks of teaching at the University of Iowa, also helped answer my questions.

At 59, Gunderson is working towards a master's degree in journalism at the Midwest university. Despite a disability that resulted from polio in childhood, she has already made a few trips to Inuit communities in Arctic Canada near the North Pole.

Her stories from those trips are so vivid and moving that I feel as if I were with her during her reporting trips.

While reading one of her articles, I could almost hear her chatting with the Inuit people and envision her enjoying the big traditional family gathering, during which they were trying to revive their almost-lost ethnic ritual for a new feature film.

From her stories, I could also sense a compassionate journalist who had won the trust of the indigenous people she interviewed and featured in her articles.

Before she started the two-year master's programme, she'd already taken poetry classes and attended summer poetry workshops and independently studied journalism.

She has had to overcome much difficulty, juggling courses, reporting assignments and working into the wee hours of the morning.

My two friends are not alone in their pursuit of further academic and professional advancement. In Gunderson's class, three out of 15 graduate students are over the age of 45.

She tells me that she was driven to seek further training when she started to work on magazine assignments.

"If I was going to be journalist, I wanted to know what I was doing. And I wanted to write about worthwhile subjects and do them justice," she said. "Having the intention wasn't enough I needed concrete skills."

In so saying, Gunderson highlights important criteria for people who seek continuous education. That is, a specific professional or vocational objective is often the best motivation for further studies. Meanwhile, solid skills are acquired and improved only when students have the passion and resolve to do a good job.

Meanwhile, the very fact that my two friends, either nearing or passing the retirement age in China, can still pursue further professional training is something that will take some time before it can be made available even in major urban centres like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

The saying that "it is never too late to learn" is commonly accepted.

But in fact, the Chinese society has yet to provide opportunities and encourage mid-career professionals to improve themselves by taking courses in colleges and universities.

They are often burdened with so much work in addition to their responsibilities to their children and parents that they have neither time to learn new things nor opportunities to shift to a new profession, especially when they are approaching the retirement age of 55 for women and 60 for men.

The fact that China is still a developing country should not serve as an excuse.

At least Beijing and Shanghai, which claim a high-level of social, economic and cultural development, should take the lead to create chances for mid-career people to return to school. This includes those nearing or passing the retirement age but still in their prime. I believe these professionals will double their efforts and accomplishments in the years to come.

Email: lixing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 05/11/2006 page4)