Full Text: Report on the Work of the Government

4. Fully implementing the strategies of reinvigorating China through science and education and strengthening the nation through human resource development

Education, science, and human resources are the cornerstones of national prosperity and rejuvenation, and are also at the core of overall national strength.

We will give high priority to the development of education. For a country to become strong, it must first strengthen education. First-class education is a prerequisite for cultivating high-caliber personnel and building a great country. We will promptly begin to implement the Outline of the National Medium- and Long-Term Program for Education Reform and Development. We will focus on the following five areas.

First, we will advance education reform. We need to emancipate our minds, boldly make breakthroughs and innovations, encourage experimentation, and carry out a systematic reform of the system for operating schools, curricula, teaching methods, and evaluation systems. We will continue to give top priority to cultivating the integrity of students and vigorously promote well-rounded education. We will explore systems of school management and ways of providing education that are suitable for different types of education and the development of people with different skills, so that we run schools better and turn out better graduates. We will encourage nongovernmental sectors to run schools in order to meet people's diverse demands for education.

Second, we will promote the balanced development of compulsory education. On the basis of a rational allocation of resources, we will accelerate the renovation of junior secondary school buildings in the central and western regions. We will also accelerate implementation of the nationwide program for safe primary and secondary school buildings, and ensure that buildings, equipment and teaching staff in all schools reach established standards as soon as possible. We will provide multimedia distance learning facilities for rural primary and secondary schools so that children living in the vast rural and remote areas have access to quality education resources. We will improve preschool education and develop special education schools. We will increase educational support for ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas.

Third, we will continue to strengthen vocational education. With the goal of helping students find jobs, we will integrate education resources, improve teaching methods, and focus on nurturing students' employability and entrepreneurial abilities.

Fourth, we will reform the management and admissions systems of institutions of higher learning. We will give them more decision-making power, encourage them to adjust their majors and curricula to meet employment needs and the needs of economic and social development; more intimately integrate personnel training, scientific and technological innovation, and academic development; inspire their teachers to concentrate on education; and become high-level universities with their own distinctive features. We will develop a number of first-class universities that produce outstanding personnel. The central government will increase support for the development of higher education in the central and western regions.

Fifth, we will improve the ranks of our teachers. We will take a variety of measures to attract outstanding personnel to pursue careers in education and devote their lives to it. We will focus on strengthening training for teachers and principals of rural compulsory education schools, and encourage excellent teachers to teach in impoverished rural areas. We will intensify education to improve the professional ethics of our teachers, and enhance their sense of responsibility and mission. Hundreds of millions of families place their hopes for a better life on education, and education has a direct bearing on the quality of the nation and the future of the country. A country cannot become strong and prosperous if it does not make education universal and improve its quality. We must always keep this in mind.

We will vigorously develop science and technology. We need to earnestly implement the policy of independent innovation, and comprehensively build an innovative country. We need to accelerate the implementation of our major science and technology programs. We need to concentrate on making breakthroughs in key scientific and technological problems that can drive the technological revolution forward and promote industrial invigoration, in major scientific and technological problems related to public welfare that can improve people's health and the quality of their lives, and in problems in strategic, high-tech fields that can enhance our country's international competitiveness and safeguard our national security. We will make farsighted arrangements for basic research and research in cutting-edge technologies in the fields of biology, nanoscience, quantum control, information networks, climate change, aerospace and oceanography. We will deepen the reform of the system for managing science and technology; strive to bridge the gap between science and technology and the economy; promote the development of a system of technological innovation in which enterprises play the leading role, the market provides orientation, and the efforts of enterprises, universities and research institutes are integrated; and promote optimal allocation, open sharing, and highly efficient use of scientific and technological resources. We will vigorously implement the strategy for intellectual property rights and strengthen the creation, application and protection of them. We will further arouse the creativity of scientists, engineers and all of society.

We will accelerate the development of human resources. Talented personnel are the primary resources. We need to develop all types of human resources in a coordinated and all-round way, with the focus on producing innovative scientists and engineers, and experts and professionals in key areas of economic and social development, and energetically attract high-caliber personnel from overseas. We will set up a mechanism for diversifying funding for personnel training, so that the government, nongovernmental bodies, employers and employees all do their part. We will make full use of the basic role of market forces in allocating human resources, strive to create an institutional environment conducive to bringing forth talented people in large numbers and tapping their full potential, and make our country rich in human resources.