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Quality key to real learning

Updated: 2012-05-21 07:59
By Song Wenwei and Cang Wei in Nanjing ( China Daily)

"What the students need is curiosity and interest on their road to success in science, or in anything they do," Daniel Shechtman, the 2011 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, told middle school and university students at "Meeting With Nobel Prize Laureates" on May 19, an event Nanjing University organized for its 110th anniversary.

Four Nobel laureates - the others being Aaron Ciechanover, Robert Huber and Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio - were also invited.

Quality key to real learning

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in literature, speaks to students at Nanjing University, Jiangsu province, on Saturday. Xu Qi / for China Daily

Schechtman told students that in education, the most important thing is quality, not quantity.

As one of the most prestigious universities in China, Nanjing University has trained tens of thousands of people to take part in the social and economic development of the country over the years.

"We have paid great attention to and will continue to lay emphasis on the improvement of quality by innovation and restructuring of academic disciplines," said Chen Jun, the university's president, at the gathering.

Taking the anniversary as a new starting point, the university has set a goal of going all out to offer the best quality undergraduate education in China.

 American writer loved China

Writer Pearl S. Buck was a remarkable cultural envoy who played a pioneering role in demystifying China in the American mind in the early 20th century, said scholars at a symposium on Pearl S. Buck and her Nanjing years at Nanjing University.

The symposium is one of the events the university is hosting to celebrate its 110th anniversary on Sunday. Around 20 scholars and writers from around the world gathered to exchange their views.

When she was only 3 months old, Buck's parents, Southern Presbyterian missionaries, brought her to China, where she spent most of the first 40 years of her life.

In 1931, she published her second novel, The Good Earth, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the Howells Medal in 1935. In 1938, less than a decade after her first book appeared, she won the Nobel Prize in literature, the first American woman to do so.

"We have proposed the goal in view of the current situation in China's university education; that is, not enough attention is given to undergraduate teaching, especially the idea of innovation and pioneering," said Chen.

With the fast growth of higher education in China, some problems have cropped up, giving rise to the tendency of more emphasis on research and less on teaching in universities. As a result, many university professors don't teach but only do research. Thus, students don't receive sound basic training in science and the liberal arts.

To build the university into a world-class higher learning institute, the university has started to reform its academic discipline structure by taking a multidisciplinary approach to teaching and learning so that students will have a balanced knowledge of the social and natural sciences.

"We hope that our students will nurture an innovative spirit in their university years by taking both science and liberal arts courses and will have a bigger potential in their future career," said Chen.

He also said that an understanding of Western culture and the absorption of advanced scientific achievements is another important experience that university education should provide, because these will help students to see things from an international perspective and become more competitive after graduation.

Over the years, Nanjing University has greatly benefited by conducting academic exchanges with more than 280 overseas universities and institutes in about 30 countries and regions.

The university received congratulatory letters from many individuals, including Premier Wen Jiabao and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and domestic and foreign universities, on this occasion.

Contact the writers at songwenwei@chinadaily.com.cn and cangwei@chinadaily.com.cn

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