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Challenge of talents
(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-20 07:32
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The abundance of talented people in all walks of life is an absolute prerequisite for a nation to rise. That important scientific inventions and discoveries over the past two centuries have boosted economic and social development both show how important it is for China, as a nation on the rise, to attach more importance to the cultivation of innovative brains.
The central government is expected to soon announce a set of guidelines for the cultivation of talented people over the next two decades. Since the dearth of scientists who could make breakthroughs has stunted China's growth in hi-tech areas, the need to cultivate talents at home and employ those returning from abroad suitably has never been more pressing.
Chinese make up only 2.26 percent of the top-level scientists in the world's 158 premier and the more than 1,500 secondary scientific organizations.
Rapid urbanization will create an even wider gap between the demand and supply of talented professionals in the first, secondary and tertiary industries. More than 6 million youths who graduate from universities every year but only a handful among them have the brains and determination to take up the challenge of achieving a breakthrough in science or technology. This speaks volumes about the way most of our universities have been cultivating students. Our higher education and the way we use our home-grown and overseas-educated talents needs to be revamped.
Hopefully, the government's guidelines on cultivating talents will help educators and officials join hands to move toward that direction.
(China Daily 03/20/2010 page5)
