"It has a group of first-class professors, but few of them enjoys reputation worldwide. That's the difference between Tsinghua University and top universities of the world," says Gu Binglin, vice-president of the university and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Gu made the remarks in his dialogue with three Tsinghua students amid the activities of university to celebrate its 90th anniversary, which falls on April 29.

Tsinghua has determined to establish itself into a top university in the world by 2011. This is of great and far-reaching strategic significance to the improvement of China's comprehensive national force and its competitiveness in the world and promotion of economic and social sustainable development.

However, to build a world top university in China is not an easy task, said Wang Dazhong, President of Tsinghua University. As a developing country, he said, China has a weak economic strength, so its support for higher education is limited. Besides, due to historical reasons, Chinese universities are left far behind in its subject establishment, teaching staff and training system.

Wang pointed out the distance between Tsinghua and world top universities. The biggest difference is that it lacks professors or scholars at the world level. It is no match for the world top universities in training of higher-level talents, especially in the training of doctor degree obtainers. In basic research work, it has few originative achievements. In subject establishment, though structural adjustment in comprehensive courses has been basically finished, it still has a long way to go in introducing new courses. In terms of finance, the enhanced support from the state in recent years is yet not enough to meet the international standard.

Meanwhile, Wang expounded on the possibilities of establishing a top university in China.

First, through years of high-speed economic development, China has shaken off poverty and stepped on the way of modernization. The Chinese government has attached great importance to education and put a lot in this field.

Second, the Chinese modern education, though with a short history, is based on the long Chinese culture and educational tradition. Through a century's development, China has cultivated a group of high quality universities represented by Peking University and Tsinghua University. They have not only trained a large number of talents to contribute to social progress, but also attracted many qualified teachers, accumulated scientific and technological achievements, established favorable teaching and research conditions and formed fine tradition of study. Also, its international exchanges are wide. These universities, through more efforts, can be listed among the top universities of the world.

To celebrate its 90th anniversary, Tsinghua has made studies of a dozen famous foreign and domestic universities. Also, it conducted a survey among the graduates of the 1990s. By finding the gap, it will carry out reforms.

In the future, Tsinghua will strengthen efforts in the following aspects: Scientific research will be more closely combined with teaching; an advanced and special type of teaching system will be set up; teacher's quality and academic level will be improved, a management system favorable to improvement of students' quality and personality will be developed, and training of postgraduates will be enhanced.

Through incessant efforts, Wang believed, Tsinghua will become a top university of the world, and that the Chinese nation will make greater contributions to the progress of mankind and development of science and technology.

(www.china.org.cn by Li Jinhui 04/29/2001)