LET THEM PLAY: Children should be encouraged to develop their imaginations and interests in the process of playing, instead of being confined by difficult textbooks (XINHUA)

Transparent Costs

The Jiangxi Provincial Government recently launched a campaign to make real estate developers declare their costs after they claimed to be selling homes at prices lower than the cost of building.

Many real estate developers are saying that up to 20 percent of new homes are being sold at prices lower than their costs. So clumsy is this trick that one can see through it at a single glance.

Though some developers are devoid of any sense of shame, the public still feels compelled to ask how dare they use false data to fool the people. Why has there been no government intervention?

It is common knowledge that developers are neither willing nor responsible to disclose their costs. Unless the government moves in to audit their accounts and monitor their costs, property developers will not reveal their operational models.

The unbelievable figures released by developers only underscores how indifferent the government is toward real estate development costs.

Development costs, comprising the cost of land, compensation paid for demolishing structures, money spent on relocating residents, marketing and taxation, should be made public. They have to pass the test of public opinion. It is hoped the government does its duty and stops beating around the bush.

The Beijing News

Short-term Boost

It was predicted that the eight-day National Day holiday would bring the tourism sector a profit of 100 billion yuan ($14.7 billion). The Ministry of Commerce also announced that retail sales of consumer goods during the holiday amounted to about 570 billion yuan ($82 billion).

As a result, some scholars and even foreign institutions have begun to glorify the stimulus power of holiday consumption. Some even claimed that the consumption during recent holidays might be more effective than the government's stimulus package to boost the economy.

It is unwise to rely too much on holiday consumption, however. For any one country, family or individual, annual expenses are by and large fixed. If a family has almost reached its spending limit during a holiday, in order to stay under budget, it will surely cut future expenses. Moreover, the holiday boom is based on price increases in almost every sector.

Actually, statistics from the National Tourism Bureau show that, from 1985 to 1998, when there was no "golden week" holiday system, the growth rate of the tourism sector was almost the same as that after the system was adopted in 1999, which is between 10 and 13 percent. Obviously, relying on holidays for economic stimulus is not enough.

The key to expanding consumption is to raise the income of low- and middle-income earners so they can spend more money, as well as to promote a well-developed social security system. When these things are accomplished, daily consumption of residents alone will be strong enough to drive up the economy.

Yanzhao Metropolis Daily

Ruining Children's Future

Before the autumn semester, the Department of Education of east China's Anhui Province banned textbooks in any form for kindergarteners. The book ban is intended to protect young children's psychological health and prevent kindergartens from becoming primary schools. However, the ban has been widely resisted, especially by parents.

When parents believe that only textbooks can give their children a strong start in life, kindergartens will bend to their demands despite the ban. Even if kindergartens follow the ban, parents are very likely to enroll their children in various extracurricular classes.

Parents are not so cruel to their children without reason. It is widely believed if a child does not acquire a certain range of vocabulary and basic mathematical skills early in life, he or she may well miss out on attending a good primary school and be unable to catch up with his or her classmates. As a result, children have to take primary school classes in kindergarten.

Wise education methods foster students' imaginations and tap their potential so that they will begin to paint pictures of their future lives, while foolish methods impart knowledge prematurely and suppress children's imaginations, potential and even personalities. By making kindergartens primary schools, parents hope to help their children win the game, but actually, in the long run, they've lost it when they've barely left the starting line.

Qianjiang Evening News

Empty Blogs

Since July 2008, more than 60 officials in central China's Jiangxi Province have started Web diaries on dealing with local problems.

Reporters' research, however, shows that some of these blogs have no original articles by these officials themselves and officials don't respond to netizens' inquiries, either. Some officials haven't had new posts on their blogs for half a year.

Officials' blogs can be an interactive platform for exchanging ideas and information with people and a way to help solve their problems. It takes a lot of time to write posts and read netizens' messages, and it requires generosity to put up with some netizens' extreme views. Not many officials can achieve the two, so it's natural that officials' blogs become a formality.

The solution is to improve the government system and let every department and office work efficiently. It's more practical to make government officials fulfill their responsibilities than to hope officials' blogs can perform miracles.

Guangzhou Daily