QUALITY OR QUANTITY: The 2009 doctorate awards ceremony at Northwestern Polytechnical University. An excessively unbalanced teacher-student ratio in China's Ph.D education has triggered concerns about the academic achievements of new recipients of the advanced university degree (YUAN JINGZHI)

Tough Choice

On August 29, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce released the list of the Top 500 Chinese Private Companies 2010. In 2009, the 500 enterprises achieved net profits of 217.95 billion yuan ($32.05 billion).

But combined net profits of just two large state-owned enterprises, China Mobile and PetroChina, topped that figure at 249.1 billion yuan ($36.63 billion).

A report from Shanghai-based China Business News says 221 of China's largest 500 private enterprises by sales revenues intend to enter the real estate sector in the next three years.

Of the top 500 companies, 308 are in the manufacturing sector. That 221 enterprises are planning to tap the property market implies they are struggling for small profit margins in manufacturing. For them to find new growth stimulus, the profiteering real estate industry is undoubtedly the top choice.

The impact of so many manufacturing enterprises entering the real estate industry is obvious: More funds will be funneled from manufacturing into the property sector and, as a result, hinder on the future development of China's manufacturing industry and even the country's industrialization process. The solution is to create a favorable environment for manufacturing enterprises to survive and make reasonable profits.

Changjiang Daily

A Fake Award

Over the past five years, more than 200 residential projects in China have received a so-called "UN habitat scroll of honor award," but none of them was awarded by a UN body. These awards were fake citations bought from domestic institutions at a cost of 36,000 yuan ($5,294) apiece.

In response to a Chinese preference to "international recognition," foreigners have created various prizes dedicated to Chinese award seekers. The "UN habitat scroll of honor award" falls into this category.

Why are the Chinese so interested in international prizes? One important reason is too many scandals have occurred in domestic prizes, so consumers think they have to turn to international prizes for assurance of good commodity quality. This kind of blind faith has been taken advantage of by businesses.

A crisis of trust is spreading everywhere in Chinese society. Due to a string of food safety scandals and misleading advertisements, fewer commodities seem reliable.

To reverse the phenomenon, there must be institutional arrangements to ensure business people focus on long-term interests. It's also important for relevant government departments to stamp out malpractice in domestic commodity quality authentication processes to restore consumers' trust.

Xinhua Daily Telegraph

Ph.D Bubbles

Professor Zhou Guangli at Huazhong University of Science and Technology reveals, nowadays, a doctoral tutor in China at most coaches 47 Ph.D candidates at the same time—and 3 percent of the candidates said they never exchanged ideas with tutors.

For a long time, the number of Ph.Ds has been used to measure a university's academic achievements. In 2008, China already overtook the United States as the world's largest country in terms of the number of new Ph.D recipients.

In order to boost domestic demand in the middle of the Asian Financial Crisis, China began to expand college recruitment in 1998. The crisis has gone but the recruitment policy remains.

We tend to boast of how many people in China receive a higher education, but often neglect the side effects of crazily expanding higher education and the importance of education quality. However, education has its own rules. If we subject it to economic aims, its development will be frustrated.

When a doctoral tutor is teaching many students at once, colleges must be very crowded. It's really time to disconnect the production of degrees from various economic indexes and allow education to play its original role.

Qilu Evening News

Complex Gifts

With the approach of Teachers' Day on September 10, whether to send expensive gifts to teachers on that day has become a headache for parents. As for the parents, the gifts do not necessarily mean respect or gratitude for teachers. They are worried about what will happen to their children if they don't send gifts when other parents do. As for teachers, the feeling is more complex: If they have not received gifts and other teachers have, they will not feel respected; if they do receive gifts, their acceptance may damage their image while refusal might cause parents to misunderstand or worry.

If investment in education has been made to such an extent that it's no longer a rare "resource" and teachers enjoy a high standard of welfare, parents should not need to send gifts to ensure their children are given equal opportunities in schools.

Most people are opposed to sending gifts to teachers on Teachers' Day, but just criticizing the situation won't solve the problem. More important is to think about how input into education can be increased. This is the fundamental way to healthier relations between teachers and students and their parents.

Yangtze Evening Post