BEIJING - Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping has urged the country's higher education institutions to give Communist Party of China (CPC) branches a bigger role in the education and management of faculties and students.

Xi, also president of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks while inspecting Peking University, Renmin University and Tsinghua University on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"A Party branch is a basic unit for college education and the management of Party members... Grassroots Party organizations should be assured of playing a vigorous part in more aspects of higher education," Xi said while visiting the College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering and the School of Archaeology and Museology under Peking University.

At Renmin University, Xi visited the education and research center for Karl Marx's Das Kapital and attended a seminar where new student Party members discussed Marxist classics.

Xi called upon higher education institutions to guide faculties and students to grasp the Marxist worldview and methodology and build up confidence for socialism with Chinese characteristics.

"College teachers, especially young teachers whose ideological, political and moral values have profound influences on students, should set an example to guide them on a path of healthy development by passing on both knowledge and belief," Xi said at Tsinghua.

Xi also called on college students to integrate innovative thoughts with social practices as they seek all-around development as well as characteristic pursuits.

On Wednesday, Xi presided over a symposium at Tsinghua University where he heard reports from an official with the Ministry of Education as well as Party committee secretaries from five higher education institutions concerning Party construction.

Xi urged Party committees at all levels to stick to the path of operating socialist universities and boosting ideological and political education.