The Chinese Academy of Sciences is breaking new ground with its plan to recruit more undergraduate students in a bid to raise standards.

Ding Zhongli, vice-president of the academy, announced that the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences will enroll 300 undergraduate students this fall from across the country, the first time the university will have admitted undergraduates.

The University of Science and Technology of China, another university affiliated with the academy, also plans to expand its recruitment, Ding said.

"The Chinese Academy of Sciences is not going to change its strategy of focusing on postgraduate education. However, the quality of our postgraduate candidates seems to be not quite good enough, so the aim is to enroll more undergraduate students to raise the quality of our postgraduates," Ding said.

President Xi Jinping visited the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in July and said it should take the lead in nurturing innovative talent.

"Most of our postgraduate students will continue their research at the academy's institutions after graduation. They become key members of their team after a few years, but few are able to be leading talents," Ding said.

"To answer President Xi's call, we realized that we should cultivate these leading scientists instead of waiting until they enroll for postgraduate school."

The University of Science and Technology in China, established in 1958 in Beijing before moving to Hefei in Anhui province, currently has 7,400 undergraduate students.

Despite the wide recognition of the academic competence of USTC graduates, only around 30 percent choose to continue postgraduate research at the academy's institutions, Ding said.

"About 30 percent of students go abroad, 30 percent find jobs and the others continue postgraduate study in China, mainly at the academy," he said.

The University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, began as the graduate school of the academy, and was renamed in 2012.

It currently has 42,000 postgraduate students studying at its four campuses in Beijing, five education bases outside Beijing and 117 institutions across China.

As UCAS will start enrolling undergraduate students this year, undergraduates who are able to prove their academic ability may have the chance to start postgraduate study in the university even before they graduate.

Challenges remain, however.

"We are experienced in postgraduate education, but undergraduates are quite new for us," Ding said.

Deng Yong, Party secretary of UCAS, welcomed the move and said scientists were looking forward to it.

"No teaching assistants or associate professors will give lectures. We have 6,000 PhD supervisors working for the academy's institutions, so we set the threshold that only professors can teach undergraduate classes.

"Some leading scientists are pinning higher hopes on educating undergraduates than postgraduates, and some have insisted on having undergraduates participate in their laboratory work."

Aiming to recruit the most talented students for science research, the university plans to select the candidates by comprehensive assessment: the college entrance exam will count for 70 percent; interviews for 20 percent and high school test results for 10 percent.

"We are still striving to make the interview process as fair as possible for every student," Deng said. "We will record the whole interview and put it on the Internet and release the interview score to the public, and we will adopt measures, such as group interviews and random allocation, to ensure fairness."

chengyingqi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/24/2014 page7)