China's ministries, with the support of local governments will collaborate with universities to upgrade the teaching level. Such steps have been taken so that teaching can better serve the economy and society, said an official of the Ministry of Education.

Fan Hailin, deputy director of the ministry's Higher Education Department said that this requires a combination of central as well as regional resources and is an important attempt in the reform of higher education management mechanisms.

He made the comment when representatives from China's 70 universities gathered to discuss the cooperation project on Dec 29, at Heilongjiang University, in the city of Harbin, Heilongjiang province.

According to Fan, top medical, normal, agricultural and forestry, and science and technology universities have been included in the project. He said that the ministry will build a platform for them to share information and learn from each other. The platform will also provide guides in their development planning and other opportunities such as meetings and training. The deputy director said that in infrastructure programming, these universities will be given top priorities.

He also added that the ministry encourages a transition to practical type among qualified universities.

Officials of six universities were present during the meeting, namely Zhejiang University of Technology, Heilongjiang University, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Shenyang Aerospace University, Hebei Agricultural University and Wenzhou Medical University. They also shared their experiences and opinions related to school-government and school-enterprise cooperation at the meet.

Gao Ce, vice president of Shanxi University chaired the opening ceremony of the day-long event.