Helen Deng
WHILE Shenzhen University had become overly crowded, the city’s University Town — which houses the postgraduate schools of some of the best universities in the country — had too few students, a legislator said yesterday.
“The government should think about how to make use of the existing resources (in the University Town),” said Ni Jiazuan, dean of the College of Life Sciences of Shenzhen University.
Ni, who is also a member of the prestigious Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the University Town was “underutilized” despite its first-class facilities.
Opened in 2003, the University Town occupies two square kilometers of land and had places for 5,544 full-time students in August 2008, according to figures from the official Web site of the University Town.
Shenzhen University, which opened in 1983, occupies 1.44 square kilometers and houses more than 20,000 full-time students. The university is so crowded that it has to close its doors at noon, said Ni.
The original plan for the University Town allowed for 3,000 students in each of the postgraduate schools for Beijing University, Qinghua University, Harbin Institute of Technology and Nankai University.
The city government spent billions of yuan on the University Town to attract top students and researchers to the city. According to agreements between the universities and the Shenzhen government, the universities should move some of their postgraduate students and teachers to the University Town.
However, there was criticism that the plan had not worked well. At a group discussion yesterday, a legislator said that teachers from the elite universities had not settled at the University Town. “They just come now and then for lectures,” said the legislator. Many graduate students at the universities were not willing to join the Shenzhen postgraduate schools.
Another legislator argued that the postgraduate schools, which were supposed to be research-oriented, spent too much time cashing in on adult education.
Ni suggested that the University Town build colleges that Shenzhen really needs and include both undergraduate and postgraduate education.
Guo Rongjun, former vice mayor of Shenzhen, defended the University Town.
“The University Town was designed for postgraduate education because the city lacks high-level science and technology personnel,” said Guo.
He said students at the University Town were closely cooperating with local companies, which funded most of the laboratories at the University Town. “It is playing an increasingly important role,” said Guo.