Making Educated Decisions

According to a recent survey by Horizon Research Consultancy Group, 40 percent of the surveyed people believe the returns of education are unsatisfactory, given high tuition fees, while only 16 percent of the respondents think education is worth the tuition fees.

In 2006, a report issued by the Horizon Group indicated that education spending was the primary reason for household deficit spending. Today, the situation seems worse: The higher education background people have, the less they believe they have spent valuable money on their education. What nurtures this pessimism?

Unequal distribution of educational resources force some students to pay high fees for being admitted into leading schools, so that they can have high-quality education, which is a precondition for them to enter prestigious universities. Meanwhile, when universities' enrollment expansion makes employment increasingly difficult, more college students choose to go to graduate schools, which cost them more money.

Due to oversupplies in the labor market, however, new graduates are currently paid the same or lower salaries than less-educated colleagues. Gradually, they begin to feel their input in education worthless.

A mounting disbelief in the value of education is by no means positive for the nation. To reverse this trend, deficiencies in education resource distribution throughout the country, as well as in the employment and salary system, must be corrected.

China Youth Daily

A Moral Dilemma

According to a recent sample survey in Shanghai, when asked whether they would give their seats to the old and weak on buses, 70 percent of the surveyed pupils nodded, while one third of the senior middle school students said they were not sure and almost one sixth decided they would not give up their seats.

Why does it happen that the students' ethical awareness lessens when they are actually becoming more psychologically mature?

Children are more likely to take in what adults tell about the virtue and ethics, but when they find out in real life good deeds often incur personal losses instead of honor, they will begin to doubt the code of conduct imposed on them by teachers and parents.

The survey result is actually a warning to currently deteriorating moral standards across Chinese society. To reverse this worrisome trend among the youngsters, who are to be the pillars of future China, there must be an effective mechanism that ensures virtue is honored and that bad deeds are punished. The improvement of the young students' moral standards actually depends on good examples of adults.

Oriental Morning Post

Low-emission Cars Needed

While energy-saving and environment-friendly vehicles, including low-emission cars, are encouraged by state policies, the auto market seems to be moving in the opposite direction. Compared with 2006, the share of low-emission cars in the auto market in 2007 dropped by 3.7 percent and the sales declined by 30.9 percent year on year.

At the beginning of 2006, six state ministries jointly promulgated a circular, demanding restrictions on low-emission cars to be canceled, but many cities have turned a blind eye to this document. In some cities, local governments have issued policies that prevent low-emission cars from running on freeways and elevated roads, and low-emission cars are never taken into consideration when local governments plan to purchase business vehicles.

Besides, although the government is encouraging the use of low-emission cars, supporting measures and polices fail to follow. For example, the fuel tax is not yet imposed, low-emission car owners can't enjoy any tax exemption and low-emission car makers are not supported by preferential tax polices. As a result, the public feel no urgency to buy low-emission cars and manufacturers lose interest in the research and development of such cars. All these finally lead to the plight now facing low-emission cars.

Guangzhou Daily

VIPs at What Cost?

To woo wealthy customers, many banks in China have dedicated counters serving VIPs. In some banks, half of the counters are assigned for this purpose.

It's all right for banks to provide efficient service to their high-end customers. However, without scaling up the total facilities and staff, better service to VIPs often comes at the sacrifice of service quality to ordinary customers.

Special treatment to VIPs has extended the waiting time of the majority of customers. From the legal perspective, a bank is obligated to provide fast and good service to customers and personnel shortage is by no means a plausible excuse for inferior service for ordinary clients.

The fundamental problem is rooted in the banks' business philosophy. Some banks are still thinking as monopolists, having not put their customers first. Many surveys show that a number of people are planning to turn to foreign banks, which somewhat proves the general public's dissatisfaction with the service provided by domestic banks. This is an alarm for those domestic banks that treat their ordinary customers arrogantly. In a globalized economy full of competition, banks should realize that public dissatisfaction will result in economic losses and thus the discriminative treatment toward ordinary customers should come to an end.

Sanqin Metropolis Daily