In recent years, although Hong Kong-based universities’ rich scholarships have attracted some top students, most who excel in the national college entrance examination find their way to Peking and Tsinghua universities.

The exam champions are more of a billboard for these universities than anything else. Universities need them to boost their reputation. Today’s champs in the national college entrance examination are the best performers in the current education and examination system, but this does not necessarily mean that they will always be the top in future academic and social life.

Hong Kong’s universities also compete for the cream of high school graduates on the mainland, but they do not accept them purely on academic merit. In 2006, 11 of these students were rejected because of poor interview results.

China’s top universities enjoy many favorable policies and financial support, but they still lag behind the world’s top universities. Weak academic and teaching capability may be the key bottleneck. After all, a good university is not supposed to depend on a limited number of top students for development. There is much more to it than that.

Qianjiang Evening News

Free Ride Possible

Public transportation is considered an effective way to relieve the worsening traffic congestion in China’s big cities. To help with this, free public bus rides was recently proposed by members of the Jiangsu Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the local advisory body. It is hoped that pilot projects would be carried out in economically viable cities.

Some people are afraid that there is not much government budget for public transportation and no city in the world can afford to offer this free service. However, 2004 statistics show that China had at least 4 million government cars, costing the state about 408.5 billion yuan ($59 billion now) annually. Of this huge expense, only one third was really for government and public affairs, while the rest was devoted to officials and car drivers’ personal affairs. On this basis, government car expenses could have been cut by at least 270 billion yuan ($39 billion) in 2004. If this amount of money was allocated to public transportation service, free public bus rides would be possible.

In sharp contrast to high government administrative expenses, there is a serious shortage of public service resources. From the perspective of environmental protection and energy conservation, to curb government car use and support free public transportation are a wise choice.

China Youth Daily

False Reporting Conundrum

According to Guizhou Metropolis Daily, two county governments in Guizhou Province recently submitted almost the same reports to work