Chinese education minister: Developing new quality productive forces needs top innovative talents

To accelerate the development of new quality productive forces, China will enhance reform and innovation to foster high-caliber talent and innovators, Minister of Education Huai Jinpeng said on Saturday.

Huai made the remarks at a press conference on people's livelihoods held by the second session of the 14th National People's Congress.

Noting that innovation is a core element for cultivating and developing new quality productive forces, Huai stressed education's role in innovation, saying that it's through education that top-notch innovative talents can be trained.

To develop new quality productive forces, China needs top-notch talents in basic disciplines, interdisciplinary disciplines and emerging disciplines, which can drive innovation at the source, but also engineering and technical talents who serve the new path of industrialization, Huai said.

The minister added, "We also need scientists, leading scientific and technological personnel and innovation teams."

China has the world's largest scale of higher education, with the universalization rate exceeding 60 percent by the end of last year, he said.

Saying the high-quality talent team is a huge advantage for the country's development, Huai said the Ministry of Education hopes to build a high-quality talent independent training system to meet the demand for talents in Chinese modernization.

"We are currently at a critical period when the demographic dividend is accelerating toward the development of high-quality talent," Huai said.

China will promote scientific education in basic education, which includes inviting scientists and technology professionals to schools and cultivating students' scientific habits, Huai said, adding that those will help stimulate the curiosity and imagination of primary and secondary school students, as well as strengthen effective connections between basic education and higher education.

Universities are encouraged to leverage their distinctive strengths in talent cultivation, he added. "We will focus on fostering talents in areas crucial for the nation's economic and social development."

He also said China will increase support for young scientific and technological talents in higher education, providing long-term and stable support at the early stages of their academic careers, which helps them to make original and transformative achievements.

(Cover: Students make 3D models following their teacher's guidance in Shimin Experimental School in Tiandeng County, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, December 27, 2023. /Xinhua)