Peking University, Nov. 4, 2010: As a response to the resolution reached during China's National Conference on Education, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health have jointed forces in enlisting 10 health science centers of 10 higher education institutions in their official document lately to foster the reform of higher education in the field of health science and the reform in the national system of pharmaceutical and health care.

Since the adjustment of higher education management system, ministry of education has been cooperating with other related administrations to bring out a cooperative program aimed at cultivating the cooperative relations between higher education institutions and relative administrations. This program sustains as well as promotes the unique advantages and characteristics of each higher education institution, and provokes the higher education institutions to adapt to the new social environment so that they can not only make a bigger contribution to the national development, but also seek their own improvement at the same time.

Facing the new social situation, to elevate the reform of higher health science education to a new level while following the regular patterns of higher health science education, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health have arrived at the agreement of establishing 10 health science centers in higher education institutions. The establishment of these centers serves the purposes of training more medical experts, bringing out more high-level research outputs and providing high-quality medical care as well as better public health service.

It is reported that the main content of the official document includes the cooperation between the two ministries in training medical experts and improve the quality of this training process. Strengthening the discipline construction of health science, elevating the level of medical research, and encouraging the higher education institutions’ health science centers to play a leading role in the course of the reform in the national system of pharmaceutical and health care, are also important issues mentioned in the official document. According to the document, the higher education institutions enlisted should make overall plans and take reformative actions, as well as put in more investments and reallocate resources, to ensure a long-term development. Putting more attention on coordination by making further improvements in the health science education management and coordination system, having coordination meetings when needed, and exchanging information in the course of investigating and resolving problems to carry out the cooperation program more effectively, is also mentioned in the document.

It is also reported that the two ministries will enlist more health science centers in the cooperative program in due time.

The 10 enlisted institutions are: Peking University Health Science Center, Peking Union Medical College (Tsinghua University), Norman Bethune College of Medicine Jilin University, Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Central South University Xiangya School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University School of Medicine, and Sichuan University West China Center of Medicine.

Translated by: Su Dongrui

Edited by: Jacques

Source: PKU News (Chinese)