Bai Chunli, deputy president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), said Sunday (May 7) that the CAS Graduate School needs to sharpen the innovation ability of its students.

In the past five years, Bai, also dean of the graduate school, said, the enrollment had increased by an average annual rate of 22 percent. The enrollment in 2006 is kept at a similar level to that of 2005.

"We need to transfer our priority from expansion of enrollment to quality of our students," Bai said.

"In order to cultivate outstanding students," Bai said, "we should improve our education system, management system, monitoring system and appraisal system."

The education system includes syllabus designing, guidance of research papers, advisors and students. The management system is concerned with enrollment, examination, internship, academic discussion, and science paper writing, among others.

The monitoring system focuses on quality control of enrollment, courses, advisors and degree grants. The appraisal system connects performance and incentives.

"The graduate school should cultivate more promising young researchers and make new contributions to the country that has decided to pour huge investment into a knowledge-based economy," Bai said.

Editor: Wing