Province appoints Party chiefs in private universities

The ruling Communist Party of China piloted a programme in Shandong Province by sending cadres to occupy senior positions in private universities to overhaul weak Party building and ideological work. Unlike public universities, private institutions generally do not have Party chiefs at the core of management, or any strong Party organisations, reports Xinhua.

In the first part of the programme, five cadres were assigned to head Party committees of Qilu Institute of Technology, Qingdao University of Technology and three other institutions, according to the higher education commission under the Communist Party Shandong provincial committee. The cadres, all former Party chiefs or deputy chiefs in public universities, are to serve four years in their new posts.

Huang Qi, deputy director of the higher education commission of the Communist Party’s Shandong provincial committee, said the measure aimed to introduce the successful experience of public universities in Party building and ideological and political work to private ones. He said un-ignorable problems existed in private universities’ ideological education: there were not enough Party cells; supervision of the Party was sometimes loose; and ideological education remained weak.
Full report on the Xinhua site