Education

By Choo Chon Kai

On 29 August 2007, about 2500 people gathered at the heart of Central Jakarta for a mass action. These people are urban poor from all over Jakarta, mainly women, with young and elderly.

The Peking University is building a five-star hotel. But the teachers and students accuse this project of occupying the university’s land for research and teaching and violating the land-use designation in the campus planning.

This hotel, named after “Weiming Lake”, the famous spot in the Peking University and located at the northern side of Baiyi Road and by the wall of campus, is still under construction. This is a project of the Peking University Science Park Limited (PUSP). It is scheduled to open in October.

According to an investigation of the working condition of 14,000 white collar workers in Beijing, 52% of respondents answer “always work overtime” and only 4% answer “rarely work overtime”. 73% are not paid for overtime by their employers who violate labor law stipulating it as 150% of the basic salary. Some argue that there is an oversupply of university degree holders.

In 1998, only 1.084 million people were admitted to university. There were 2.158 million university students. Since 1999, there has been a rapid expansion of university enrollment. From 2004-2006, the intake increases from 4 million to 5.3 million. In 2006, about 1.24 million university graduates failed to get a job. In 2006, of a total of 4.13 million university graduates, 66.10% earned 1000-2000 yuan monthly.

After reading Jamie's link in mediascapes, I looked through all the links and found the arrest out of my imagination. Eventhough South Korea has been democratized for 20 years, the Cold War / Witch-hunting rationality is so predominant.

According to Korean Teacher Union (KTU), the two teachers merely quoted remarks made by North Korean officials and media (which was cited in KTU's website), saying that "Why does North Korea want to produce nuclear weapons?" from a North Korean perspective: "North Korea claims that to possess self-defensive nuclear deterrence is its justifiable right."

story originated from:inmediahk.net(oiwan)
translated by shareef; proof-read by: ayeah

In the early September, the RTHK began to invite tenders for the distribution of the second batch of programs, the tender invitation phase has already ended on 11th of October. The tenders are now under review. The programs involved in this batch includes >‘a century of dream factory’ (note 1 百年夢工場) and ‘success stories series’(note 2 傑出華人系列).

The western and eastern imaginations of being "international" are so different. At least in China and Hong Kong, to be international means to develop at the expense of history, culture and environment, which is so contradictory to international trends. And it is sad to see even universities, the institutes for knowledge production, are caught up in such developmentalist imaginations.

Peking University: international English standard and golf court