Chinese vice-premier Li Lanqing urged at a national work conference on Party building in colleges and universities Saturday that it is essential to improve the Party's work style and carry out higher education reform under the guidance of the "Three Represent's" theory and the speech of President Jiang Zemin on July 1 this year.

Improving work style essential

Improving the work style of the CPC committees in colleges and universities is a new requirement of the international situation and a new task of China's socialist modernization and the cause of opening-up and reform, Li said.

Li asked colleges and universities to link Party building closely with practice, and to improve their style of work.

The theoretical study of Marxism must be enforced in colleges and universities, which should also make efforts to improve students' practical abilities as well as academic standards.

Students and teachers' living condition urged to be improved

Moreover, the working, studying and living conditions of college students and teaching staff should be upgraded, he noted, with the focus on financial aid to poverty-stricken students.

Cheating and corruption in colleges and universities must be eliminated, Li emphasized.

Present at the meeting were Ding Guan'gen, head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, Zeng Qinghong, head of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, and the presidents of over 100 universities and colleges nationwide.

(People?s Daily December 31, 2001 )