Chinese universities must run opinion polls among faculty and students before issuing major policies, according to the country’s Ministry of Education as part of a raft of directives to make institutions more open.
Every institution will have to set up a press office – which is standard practice in UK universities – according to state-run news agency Xinhua, to engage in “public opinion supervision” of university related news.
The ministry’s circular, released yesterday, explained that new university press offices should carry out media training to “improve university leaders’ media literacy”.
University leaders were also told to take responsibility for the “authenticity” of university news, and to publish “timely” information during an emergency.
It also calls on universities to give more publicity to top students and teachers.
