Interviewer: You have pointed out that schools cannot carry out character education in an all-round way on their own. What requirements have you set in this regard?

　　Li Lanqing: The key to character education resides with leadership. Leaders at all levels must take a forward-looking attitude and act well ahead of time to foster correct concepts of education, talent and character, and deepen their understanding of the necessity and urgency of character education. They should become champions and pioneers of character education. Some local leaders, however, are doing just the opposite: they put pressure on schools to raise their enrollment rates by alternating promises of economic incentives or promotions with threats of economic penalties or demotions. During my fact-finding tours of some localities, the mere mention of education would prompt a local leader to talk about how many Olympics prizes their students had won. Winning prizes is certainly a good thing, but if you set your eyes only on awards, then your direction becomes problematic. In raising educational quality you must set your eyes on all the students, and do all you can to promote their all-round development, raise teaching standards, improve classroom buildings and the learning enviroment, buy more equipment and facilities, improve teaching methods and approaches, strengthen school leadership and tighten school supervision, and improve the social environment. During recent years all levels of government have contributed a great deal toward solving problems in teachers?housing, salaries and other benefits, and especially to the issue of teachers not on government payrolls, thereby playing an important role in stabilizing the ranks of teachers and inspiring teachers to become more active. They need to keep doing all these things effectively. Government at all levels should also guarantee education funding, coordinate educational resources of various departments and communities, support education reform, and be impartial in evaluating school performance according to the nation education principle. Only by doing well in all of these fields can the principles be carried out and the quality of education comprehensively raised.

　　Our employment system has a guiding role to play in carrying out character development, and overhauling this system is of paramount importance. Effecting sweeping changes in the system and in the traditional concept of talent will provide a forceful impetus for converting examination-oriented education toward character education. We must rectify the general tendency to single-mindedly and blindly run after high test scores, with disregard for national conditions and the reality of education. We know that in many developed countries, academic performance is not the only criterion for competent people. In recent years, increasing importance is being attached to people comprehensive character: other factors besides IQ are also highly valued. When hiring people, businesses and government departments make a point of conducting interviews, and are particular about candidates?general qualities and special skills, academic background being only one of the factors under consideration. As a matter of fact, many exceptional people do not necessarily have an impressive academic background.

　　Given China conditions, we do want large numbers of high-level professionals with special knowledge; we also need high-caliber office workers and ordinary workers by the hundreds of millions. The introduction of a reserve labor force system and an employment system that provides workers with training prior to work assignments has played an important role in vocational education and job training. In this regard, it is necessary for education departments at all levels to work together with personnel, labor and social security departments to institute a system under which employment certificates have an equal degree of importance as academic certificates. Traditional concepts of talent need to change, and a healthy public environment should be fostered that values character and real ability when employing people. When testing and hiring new workers, personnel departments must pay attention to educational background, but not as the only criterion. Quoting an old saying, the idea is to let heaven send down men of all the talents without being confined to one archetype? People with one type of skill or another should be given an equal chance in competition. Allow our students to be confident and enthusiastic about their present studies and life, and be ambitious and hopeful for tomorrow society and work. Let every youngster find a role to play in tomorrow’s society.