Lecture tour offers more insight on Xi's speeches

More than 1 million college students and faculty members in Beijing will have an opportunity to draw inspiration from two key speeches President Xi Jinping gave earlier this month.

The Ministry of Education and the Beijing municipal government have organized a team of more than 60 lecturers - university presidents, officials of the Communist Party of China, prestigious scholars and senior ideological and political experts - to embark on a tour of colleges in the capital. Students and faculty members will study Xi's speech delivered at Peking University and another one marking the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx's birth.

The first of the lectures, delivered at Tsinghua University on Wednesday, was attended by more than 1,000 teachers and students from universities around Beijing.

At a symposium with faculty and students at Peking University on May 2, Xi - who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission - called for more efforts to nurture world-class universities with Chinese characteristics and ensure that people are well-prepared to join the socialist cause.

Two days later, the president delivered a key speech at the Great Hall of the People, calling on the Party to continue to learn from Marx, the greatest thinker of human history, and practice Marxism in the new era. He said that Marxism will always be the guiding thought of the CPC and China, and it is a powerful mental tool to help the people to know about the world, pursue truth and change the world.

Gu Hailiang, deputy director of the Ministry of Education's State Committee of Social Sciences, said Xi's speeches point out the direction to build world-class universities with Chinese characteristics.

"What matters to the country is closely associated with the youth," he said. "The realization of the Two Centenary Goals and the Chinese Dream of great national rejuvenation depends on how well universities can cultivate talent, especially high-end talent."

Qiu Yong, president of Tsinghua University, said Xi's speeches offer fundamental guidance for the university's teaching and faculty development, and for improving the country's talent pool.

"Talent cultivation is the key to evaluating a university," Qiu said.

Huang Zhongliang, a doctoral student at Tsinghua University's Department of Engineering Physics, said: "The president's speeches have made me realize that I need to hold myself to a higher standard and associate my personal development with that of the country."