Top universities fall behind in transparency

Volunteers from Liaocheng University use performance art to raise public awareness to combat corruption and ensure clean governance. Zhao Yuguo / China Daily

In a recent transparency report on China's higher education released by the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, some top universities including Peking University and Tsinghua University, failed to make it into the top 10 regarding information disclosure. Comments:

For the universities in China which are financially supported by the government, disclosing information is the least they can do to fulfill their responsibilities to taxpayers. No matter the reason, corruption-related or not, they should be held accountable for concealing information and receive due punishment. Unfortunately, those universities that fail to honor the public's right to know seem to be able to get away with it.

Deng Haijian, a guest commentator with gmw.cn, March 12

The release of the transparency report was believed to be a bid to urge more Chinese universities to release information in accordance with the relevant rules. However, the media coverage has seemingly focused more on the "unexpected" poor performance of Peking University and other leading educational institutions, implying uncritical worship of the top universities and discrimination against ordinary local ones. In fact, it represents a sort of educational unfairness in favor of the top few.

Xiao Shujuan, a guest commentator with rednet.cn, March 12

Like the government, universities today also have to be more sincere about disclosing information, so there can be better public supervision. The higher an institution has scored in the transparency report, the better its management and educational fairness.

Zhang Haiying, a guest commentator for Legal Daily, March 12