Education Reform

[Big read] Li Zexiang: The professor behind China’s drone boom and its future engineers

When DJI CEO Frank Wang’s undergraduate project failed, most would have turned him away. But Professor Li Zexiang, a leading innovator in China’s engineering education, recognised his potential and took him under his wing. Han Yong May, deputy editor-in-chief of SPH’s Chinese Media Group, sits down with Li as part of Lianhe Zaobao’s Future 365 interview series, to find out how his new engineering education system is building a new generation of engineers.

Han Yong May

17 Mar 2026

China’s ‘unprecedented’ plan to re-engineer its universities

Across China, the map of higher education is being redrawn. Old majors are disappearing, new ones are fast-tracked in strategic fields, and the pace of change is dizzying. But one pressing question remains: can this transformation truly serve the people it is meant to educate?

Caixin Global

14 Nov 2025

[Big read] Building trust is key: How a Singaporean doctor is changing Tsinghua University

Change and reform is never easy, more so when efforts are made by a foreigner. But that is exactly what Singaporean doctor Wong Tien Yin is doing in the medicine faculty at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He speaks to Lianhe Zaobao correspondent Sim Tze Wei about his work, building trust, the “Chinese” way of doing things, and how Singaporean youths are too “comfortable”.

Sim Tze Wei

02 Jan 2025

Majoring in football: Chinese universities revamp curricula for national goals

Lianhe Zaobao journalist Li Kang notes that Chinese universities are changing their programme offerings to align with the country’s development path, expanding majors in technology and sports while reducing humanities and business programmes.

Li Kang

05 Nov 2024

Chinese teachers’ mental health crisis

Recent measures in China have aimed to improve teacher support, workload management and mental health through government, school and community collaboration. However, underlying issues still persist.

Caixin Global

11 Oct 2024

Taiwanese university students are working, not studying

Japanese student in Taiwan Honda Mami observes that students in Taiwan seem to be busier with activities like making extra cash than with schoolwork.

Honda Mami

01 Jul 2024

Tuition lessons as cheap as 'cabbage', but Chinese parents and teachers are unhappy

The "double reduction" policy was launched last year to ease students' workload and pricing guidelines were introduced to prevent service providers from charging exorbitant prices. Not only has this caused many tutoring institutions to close down, but parents fear that they will now have nowhere to turn to for quality lessons that their child still needs for the rat race. Zaobao correspondent Chen Jing reports.

Chen Jing

28 Jan 2022

Investing in China: Why didn't anyone foresee the regulatory clampdown on the tutoring industry?

Since China's regulatory clampdowns in the after-school tutoring sector, Chinese education sector stocks have dropped and analysts have been left wondering how they were caught on the back foot. SMU academic Liang Hao and postgraduate student Wang Jialun discuss the predictive limitations of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) ratings and what the cycle of anxiety that pervades the tutoring industry means for investors.

Liang Hao, Wang Jialun

27 Dec 2021

Parents and teachers brace themselves for China's new school year under the 'double reduction' policy

Since September, primary and secondary schools across China have started to implement the "double reduction" policy. Among other measures, primary one and two students no longer have written homework or paper-based exams, while primary three to six students will have their written homework load significantly reduced. These measures are changing up the education ecosystem with students, parents, tutoring companies, teachers and schools all having to adjust. At the back of everyone's minds is the thought that the rules have changed but competition has not gone away. What are some of their concerns and how will they cope?

Zeng Shi

05 Oct 2021

Why China needs to set its own house in order with a regulatory spurt

China has introduced a wave of strong regulatory moves on various industries over the past months, alarming international observers and causing jitters in the financial market. However, says academic Gu Qingyang, these moves could be necessary and might just set China in the right direction to face future challenges better.

Gu Qingyang

20 Sep 2021

Celebrities scrubbed from the Chinese internet: Victims of China's social revolution?

Personalities such as actress/producer Vicki Zhao and music multi-hyphenate Gao Xiaosong have recently been scrubbed from the Chinese internet. Curiously, among the "wrongs" they are thought to have committed, a common one between them is having strong links to big capital Alibaba. What are the authorities saying with this latest clampdown on well-connected pop culture icons? Is an engineered social revolution under way?

China Desk, Lianhe Zaobao

01 Sep 2021

Destroying independent thinkers: Why China's tutoring industry needs strong intervention

Technology specialist Yin Ruizhi looks at the vast amounts of money tutoring agencies in China have been spending on advertising to generate quick wins. In the long run, students enrolled at such institutions suffer as they end up memorising material rather than truly learning. Seen in that light, the government's recent intervention was a long time coming.

Yin Ruizhi

20 Aug 2021