From November 18-20, 2017, the 8th Teaching Conference of Tianjin University was held on the Peiyang Park Campus. The theme of the Conference was training top-level talent with principles of insistence on moral education, the integration of general education and professional education, and cut-through talent cultivation reforms based on the new era.

During the Conference, the World-class Undergraduate Education 2030 Action Plan was released, which marked the beginning of the comprehensive reform of undergraduate education at Tianjin University.

Wang Qiming, Deputy Director of the Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education of China, and Bai Haili, Deputy Director of the Tianjin Education Commission attended the conference and delivered speeches. Li Jiajun, Secretary of the Party Committee at Tianjin University, presided over the conference. Zhong Denghua, President of Tianjin University, made a speech and Wang Shuxin, Vice President of Tianjin University, reported on teaching. Attendees also included Academicians from Tianjin University, Zhan Chunting, Wang Jingkang, Ye Shenghua, and Chen Yushu, university leaders, members of the Discipline Evaluation Group of the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, members of the Teaching Guidance Committee of the Ministry of Education, members of the Professional Degree Graduate Education Steering Committee, heads of schools, departments and offices, faculty and student representatives, Presidents of TJU’s counterpart-support universities and some middle school Presidents. Over one thousand people participated in this Conference.

President Zhong Denghua made a keynote speech: Enhancing the Sense of Mission on a New Journey and Striving to Develop World-Class Undergraduate Education. He pointed out that the aim of this Conference, on the one hand, is to implement the new requirements on higher education and talent training in the new era. On the other hand, this Conference is to focus on improving the capacity of talent training through the integrated reform of undergraduate’s education, address the key problems affecting and restricting educational quality, and promote development and quality improvement through reforms. President Zhong emphasized Tianjin University will concentrate on improving the educational quality and devote more energy on the comprehensive reform of undergraduate’s education in the future. He called on all Tianjin University people, given the opportunity provided by this Conference, to carry forward the “2030 Action Plan” so as to improve the quality of talent training and build Tianjin University into a world-class university with world-class undergraduate education.

Vice President Wang delivered the teaching work report: Training top-level talent with principles of insistence on the moral education, the integration of general education and professional education, and cut-through talent cultivation reforms based on the new era. He specifically referred to the “2030 Action Plan”. The “2030 Action Plan” includes “one” focus, “two” stages, “three” principles, and “ten” measures. “One” is to focus on the development of students. “Two stages” refers to a preliminary system of world-class undergraduate education to be established by 2020 and world-class undergraduate education to be completely realized by 2030. “Three principles” includes the insistence on moral education, the integration of general education and professional education, and cut-through talent cultivation reforms. “Ten measures” contains specific measures for 10 educational reforms.

During the Conference, the faculty and students were divided into 11 delegation groups to discuss related issues. All members discussed the “2030 Action Plan” and the working plans to implement it.

 Editors: Sun Xiaofang and Ross Colquhoun