Members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee visited Beijing Normal University (BNU) and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) on Jan 15 in an attempt to partner with academia to come up with more practical advice on poverty alleviation and rural revitalization.

The CAAS is the country's frontrunner in agricultural science with leading researchers in the field. After long-term work on seeds and arable land, the CAAS has made a number of major scientific achievements in related areas and established a set of dedicated research platforms and sites. 

According to Zhang Hecheng, the CAAS Party secretary, the academy will focus its efforts on ensuring stable agricultural production and supply of agricultural products and high-quality agricultural and rural development.

During their tour the CPPCC members called for enhancing seed-related innovation capability, maintaining a stable agricultural policy, and using technology to strengthen the protection of arable land.

At the BNU's state-level center monitoring the quality of China's basic education, they learnt that the quality of the country's rural education and the role of education in stemming poverty from being passed from generation to generation will be amplified and improved.

In 2020, the university launched a program to cultivate high-quality teachers in basic education for 52 national-level poverty-stricken counties. It also rolled out a raft of measures to encourage more capable graduates to plunge into basic education especially in central and western China as well as at the grassroots level. The BNU even opened a college on its Zhuhai campus in South China's Guangdong province to train township-level leaders for the realization of rural revitalization.

According to BNU Party Secretary Cheng Jianping, the university will step up its efforts to train basic education teachers for 832 counties that have been removed from the country's impoverished county list. The CPPCC members also called on more normal universities to follow its lead.

Luo Zhijun, chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said that the committee will strengthen its ties with universities and research institutes to contribute more to rural revitalization.