Page 73 - EducationWorld June 2020

Within days of the funding approval, CU Medicine an-
nounced its first project under the Health and Medical Re-
search Fund. On April 29, it revealed plans to recruit 3,000
members of the public to take part in an investigation into
“hidden” Covid-19 infections.
Francis Chan, dean of CU Medicine, told Times Higher
Education that “with the additional funding, we will em-
bark on new projects that will help deepen our understand-
ing of this novel virus and improve clinical guidelines in the
various specialties most affected by this pandemic”.
HKU Med in a statement says the grant will help to posi-
tion Hong Kong at the forefront of research, public health
and the prevention of emerging infectious disease across
the world. In its latest project, HKU led an international
team to develop a new method to track Covid-19 worldwide
using big data, says a study published on April 29 in Nature.
The new funding comes as Hong Kong universities, like Chinese science graduates: bleak prospects
their counterparts round the world, face budget cuts amid
economic downturns. Asked about Covid-19 aid for higher ing the “urgency” of this “political task” relating to “social
education institutions, the Hong Kong University Grants stability”. Jobless migrants make officials anxious, too. But
Committee said that it is “monitoring the situation and will the party frets more about threats involving better-educated
consider whether to allocate additional funding to UGC- people with urban roots and strong social networks.
funded universities for research and other purposes in con- Last year just over half of entrants into China’s urban
sultation with stakeholders on a need basis”. workforce were university graduates. Usually about 60
percent of them are hired by small and medium-sized en-
CHINA terprises. But such firms are among the hardest-hit by the
Unemployment spectre fears coronavirus. On April 14, prime minister Li Keqiang told his
cabinet that the situation for this year’s graduates is “grim”.
“GRADUATION EQUALS UNEMPLOYMENT” Students didn’t have to search for jobs until the 1990s.
has long been a common saying in China (the Instead, they had to take positions assigned to them by the
nouns share a character). It is often used in jest government. As a result of Covid-19, once again, officials
by university students as final exams loom. But for the 9 are getting more involved in finding work for students than
million or so who graduated in May — a record high — the they have been since those days. Xinchao Media, an ad-
words convey a dark reality. As China limps back to work vertising company, says the government of Chengdu, the
after Covid-19, their job prospects are truly bleak. They south-western city where the firm is headquartered, has
will enter the workforce even as prospective employers are offered to recommend graduates for its job openings. The
mulling lay-offs and hiring freezes. For a middle class used city of Beijing, among others, has launched a recruitment
to relentlessly strong economic growth, the shock will be website for people preparing to graduate.
great. The government is right to worry about social stability.
As it surveys an economy ravaged by the disease, the Well-educated young people have been in the vanguard
Chinese leadership’s biggest worry is unemployment. In of many of China’s biggest protest movements of the past
February the urban jobless rate jumped to 6.2 percent, the century. Students whose futures are clouded by the unaf-
highest ever. In March it fell slightly to 5.9 percent as busi- fordable housing and competition for jobs with immigrants
nesses reopened. But official figures mask the scale of the from the Chinese mainland, were at the forefront of last
problem. Urban unemployment could reach 10 percent this year’s unrest in Hong Kong.
year, reckons the Economist Intelligence Unit, an affiliate As the Covid crisis subsides in China, social tensions are
of The Economist. And that does not include the tens of becoming more evident. Hundreds of shop owners recently
millions of migrants who sat out the epidemic in their an- took to the streets of the southern city of Guangzhou and
cestral villages. Many of them now have no jobs to return dozens gathered outside a mall in Wuhan, the capital of
to in the cities. Hubei, to demand rent deductions after weeks of unemploy-
China’s leaders describe the problem of graduate unem- ment. Videos of the protests were swiftly removed from the
ployment as a matter of “paramount importance”. In re- Internet.
cent days, university officials around the country have been
holding meetings to discuss how to ensure that as many as (Excerpted and adapted from The Economist and Times
possible find jobs. They often use similar language, stress- Higher Education)

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