“Possessing a university degree does not mean that a person is knowledgeable; and success is not closely related to which university an individual graduates from or whether he or she has a bachelor’s degree. A good university should try to reduce the gap between knowledge acquisition and academic degrees,” Professor Kuo said.

A university should not only have hardware and software but also “soulware”, he added. Only teachers with a heart and a focus on both teaching and research can groom outstanding students. 

This principle was applicable to other industries, he said. For example, only news reporters who did the research for their articles and entrepreneurs who conduct research for their business can be successful. 

The “Teaching and Educating” dialogue session was hosted by Professor Yan Houmin, CityU’s Dean of College of Business, with guest speakers Professor Yang Bin, Vice-President of Tsinghua University in Beijing, and Professor Dong Chen, Executive Dean of Tsinghua University’s School of Medicine. 

Concurring with Professor Kuo’s comments, Professor Dong said Tsinghua University’s School of Medicine encouraged students to do research as they believed medical advancement could be achieved only through research. 

Professor Yang expressed that one of the challenges that China’s universities now faced was to make a proper balance between teaching and educating. As there are different objectives between teaching and educating, the current emphasis on teaching should be reviewed.

Titled “Tsinghua．Hong Kong．Dialogue”, the summit conference was officiated by Professor Yang Bin, Vice-President of Tsinghua University in Beijing and Professor Hocheng Hong, President of National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu. The themes for the three dialogue sessions in the summit were “Innovative Technology”, “Teaching and Educating” and “Society and Politics”.