Zhang Baoqing's profile of Zhang Baoqing

Born in June 1944 in Zhenping, Henan Province, and a member of the Communist Party of China.

From 1964 to 1968, he studied French in the French Department of Beijing Foreign Studies University;

From 1968 to 1970, he trained in the military farm;

In 1970 By 1979, he worked as a translator at the Tianjin Branch of China International Travel Service. During this period, from 1973 to 1976, he worked in the Chinese Embassy in Chad;

From 1979 to 1983, he served as the third secretary and second secretary in the Cultural and Educational Section of the Chinese Embassy in France;

From 1983 to 2005, he served as director, deputy director, deputy director of the general office, director, deputy director of the State Education Commission, and member of the Party Leadership Group in the State Education Commission and the Ministry of Education; deputy minister and deputy secretary of the Party Leadership Group of the Ministry of Education;

In October 2005, he was dismissed as deputy minister of education.

The harsh criticism of this deputy minister of education, who came from a poor family, not only made him a news figure, but also made the long-discussed issue of high university education fees once again become the focus of national attention. .

This is a student from a poor family. When he was in high school, in order to save one yuan in travel expenses, he walked more than 80 kilometers back and forth between school and home every week. During his four years in college, he relied entirely on state scholarships to survive.

He said, "If a person is poor, his ambition is not short."

This is a senior ministerial official. From translator to official of the embassy abroad, from division chief to director, from director to deputy minister, he has been ups and downs in the officialdom for decades, but his character has not changed. At the press conference, he went against the norm in official circles and criticized local governments, universities and banks by name.

This is also an upright and caring person. He burst into tears when he saw the embarrassment of poor college students who had no money to go to school. He said that if you really can't solve the problem, you can come to me. To this end, his office received two sacks of letters asking for help from students from all over the country.

But when he saw a group of "public servants" having a banquet, he angrily wrote a poem: "The guests at the table are all calm, and they look elegant and unrestrained... Drunk eyes can't recognize the fat and blood, and the cold eyes are watching the heart. Cold."

This person is Zhang Baoqing, the Vice Minister of Education, a person who claims that he will "retire soon." At two o'clock in the afternoon on August 29, the day when the new semester of colleges and universities began, the Ministry of Education held its 11th press conference in 2005. Vice Minister Zhang Baoqing introduced the financial aid work for students from poor families in colleges and universities focusing on national student loans.

One participant said that in the first 15 minutes, everything was no different from a usual press conference. First, Cui Bangyan, director of the Student Loan Center of the Ministry of Education, spoke. He raised questions, presented results, and encouraged local and relevant departments. He spoke for less than fifteen minutes.

At around 2:20, Zhang Baoqing began to speak. What everyone present did not expect was that Zhang talked non-stop for forty-five minutes, targeting certain local governments.

“The problem of funding needy college students is an old problem, but it is also a big problem. It is a problem that has not yet been satisfactorily solved... I heard a sentence on the Internet last year, this sentence I was very sad to hear that we were just talking empty words and showing off, but we couldn’t implement it.”

“Some provincial party committee leaders have no concept of having both good character and academic excellence in their minds... We are embarking on a big project. , billions have gone out, and when we encounter students in difficulty, this or that reason comes up. Now there are eight provinces that have not taken action. We shout all day long, but they don’t move. Is it because their provinces are so difficult? That’s not the question.”

At 3:05, Zhang Baoqing began to answer reporters’ questions. The sensitive reporter immediately asked him which eight provinces he just mentioned.

“I can talk about eight provinces, namely Hainan, Tianjin, Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Ningxia, Gansu, and Xinjiang. Here I want to talk about Tianjin. Their characteristic is that they have basically not had any problems for several years. Move. No one has been lent out in Hainan, and no one has been lent out in Tianjin. If you have the courage, I will point it out.

A reporter attending the meeting said that at this time, Zhang seemed to still have more to say, or felt that he should say something more, so he once again targeted some universities and banks.

"I said to the bank president, when there were no bad debts for student loans in the past, there were hundreds of billions of other bad and bad debts. Why didn't you tell me? I just said that these people seem to be very responsible to the country. If it is true, If we were so responsible, our country's financial institutions would be in great shape, but not today!"

"The result of my investigation is that arbitrary fees in primary and secondary schools are mainly caused by arbitrary fees by local governments. In a word. It’s not the schools that are charging arbitrarily, it’s the local governments that are forcing the schools to charge arbitrarily. What can we do if we don’t invest?”

“Colleges have changed again, and colleges and universities are mainly responsible for charging arbitrarily. The leaders of universities are charging indiscriminately.”…

This conversation, which was far longer than the regular press conference, was later interpreted by the media as “Zhang Baoqing was angry” and “the education department was forced to defend the central government. Authoritative", Zhang himself is also known as "a minister with great personality", "without official accent and no official language". However, for such a central figure, when he was interviewed by CCTV and described his mood, he chose "anger", "worry" and "helplessness". He said that his feelings were very complicated.

Indeed, as the deputy minister of the Ministry of Education in charge of financial work and directly responsible for college student loans for six years, he has a better understanding of China’s education, especially the issues of higher education fees and funding for poor students than anyone else. Think more.

Data show that from the implementation of national student loans in 1999 to June 2004, only 5.2 billion yuan in loans were actually issued in the five years, and about 800,000 students across the country enjoyed the loans. Initially, with the relevant departments Far from expected.

Based on this, in July 2004, the State Council forwarded "Several Opinions on Further Improving National Student Loan Work" and made adjustments to the original policy. However, statistics from the Ministry of Education show that in the 2004-2005 school year when the new mechanism was implemented, more than 650,000 new students were approved for loans across the country, and the contract amount approved was 5.15 billion yuan. Although there was great progress compared with the previous year, it was still 10 billion yuan a year away. There is still a considerable gap between the basic ideal goals. Zhang Baoqing believes that when some banks undertake student loans for poor college students, there is a serious phenomenon of disliking the poor and favoring the rich, which makes it difficult for some local colleges and universities, especially higher vocational colleges, to solve the problem of bank bidding for national student loans.

During the interview, the reporter learned that the main reason why banks are not very enthusiastic about national student loans is that they believe that student loans are high-cost, risky, and the overall returns are not high.

In this regard, Zhang Baoqing has his own set of logic: "Is there any problem with the integrity of college students? Yes. But I have always looked at it this way. From a macro perspective, I cannot yet come up with an answer to say that college students are not Integrity. Because the earliest student loans started in 2000, the loan had a ten-year repayment period. It was not until 2008. How can you say that college students are dishonest? The judgment must wait until eight years have passed. Second, although there are problems among college students now, I don’t believe that college students are the most dishonest group. Third, what about the state’s assistance in bad debts in the future? So what if student loans amount to 4 to 5 billion in bad and bad debts?" After naming and criticizing eight provinces and cities on August 29, Zhang Baoqing quickly became the focus of the media and appeared frequently. In fact, everyone in the education system knows that Zhang has long been known for his courage to speak and act, and his personality is like this. In addition, the age of "quick retirement" also makes him have nothing to worry about.

Zhang has a famous saying: "After receiving the college admission notice, students from poor families can first find the high school they attended; if the high school cannot solve the problem, they can go to the local education administration department; if the education administration department cannot solve the problem, You can borrow travel expenses to report to the university; if the university still can't solve the problem, you can write to me!"

"I receive at least 20 letters a day on average," Zhang Baoqing said, "I have to do it every day before get off work. After reading the letters every day, there are three ways to deal with them. First, for example, he made suggestions about what we should do. If such suggestions are correct, we will seriously consider them. , if it works after I approve it, I will definitely approve it. For example, in some places, if I get letters from students from subordinate universities or students from local universities, as long as I know the main leaders of that province and I am familiar with them, I will approve them if they can handle them. Give it to him directly."

"As for the letters from students in directly affiliated colleges and universities, I will give them to the secretary and principal of that school, and I will have to respond whether they are OK or not. There is also a special situation for some students. Please do not transfer the letter to other places for processing, for fear of retaliation.

In this case, I would ask the secretary to write a note saying, "I have received your letter." ”

Zhang Baoqing said that he is nostalgic for these letters because they are witnesses of a difficult history: Since the establishment of the national student loan program in 1999, he has received letters directly from poor college students almost every day. If he had time, he would choose to sit under the lamp at night to read and review. The sad stories and helpless requests for help in the letters often made him cry, sigh, and even get angry, so that he could not sleep at night.

“We have to do this emotionally,” he said. “Our colleges and universities are doing ideological work and moral education work all day long. If the student has difficulties at home, no one will care about him, and he will not be able to go to school, so what? What ideological work is there to do? ”

“I have been in the Ministry of Education for twenty-sixty-seven years. We must act according to our conscience. ”

Perhaps only those who know Zhang Baoqing know that he is telling the truth. He came from Zhenping, Henan, and was born in a poor family. He only relied on the national scholarship of 18 yuan a month to complete his career. Four years of schooling. In 1960, the impoverished Zhang Baoqing became the first high school student in his village - admitted to the county high school 85 miles away from his home. In order to save one yuan on travel expenses, he attended two classes on Saturday afternoon. He had to walk home.

“I was young and could walk quickly, but the 85-mile journey took about five hours. "Zhang said that he would go home once and bring enough food for a week.

His collection of poems "Bao Qing Yin" records that one time, there was heavy snow in the middle of winter, and Zhang was unable to go home and bring a week's rations. Trapped in school, just when he was worried about his life for the week, he saw his father bursting in, covered in snow, saying that he was here just to deliver sweet potatoes. Zhang Baoqing burst into tears when he heard about it, and the father and son hugged each other and cried.

Later, Zhang Baoqing burst into tears. After he worked hard to get admitted to the Beijing Foreign Studies University, he recalled the incident with emotion and wrote a poem: "Sick people cook their meals in high halls, and white-haired kindhearted people send them to the valley of snow. "

It was at that time that he fell in love with ancient metrical poetry and calligraphy, two hobbies with traditional literati temperament, and he still enjoys them to this day. In 2001, he published a collection of poems "Bao Qing Yin", calligraphy He has also been evaluated as "learning from the past without adhering to the past, pursuing the new without being vulgar"

Nowadays, as the deputy minister, Zhang Baoqing often recalls the hardships of decades ago, because in his opinion, sometimes Hou Poverty is also an asset - it inspired his motivation to study and kept his grades among the best in high school.

Due to his poor family and good academic performance, he was deeply loved by his class teacher, Teacher Tian, ??and was often favored by him. Give him some steamed buns, meat dishes, etc.

However, a small incident in the first semester of high school almost caused Zhang Baoqing to change the trajectory of his life. The reason was simple: the wallet of a female classmate at the table. It was lost, and it was said that there was more than 100 yuan in it. Later, when a deputy squad leader was ordered to investigate the matter, he named Zhang Baoqing. The main reason was that he was usually so poor that he couldn't even eat sweet potato noodles, but recently he couldn't. Every Wednesday night, he secretly eats steamed buns and meat dishes (reporter's note: this is a private gift from Teacher Tian).

The angry Zhang Baoqing rushed forward and killed him. The deputy monitor fell to the ground and left the school angrily. On the third day after the incident, the female classmate's wallet was found. The school gave Zhang Baoqing a serious punishment and allowed him to continue attending school.

Zhang Baoqing was inexplicably moved. Unexpectedly, one late winter night, while he was still sleeping, Teacher Tian, ??whose eyebrows and beard were covered with frost flowers, came to his door and persuaded him to go back to school. He also used his rightist experience to teach Zhang Baoqing to stand up.

Perhaps, from that time on, young Zhang Baoqing began to appreciate the hardships of the world. Poverty not only gave him motivation, but also gave him a unique feeling for poor students.

“In my mind, student loans are as big as the sky. ” he said.