Xing Wei College, China's Experiment In Liberal Arts Western Education, Opens In Fall

Xing Wei College, China's Experiment In Liberal Arts Western Education, Opens In Fall:

In a bold bid to experiment with western education methods, a Chinese college modeled after American liberal arts institutions receives its first class of students this fall, The New York Times reports.

Xing Wei college, a privately run institution in Shanghai, is the first of its kind in China.

The college represents a divergence from traditional Chinese education, which is widely criticized for emphasizing rote memorization and stifling creating thinking.

Weiming Chen, a Harvard-educated investor and founder of the college, said he wanted to cultivate a crop of students who could think in new ways.

"We want students who have the courage to pursue their desires, to know what they really want; that's different from the traditional definition of top students," he told the South China Morning Post.