New | Students, faculty up in arms against 'elitist academy' at China's Peking University

The head of China’s Peking University said plans to build a new elite academy on its picturesque campus was up for debate, constituting a small victory for students and scholars who fear the prestige project would sow divisions and elitism.

On Friday, the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s top newspaper, quoted university president Wang Enge as saying that details about the establishment of the Yenching Academy, set to host a prestigious fellowship programme, would be discussed with students and staff before plans would be finalised.

Yenching Academy would become a symbol of elite privilege, said one graduate student majoring in the English language.

“These 100 Yenching students will live on the school’s best plot of land, have the best teachers, they will have bright and spacious class and dorm rooms,” the student said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They will be the privileged elite and all the other Peking University students will be second-class citizens.”

Modelled on the Rhodes scholarship programme, the new international institute is set to offer one-year programmes in “Chinese studies” for 100 publicly funded visiting fellows starting next year at the university that is often dubbed China’s equivalent of Harvard.

Scholars and students told the South China Morning Post that they feared the prestige project would divide university students into two tiers: the privileged few with access to a historic venue and a fast track to a university degree; and the many ordinary students kept out of the loop.