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SCMP Reporter

When he last visited the controversial project  a few weeks ago, a beaming Guangdong Party Secretary Zhang Dejiang   praised his subordinates for building Guangzhou's University Town in just nine months.

'It's a modern urban construction management miracle,' state media quoted Mr Zhang as saying as he toured the branch campuses of 10 Guangdong universities on Xiaoguwei - an island that used to be the imperial hunting grounds of the Nanyue Kingdom during the Western Han dynasty.

Mr Zhang said a plaque would  commemorate those who contributed to the project and the villagers who  made way for the town.

By completing a university town in less than a year, the ambitious former Zhejiang  party boss has repeated the feat of the Xiasha University Town in Hangzhou , one of four university towns criticised recently in the auditor-general's report.

Planning for Guangzhou's own  university town started in 2000 to meet the province's urgent need for more  college places. When Mr Zhang arrived, Guangzhou Party Secretary Lin Shusen   successfully sold the idea to the Politburo member, who ordered work to start in January last year.

Mr Zhang made it clear that Guangzhou must build a  first-class  complex and to complete it in time for the September 2004 intake, state media reported after the inspection tour.

A committee was set up to take charge of project planning, land acquisition and the  design and construction of the 10 campuses on the tranquil island. The site was home to 14,000 villagers, whose ancestors had lived on the island for thousands of years, and an artists' community.

The project is so immense it had to be broken up into smaller projects to get State Council approval, sources said.

An estimated 230 million tonnes of cement and 140,000 tonnes of steel was required - which contributed to the sharp rise in  prices of  construction materials since last year.

While the 20 billion yuan project was built in nine months, Guangzhou's new 19.8 billion yuan airport took four years to complete.

The first pile was  placed in October after thousands of police and relocation officials - wielding electric truncheons and backed by dogs and helicopters -  cleared the island of 10,000 villagers.

The local media was gagged, while valuation companies and legal firms approached to assist property owners shied away, saying they would not touch the project because of its high profile.

A single construction company was granted the right to build the project last September  and told to finish  by April or May.  Contractors complained about the pressure and said they could not guarantee the quality of their work.

At its peak, 100,000 labourers  worked around the clock. Relics dating back to the Western Han dynasty were uncovered  but archaeologists who showed up at the site were usually sent away,  sources said.

Not even the artists who occupied a small plot out of the way of the project were spared, despite Mr Zhang's call to make Guangdong a cultural centre.

The buildings were stripped of  scaffolding  by July and by the time Mr Zhang visited, some of the 141 first-phase  blocks covering 2.3 million square metres  already had  been fitted with lights and connected to the water supply.

Next month, 38,000 students and 4,000 lecturers will move in. Of those, 6,650 will enter Sun Yat-sen University's seven new faculties. University Town has allowed the university to increase its intake by 800 students from last year.

'We wanted to expand our industrial programme and now we can do it in University Town,' said Sun Yat-sen University's chancellor Huang Daren  ,  dismissing criticism  the town was a burden for universities.  He said the university could not expand its Zhuhai campus because 'costs are higher as it is further away'.

Since Professor Huang became chancellor in 1998, he has  searched for new space  because he did not want to spoil the character of the old campus by building modern lecture halls.

'We went everywhere to look for land - to Conghua  and Nanhai . Eventually, we went to Zhuhai  and now we have the University Town,' he said.

But not all universities are as positive as Professor Huang about the enforced expansion.

A member of staff at the Guangzhou Institute of Arts said the college had to borrow 900 million yuan at a preferential annual interest rate of 5 per cent to build its branch campus.

'Fees from the new student intake cannot even cover half the interest payment,' he said.

Although most people - including the 10,000 evicted villagers who say they  were inadequately compensated for the loss of their property - recognised the benefits of expanding college education, they also questioned the need to complete the project  so quickly.

'We support the construction of the University Town, but we are also asking why it has to be built in such haste,' a government official said.

Guangdong University of Foreign Studies lecturer Wang Yunxiang  said the urgency was due to Mr Zhang's  wanting to leave a strong legacy from his five years as provincial party secretary.

'Zhang Dejiang saw that the construction of the University Town was good for the economy. Guangdong can make money from education because it is the only commodity where demand exceeds supply,' he said.

'Moreover, people can see that Zhang Dejiang did something during his term. It is his own political monument. It brings benefits to Guangdong and to himself.'

Mr Wang thinks that the concept will destroy university traditions.

'Every school has its own traditions. For example, in Xinghai Music College, students practise singing scales on campus and in Guangwai they speak Chinglish.  These would be inhibited on the island,' he said.

Mr Wang said he was also  worried that faculty staff,  divided between the old and new campuses, would no longer be able to communicate as effectively.

Instead of more buildings, he  thought universities should spend more on  improvements to libraries, classrooms, swimming pools, and sport facilities, and increasing staff salaries so students  would have better teachers.

When the students move in next month,  they will have classrooms and hostels, but shared facilities like libraries, sports stadiums and the complex's project information centre will be completed later.

It is also likely that the campus facades will be ready for photographs, but the interiors will still need substantial work.

Whatever the state of readiness,  the quality of its facilities and the standard of education, Guangzhou University Town will stand as a physical monument to Mr Zhang's term in high office in Guangdong  and to those who helped him fulfil his ambitions.



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