RUC Initiates Youth Teacher Education Basic Skills Competition   On the afternoon of the 20^th of December, RUC held the opening ceremony for the 9^th “Basic Education Skills Competition for Young Teachers” in Mingde Main Building. Executive Vice Chairman of the RUC University Council ZHANG Jianming and Vice President HONG Dayong attended the opening ceremony. Over 100 people attended the event including leaders of universities departments, schools and research centres. The opening ceremony was hosted by Executive Vice Chairman of the School Union SUN Hualing. The opening ceremony began with a short film reflecting on the past sessions of the competition, displaying the ways in which the competition had developed, changed, and impacted on its participants. During the ceremony Vice Chairman ZHANG gave a speech in which he noted that recently at the latest Higher Education conference, President XI Jinping stated that for a university to establish itself in society it depends on cultivating young virtuous scholars. It is only universities that train first rate talented young people that are able to become world class universities. Building a high quality teaching staff team that are virtuous, professional, reasonable, and full of vitality, is an urgent requirement for raising education to a modern level, as well as an important requirement for achieving RUC’s “double first class” goal. The university has always realised the importance of young teachers, and is aware that the task of building a team of young teachers is core to the task of becoming a first-rate university. Since the “Basic Education Skills Competition for Young Teachers” started in 1995, it has gone through constant renewal, and has now become an important platform for the development of our young teaching staff. By virtue of this contest, a great many young teachers have come to the fore, and have since become the backbone of our teaching and research team. Vice Chairman ZHANG concluded by expressing hope that the young teachers would actively participate in the competition so as to bring out their latent potential, to incorporate the knowledge of others, and through this they would all improve together. Following, Vice President HONG took to the podium to share with the participants his own experiences taking part in the competition. He stated that in recent years had seen the nation and the university recognise the great importance of the task of education, visible by their having produced many documents on pedagogy, the core of which rest on the idea of the teacher becoming the student. The competition is an important measure that implements education as its basic principle, that enables young teachers to carry out their job as soon as possible, and at the same time is beneficial in promoting the development of the university’s teaching community. He concluded by expressing hope that the participants will, through the course of the competition, be able to make new friends, further their exchanges in education methods, and spur on increasing the overall education level of the educators. Specially invited to this opening ceremony were previous members of the judging panel and past award winners, so as to give them the opportunity to meet the current competitors. Professor LI Junlin from the School of Economics was the judge for the competition, responsible for introducing the requirements of the competition as well as other official matters. The first prize winner from the third session of the competition and lecturer at the University of Science and Technology Beijing‘s School of Mathematics LI Na gave the participants a run down on how best to conduct themselves in deportment, speech, and lesson planning so as to best prepare for the competition. The winner of the 8^th session of the competition and current lecturer at RUC’s School of Sociology and Population Studies TAO Tao then took to the podium to share his own experiences with the competitors. The “Basic Education Skills Competition for Young Teachers” started in 1995, and has since become an important platform for young teachers to showcase their strengths, to improve their teaching skills, and share their teaching experiences. So as to further the efficacy of the competition in imparting skills, it encourages wide participation of young teaching staff, and this year the school specially drafted a document titled “Methods of Organisation and Encouragement for Renmin University of China’s Basic Skills Competition for Young Teachers,” so as to increase the appeal of the awards given for participation, to utilise economic rewards, also seeking to strengthen the relevance of the competition for professional evaluation, education and research evaluation. Feedback from the entrants shows that they enjoy the experience, and feel deeply that the competition helps bring into play important experience that improves their all-round ability, and is a great platform for broadening professional development. After the opening ceremony, the School Union held some activities such as a mixer event and learning salons, so as to facilitate comprehensive training in the competitors. The formal competition will take place in March 2017, 40 talented young teachers from 23 different Schools will take part.