HONG KONG, Jan. 19 (UPI) -- Three hundred highly ranked Chinese officials from central and local governments will be attending training sessions at Harvard University over the next five years, according to the South China Morning Post on Saturday.
Harvard signed an agreement Friday to train 60 Chinese officials a year at its well-known John F. Kennedy School of Government.
According to state-run media, "Officials taking part in the program should at least be university graduates, be under the age of 45 and should have had no less than two years' work experience."
It said officials must have worked in local government at least at the rank of mayor or in central government as department chiefs or higher and must have been in their present positions for a minimum of two years.
Harvard University signed the agreement with Beijing's Qinghua University and the Development and Research Center of the State Council in Beijing's Great Hall of the People.
"The trainees will first be given six weeks' training in China organized by the three institutions involved in the Harvard program. After that, they will be sent to Harvard University to learn the latest theories in public administration and working methods," said the official Chinese news agency Xinhua.
Chinese officials first began training at Harvard in the early 1990s but this new arrangement accepts the largest number of students by the American university from one country.
