Souce: Asien correspondent.com
Beijing: Blood donation will soon be factored into student and teacher evaluations in Beijing universities, according to a new policy announced by the city’s health bureau. The policy aims to alleviate the growing blood shortage in China’s capital, but has quickly generated fierce opposition from around the country.
The Beijing Municipal Health Bureau announced on Jan 30 that blood donation history would be included in assessing students’ and teachers’ performance, but said that the specifics of the plan were still being decided. The bureau did not say when the new policy would be implemented.
Many students, however, have criticized the policy, saying that it is unfair to students whose poor health prohibits them from donating blood.
The policy has also garnered widespread opposition from China’s media, with newspapers across the country condemning the move as misguided and even dangerous.
An editorial in Nanjing’s Xiandai Kuaibao said that Beijing’s Health Bureau had overstepped its authority, and that any decision affecting the lives of students properly belonged to the city’s Education Bureau.
Many critics faulted the policy for singling out students to bear the burden of donating blood. Dazhong Daily, the official Communist Party newspaper of Shandong province, accused the Health Bureau of shirking its responsibility to promote blood donation among society at large.
“College students are always the main source of blood donations,” explained Health Bureau spokesman, Ma Yanming, in an interview with Global Times. “They are young, more willing to join the cause, and also more easily recover, while donating helps them learn to care for others.”