titutions as well in a sense that it has provided a possible channel of recruitment of new staff members for these media institutions as they have a period of four to six months to observe and evaluate the student’s performances during the internship before their formal recruitment. QIN Shaode, the Editor-In-Chief of Jiefang Daily in Shanghai, stressed that Jiefang Daily will not employ a new staff reporter unless he or she has served the internship at Jiefang Daily (Qin, 1997). Of course, there are other incentives for media institutions to receive the members of the Internship Program. One editor at Shanghai Cable Television Station frankly admitted that the student interns have provided an inflow of “cheap laborers” as well. In case of some large scale events, such as the Shanghai Film Festival or the Asian Games, the student interns have even been positioned as full-time reporters (Gu, May 20, 1999). Internship has also been beneficial to the curriculum development of the journalism programs at universities. In an effort to make the journalism programs more suitable (or localize) to the media development, most journalism programs in Shanghai have always paid close attention to the students’ feedback after student interns completed their internship as the feedback from students can provide one practical standard to which the department or college can refer to when adjusting and developing its curriculum. For instance, the courses like the Theory of the Marxism have been merged or condensed since 1995, to make room for more practical courses like “Media Management” and “International Communication” (Record, 1998). 5. Problems in the Process of Localization for Journalism Education Despite the progress, problems may be inevitable in the process of localization of the journalism education, particularly for a big country like China. The writer deem it necessary to learn about the problems before proposing any solutions to these problems. In order to have a more practical understanding of the current problems now facing the journalism education in Shanghai, the writer has conducted a survey among the journalism students as well as some faculty members among the five journalism programs in Shanghai in September 1999. 5.1 Survey With 17 questions at a pre-test at SISU, the survey has listed 16 questions for students and teachers regarding their majors, overall income, curricula, teaching methods and textbooks and their overall impression of the journalism education now. In September 1999, the survey released 500 sheets of questionnaire for students and 77 sheets for faculty members in the five journalism programs in Shanghai and collected 345 valid sheets of student questionnaire and 22 sheets of faculty questionnaire. Table Two shows the number of students faculty members surveyed. Table Two Journalism Programs SurveyedNo. of Jour. Faculty SurveyedNo. of Jour. Students EnrolledNo. of Jour. Students SurveyedStudent Majors        Jour. Radio/TVInt’l JourSport Jour.Fudan University13 of 333806029 * 1714 Shangwai (SISU)2 of 1015478  78 Shanghai University0 of 33 20841 41  Shanghai Sport Inst. 7 of 7241114   114Jiaotong University0 of 108252 52  Total22 of 77 (28.5%)1065 345 (32.4%)2911092114Note: * includes seven students who major in advertising. All the figures were obtained in the survey or through phone interviews with Professor ZHANG Guoliang, associate dean of the Journalism College of Fudan University, Professor HUANG Wei, chair of the Journalism Department of Shanghai University, Professor CHEN Xianyuan, chair of the Communication Department of Jiaotong University and Professor REN Guangyue, chair of the Journalism Department of Shanghai Sport Institute in September 1999. 5.2 Discussions 1. Mixed Responses to Knowledge Courses & Preference over Practical Courses In the curricula of the journalism education programs in the Chinese universities nowadays, about 35 percent of the public courses which aim to expand student’s range of knowledge and are mostly conducted in the first two years are courses required by the Ministry of Education on a national basis, a typical localizing effort in the development of the journalism education in China. They include such required courses like Chinese Language, Philosophy, Political Economics, Theory of Deng Xiaoping, Moral Ethics and Physical Education etc.. During the survey among the 345 students in the five journalism programs in Shanghai, 43 percent think it reasonable to have 35 percentage of public courses in the overall curricula and agree that they should learn the public courses which can add to their knowledge while 42 percent think it not reasonable. They think that these courses can be cancelled or at least should be made selective courses and that they would have taken them if not required to. This roughly corresponds to the opinions of the faculty members surveyed towards these courses: among the 22 faculty members surveyed, 53 percent think the 35 percentage is reasonable while 32 percent think it not reasonable. When asked about their favorite courses, majority of the students surveyed preferred news writing courses (46%) and skills courses (45%), from which students learn how to take photos and videos, and how to make radio and TV programs or even to design homepages over internet. However, only seven percent of students chose the theoretical courses in the field of journalism and communications as their favorites and another two percent the courses on journalism history in China and in the world. As China opens further to the world, English is also becoming more popular among journalism students. Fifty nine percent of the students surveyed think English is extremely important and 32 percent think very important. Only six percent of the students think it not important. Besides, all journalism students hope to have a chance to work as an intern in media institutions. Forty nine percent of them wish to have their internship every year and 38

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