Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping has urged universities to reform and improve themselves to turn out more high-quality personnel for the society.

Universities are supposed to produce "qualified builders and reliable successors of socialism with Chinese characteristics," Xi said while touring major Beijing-based universities from Wednesday to Thursday.

Centering on the fundamental task of personnel fostering, he said, universities should reform all concepts and mechanisms that go against the mission, lift the overall quality of teachers, offer better services in helping students find jobs, beef up campus stability, and provide technical service and intellectual support for companies to weather the financial crisis.

He also urged universities to prevent and punish academic corruption.

(Xinhua News Agency May 8, 2009)