BEIJING — China's Ministry of Education has issued a guideline to deepen the reform on the country's undergraduate education and teaching and improve the quality of universities' talent-cultivation work.

The guideline, dated late September and published by the ministry on its website on Oct 12, proposed four areas for further reform, which are the management of education and teaching work, systems of education and teaching, teaching personnel and organizational guarantee.

The aim of the guideline is to "nurture a new generation of capable young people who have a good and all-around moral, intellectual, physical and aesthetic grounding in addition to a hard-working spirit and are well-prepared to join the socialist cause," according to the guideline.

Universities were asked to motivate students to study hard and make their academic tasks more "challenging," as well as allocate more time to students for reading and sports.

The guideline called for development of "Internet Plus Education" and "smart" education to reform university classroom teaching and improve quality of the courses.

The guideline also asked universities to improve appraisal systems to punish any academic misconduct and improve standards for degree conferring.