CHINA: The Chinese call golf "green opium", but now Xiamen University in southern China is to make teeing off, putting and clearing the rough compulsory for business and IT students in a bid to try and produce "socially elite" graduates.
Golf, which communists used to consider a decadent way for capitalists to waste their time, is undergoing quite a revival among the newly rich in China these days and two million Chinese regularly tee off.
Mainland China's first golf course opened for business in the early 1980s.
Now it's part of a broader need for "elite education" in China, according to one university president.
"Students majoring in management, law, economics and software engineering will be required to take a course in golf," Xiamen University president Zhu Chongshi told a forum on development and co-operation at the weekend.
"In two months, a most beautiful driving range will open at the university," he said in his speech, which was reported in the China Daily newspaper. Golf is not only good exercise, but will teach students communication skills and benefit their future careers."
Time was when a bachelor's degree was respected regardless of the major, but today higher education has grown into an industry designed to fulfil market demand, he said.
"The highest embodiment of the education system is producing socially elite people with the best education." And it's good exercise, too.
The proposal for compulsory golf was criticised by Alex Jin, president of the Centre for International Education Group - himself a golfer - who described it as "rather vulgar".
"With a per capita income of about 1,700 yuan (€170), China can ill afford courses in golf. If people who are fortunate enough to be rich want their sons and daughters to learn golf, there are other ways," he said, adding that the money would be better spent improving primary health care in remote regions.