Although it is only virtual, 20-year-old Chen Shucong, a sophomore at Zhejiang Industrial University in Hangzhou in eastern China's Zhejiang Province, is proud of having acquired "a bank account of 60,000 yuan" in just one week.

The virtual deposit in the moral bank, established at the university's Zhijiang campus on November 5, is the result of Chen's six hours of volunteer work performed during a sporting event.

Volunteers in Wenling of Zhejiang Province donate blood in a hospital van. Students from Zhejiang Industrial University give blood for free, yet receive moral credit for it, as well as many other good deeds. [Newsphoto]

"Nominal as the account is, it gives me a feeling of satisfaction and, more importantly, encouragement, as it constitutes social recognition of what I have done," says Chen. "I will keep adding to my bank account."

Initiated and run by students, the moral bank keeps records of all of its students' good deeds, according to Xu Keke, vice-president of the bank and a sophomore at the university. "All such deeds are graded, like one point for an hour of volunteer work and two points for donating blood. Each point is worth 10,000 yuan on the virtual savings account cards issued by the moral bank," Xu says.

Although the virtual savings cannot actually be cashed, the account endows the holder with some real material benefits, such as qualifying to attend certain advanced training courses on campus, free tickets to paid lectures and a free three-month subscription to selected newspapers and magazines, says Pan Yannai, another sophomore who works with the bank.

At the end of each semester, the moral bank plans to reward the top 10 depositors, calling on other students to learn from them. Such honours, Xu says, could earn them scholarship credits.

The university authorities support this original idea thought up by its students. Says Han Yixiang, vice-president of Zhejiang Industrial University, "Having the moral bank on campus creates a new platform upon which the university can put moral education into practice among the students. It transforms the usual sort of abstract, theoretical and vague moral preaching into interesting, attractive and real action, making moral education more acceptable to young people."

Han says the university will try to "create an atmosphere on campus in which those who do good deeds would be acknowledged and rewarded".

But doubters and critics of the bank do exist. "Some faculty members hold that the moral bank blasphemes the very principles of true morality since it associates morality with banking," says Han. "They feel that the expectation to have good deeds rewarded runs totally counter to the traditional moral norm that one should not think of personal gain in offering help to others, which has been appreciated and even taken for granted in China for decades. It upsets them to see that now it seems you have to use incentives to encourage moral behaviour among the students."

The controversy has travelled beyond the campus as well. Professor Chen Lisi of the China Youth University for Political Sciences, is also critical of the moral bank. "If we stick a price tag on moral deeds, it means disaster for society," he says. "It will induce people to weigh morality on a scale of worth, and they may hesitate to help others if they decide it's not worth it. Then social justice could be at stake."

Xu Demin, a professor of philosophy at the university, disagrees with such critics. As opposed to financial banks dealing with monetary transactions, he argues, the moral bank is purely virtual, and the "money" in the bank accounts is nothing more than a record and proof of what good deeds the holder has done, with which he or she may be rewarded, mostly in a spiritual way.

Dr Wang Haiming, an ethics professor at Peking University, also disagrees that the moral bank will lead to excessive materialism. In fact, he says, many people find happiness in leading moral lives and would go for morality whether or not material gain was involved.

The point, he says, is that "it is not right for society to take it for granted and to spiritualize morality." If people who donate blood or take up the cudgels for a just cause can be rewarded, asks Professor Wang, "What's wrong with a moral bank?" In fact, he says, "it is immoral to enjoy other's help without acknowledging it, and it is not reasonable to urge everyone to help others selflessly."

Zhou Xiaozheng, a professor of sociology at Renmin University of China, also applauds the moral bank. "I appreciate the selfless help of others, but society at large should set up a reward system to sustain and develop moral behaviour via institutionalization," he notes. "As the old Chinese saying goes, 'A good man deserves a good life'. The moral bank just translates this concept into a practical system."

Nevertheless, Professor Wu Qiantao of Renmin University's Ethnic and Morality Research Centre, finds the term "virtual money" misleading. There are many types of good deeds, he explains, raising the problem of how to evaluate a service against its virtual value in the moral bank. "And it may give the students the wrong impression that those good deeds rewarded with more virtual money are somehow more important or better than those graded lower."

Controversies aside, most experts approve of the role the bank plays in effectively educating students in morality. "It is sheer propaganda to focus solely on the pure side of morality, and propaganda is not an effective motivator of students nowadays," says Zhang Yiqing, vice-president of the Zhijiang campus, who has taught morality courses at the university for decades. But he agrees that the moral bank should be improved in practice.

By all means, he says, "young people need more encouragement and support from society to do good. When they realize those who do good things can benefit in their studies and earn the respect of others, they will follow the examples and the ball will start rolling."

And the reality backs up his words. Since the moral bank came into being on November 5, all 3,350 students at the Zhijiang Campus have opened accounts, and 179 of them made deposits within the very first week.

"What has motivated me to work as a volunteer is not the rewards but the chance to help others through my own efforts," says Chen Shucong. "But the rewards, the social acknowledgement, make me feel real great. I think I need it as well as the self-improvement. It's good to see that what you have done has a positive impact on the people around you and that will enhance the moral.

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