On the afternoon of May 13th, Professor Scott Rozelle, the Helen C. Farnsworth Senior Fellow at Stanford University and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), was invited to deliver a lecture in Room 930 at the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Renmin University of China. This lecture was part of the series commemorating the 70th anniversary of the school's establishment and the 20th anniversary of the institute. The session was hosted by Professor Qiu Huanguang, Dean of the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.

Professor Rozelle's lecture, titled "Common Prosperity Begins at 0 to 3 Years Old: How the Urban-Rural Divide is One of China’s Biggest Challenges," discussed how, despite the continuous improvement in the conditions of compulsory education schools in rural China, the nutrition and health gap between urban and rural children remains one of the main causes of the human capital disparity between these areas. Professor Rozelle introduced several randomized controlled trials conducted by his research team in rural China, which examined the impact of health interventions such as vision correction and vitamin and micronutrient supplementation on the academic performance of rural school children. He also discussed the positive effects of providing child development guidance to rural caregivers on the intellectual development of children aged 0-3. Based on these research findings, Professor Rozelle proposed feasible paths to narrow the education and development gap between urban and rural areas in the context of common prosperity.