Senior Chinese leader Li Changchun on Thursday called on Tsinghua University to improve its education quality to foster more talent and boost its influence in global education.

Tsinghua University should boost its education quality, focus on improving key subjects, promote its innovative ability and strengthen its talent pool to achieve major world university status, Li, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, told principals, teachers and students while visiting the university Thursday.

Tsinghua, originally founded in 1911 as a training school for students aiming to study abroad, has been known as the "cradle of Red elites" -- training tens of thousands of capable and politically minded graduates in the course of building the nation after 1949.

Tsinghua produces more state leaders and senior officials than any other Chinese university. Alumni include President Hu Jintao, top legislator Wu Bangguo, Vice President Xi Jinping, and former premier Zhu Rongji.

Li told the audience to strengthen the quality of the university's teachers and mentors and encourage them to set an example by following ethics and morality.

In addition, Li said universities should educate students on the contemporary history of China as well as the CPC's historical rise in order to let them know "how history and the people chose Marxism, the CPC and a socialist path."