Wang Yanan is not only an outstanding Marxist economist, but also an educator with great foresight and great achievements in educational theory. His educational theory, talent theory and teaching theory are rich in content and worthy of attention. Starting from the development trend of modern education and the reality of China, he proposed that modern education should focus on scientific education and democratic education, and advocated paying equal attention to social science and natural science education. As early as the early 1950s, he thought that the phenomenon of "emphasizing reason over literature" in comprehensive universities must be corrected. Starting from the nature and function of scientific research, he advocated that universities should pay full attention to scientific research and create a scientific atmosphere of free research; According to the principle of universality and particularity of contradiction, he put forward the guiding ideology of running a school by recognizing the situation of running a school, giving full play to its advantages and running a school with characteristics. He attaches great importance to the discovery and cultivation of talents and emphasizes giving people an environment suitable for giving full play to their talents. He discovered and cultivated Chen Jingrun's deeds, and was praised by writer Xu Chi as "an economist who knows the value of human beings". Wang Yanan boldly uses talents, does not seek perfection, is broad-minded, regardless of seniority, and actively cultivates new progress. He was praised and missed by people and set up a tall model image. His educational theory and thoughts are the precious wealth he left to educators.

Wang Yanan was a famous economist and educator in modern China, and the first president of Xiamen University after liberation. He has been teaching in universities for more than 30 years, and has accumulated rich teaching experience and school-running experience, and has a profound understanding of education. In particular, there are many insightful views on the essence and function of modern education, how to run a comprehensive university well, how to train and use talents, how to learn and so on. Second, Yan 'an's educational thought runs through Marxist epistemology and methodology, which is a valuable legacy of China's educational theory. The following is a brief comment on his educational thought from three aspects: education view, teaching view and university view.