"Commentary" must not be named "president", how can non-degree education in colleges and universities be authentic?

Wen | 21st Century Education Research Institute Xiong Bingqi

The General Office of the Ministry of Education recently issued a notice on printing and distributing the "Regulations on the Administration of Non-academic Education Held by Ordinary Colleges and Universities (Trial Implementation)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Provisions"). The "Provisions" point out that colleges and universities may not hold course refresher courses in the name of "graduate students", "master's degrees, doctoral degrees", etc. Non-degree education held for the public must not be named "leading cadres", "presidents", "elites", "leaders", etc., and there must be no publicity to recruit leading cadres. The "Provisions" also emphasize that colleges and universities should strictly regulate the enrollment behavior of non-academic education, organize enrollment on their own, and strictly prohibit entrusting external institutions to carry out enrollment as agents. Admissions promotions must be truthful, clear and accurate.

Universities carry out non-degree continuing education, which is an important way to radiate higher education resources and build a lifelong learning society. Different from full-time academic education and academic continuing education, non-academic education cannot award academic certificates to students, and attention should be paid to the design and quality of training courses, so as to meet the needs of trainees to receive continuing education and improve their ability and quality with high-quality training content.

However, the non-academic education held by some colleges and universities has the problem of attracting students with academic qualifications, as well as engaging in gimmicks such as "president class" and "elite class", non-academic education has not adhered to the positioning of non-academic qualifications, and is also suspected of using the school's brand to "paste gold" for students participating in training. Some trainees choose non-academic education, nor do they look at the specific training content and training quality, but against the school's fame, there are problems of "brushing experience" and "mixing circles".

For example, many years ago, some famous schools opened sky-high "president classes", so that public opinion mistakenly thought that it was a special recruitment of presidents for academic education, but in fact, it was non-academic training.

Most of these "president classes" are held by second-level colleges as "income-generating projects", and it is not the college that is responsible for the specific operation, but the social institutions, which are responsible for enrollment and organizing teaching activities, but they use the university's brand and the university's venue, and pay the college brand fee, management fee, and venue fee according to a certain proportion of the tuition income. Others even hold non-degree education in the name of colleges and universities by individual faculty members.

Such sky-high "president classes" often involve universities in the whirlpool of public opinion - some students question false propaganda, the quality of training is very low; and some trainees claim to be graduates of famous universities in their resumes after receiving training, and so on. In addition, the school (college) outsources the non-degree education business, and the cooperative institutions confuse the academic degree and the non-academic nature in order to pursue profits, and make a big fuss in marketing, which has a serious negative impact on the reputation and image of the university. More importantly, some non-degree education has not effectively played a training effect, so that participants can obtain genuine training, and there is also a certain problem of benefit transmission in non-degree training.

For the norms of non-academic education held by colleges and universities, we must first return non-academic education to non-academic positioning. Compared with academic education, non-academic education can actually reflect the value of education itself, because it cannot give students a diploma (only training certificate).

Non-degree education should pay more attention to quality and meet the training needs of trainees. However, some non-degree education, not in improving the quality of training, efforts, but want to play the edge of academic education, or to confuse academic education and non-academic education for false publicity, such as master's course classes, doctoral courses, this is not master's or doctoral education, students can not get graduate diplomas, but will make students and the public mistakenly think that they do not need to participate in the unified admissions examination, you can spend money to study for a master's or doctoral degree.

Second, we must return non-degree education to doing education, not doing business. Colleges and universities entrust external institutions to recruit students, or outsource to external institutions, this is the idea of doing business, and making money by holding non-academic education. This will bring about a series of problems such as brand management and quality management, and external institutions will often exaggerate publicity and conceal continuing education when enrolling students, which is said to be held by universities, and the investment in marketing exceeds the investment in curriculum construction. The "Provisions" put forward that cooperative schools should adhere to the status of the main body of colleges and universities, and it is strictly forbidden to transfer, delegate or transfer the management rights, school running rights, enrollment rights and teaching rights of schools, and strictly prohibit the overall outsourcing of projects. This is clearly targeted.

Non-degree education creates a variety of choices for the educated to receive higher education, and is also an important educational method to promote the construction of a lifelong learning society. Standardizing the management of non-degree education and improving the quality of non-degree education is also an important part of improving the quality of running schools and social influence of colleges and universities, therefore, colleges and universities should also rationalize the management system of non-degree education from the perspective of maintaining the brand, reputation and serving the society, and create a distinctive non-degree education and training system.