21st Century Business Herald reporter Wang Feng reported in Beijing that an important document on the optimization and adjustment of the structure and layout of graduate education was recently issued.
On December 19, 2023, the Ministry of Education issued the "Opinions on Further Promoting the Development of the Classification of Academic Degree and Professional Degree Graduate Education" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions") on its website, proposing to insist on the equal status and equal importance of the two types of academic degree and professional degree graduate education.
For millions of students who are admitted to graduate school every year, the "Opinions" are the vane that guides them to apply for examinations, study Xi, and find employment.
The "Opinions" proposes to further increase the proportion of professional degree graduates, and expand the enrollment scale of master's professional degree students to about two-thirds of the total enrollment scale of master's degree students by the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan".
In the future, college students will choose to take a master's degree or a master's degree, the positioning of the two is very important, the enrollment scale of the master's degree is not only larger, but also more oriented to the needs of the industry.
In reality, professional masters will still encounter differential treatment when applying for jobs.
"Some employers do not treat master's degree and professional master's degree equally, and they will think that the quality of education received by master's degree is better, so that some people say that master's degree is called 'big master' and professional master's degree is called 'small master'. Han Yatong, who is studying for a master's degree in a university in Beijing, said.
There are also differences in the training and guarantee mechanisms of the two types of graduate education. In recent years, many colleges and universities do not provide dormitories for professional and master's degrees, and the tuition fees for professional and master's degrees have continued to rise.
This means that the institutional mechanism for the development of graduate education classification needs to be continuously optimized and improved.
The new master's programs are mainly professional degrees
Professional degree master's degree students already account for half of graduate education. The proportion of professional degree awarding in the country increased from 32.29% in 2012 to 56.4% in 2022.
Even at the top research universities, the number of graduate students with professional degrees has surpassed that of others.
At a press conference of the Ministry of Education on December 19, Jiang Peixue, vice president of Tsinghua University, said that at present, 55% and 45% of graduate students at Tsinghua University have academic degrees and professional degrees, respectively, but 26% and 74% of master's students, respectively.
Yuan Jingyu, deputy director of the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education, introduced at the press conference that in the past five years, the proportion of professional degree doctoral and master's degree authorization points in Jiangsu Province has increased from 2.8% and 31.9% to 13.1% and 55.1% respectively, forming a pattern of classified development.
The mainland has become a major country in graduate education, and the number of graduate students in 2022 has reached 3.65 million, surpassing that of the United States.
However, there is still a significant gap between the competitiveness of postgraduate education in mainland China and that of developed countries. In terms of the proportion of researchers in the total population, the number of researchers per million population in the mainland has gradually increased, reaching 1,585 in 2020, ranking 45th in the world, but there is still a significant gap compared with the average of the top 15 educational powers (5,641).
In 2021, doctoral students accounted for 1.33% of higher education students in mainland China, an increase of only 0.22 percentage points from a decade ago, and master's students accounted for 7.37%, an increase of only 1.77 percentage points from a decade ago.
Experts pointed out that it is necessary to continue to expand the scale of doctoral training, expand the proportion of outstanding undergraduates in basic disciplines directly pursuing doctoral degrees, and continue to expand the scale of professional degrees awarded to master's students.
The Opinions clearly stipulate this. The "Opinions" proposes that the new disciplines and majors should be mainly professional degree categories. In principle, the newly added master's degree-granting units only carry out professional degree graduate education, and the newly added master's degree authorization points are mainly professional degree authorization points, and the fields with both academic degrees and professional degrees focus on the layout of professional degree authorization points. We will further increase the proportion of graduate students with professional degrees, and significantly increase the number of graduate students enrolled in doctoral degrees.
The "Opinions" also put forward that academic degrees should adhere to the layout of a high starting point, focusing on the layout of doctoral degree authorization points. Support qualified high-level research universities to carry out pilot reforms for the cultivation of talents in basic disciplines, mainly position basic disciplines in cultivating doctoral students with academic degrees, and further increase the proportion of direct doctoral students.
A master's degree is not a lowering of requirements
It is worth noting that the development of graduate education classification should avoid a misunderstanding, that is, it is believed that professional degree graduates cultivate "blue-collar" talents with technical skills.
In fact, whether it is an academic degree or a professional degree graduate, they are all high-level talents and need to have a deep and broad knowledge base.
The absence of words such as "application" and "skills" in the "Opinions" also reflects this positioning.
Ren Youqun, director of the Department of Degree Management and Graduate Education of the Ministry of Education, said at the press conference that emphasizing the distinction between academic degrees and professional degrees does not mean that professional degree graduate students are equated with a kind of skilled talent training.
There is a lot of room for the development of graduate education classification, which can become an important starting point for the development of vocational education classification.
At the press conference of the Ministry of Education on December 27, 2022, Chen Ziji, then director of the Department of Vocational Education and Adult Education of the Ministry of Education, told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that it is necessary to continue to expand the growth space of technical and skilled talents, and at the same time support local further innovation. For example, support high-level universities and enterprises in key industries to recruit particularly outstanding higher vocational graduates with certain work experience in the production line, and train professional master's degree graduates in the form of school-enterprise cooperation project system.
A person in charge of New Oriental's postgraduate entrance examination training business told the 21st Century Business Herald that in recent years, there has been an obvious trend of college graduates from higher vocational colleges going on to higher education, and many candidates continue to take postgraduate examinations after "upgrading to a bachelor's degree" and expanding the scale of professional degree graduates, which is conducive to the success channel of such students.
However, due to the fact that professional and master's degrees have been treated differently in terms of employment and other aspects, it is more necessary to emphasize the same status and importance in exploring the integration of general and science and education, and it needs to be steadily promoted.
Ren Youqun said, "The Central Economic Work Conference put forward the requirements of seeking progress while maintaining stability, promoting stability with progress, and establishing first and then breaking down, and the classified development of graduate education can also be actively promoted in accordance with these 12-character guidelines." All provinces and units should do a good job of systematic analysis, grasp the pain points, difficulties, and blockages in their own regions and units, carry out targeted work, and steadily promote the adjustment and improvement of existing systems and mechanisms, instead of blindly engaging in large-scale demolition and construction. ”
Why are there differences in tuition fees and accommodation?
The development of classification has become a consensus, but due to the short time for professional degree graduate education in the mainland, further exploration is needed in the aspects of classification training and guarantee.
For example, in terms of academic system, in recent years, many colleges and universities have changed the two-year training cycle of professional and master's degrees back to the same three-year as master's degrees.
Previously, the trend of adjusting the length of graduate studies was to shorten the length of study. According to public information, in 1994, Harbin Institute of Technology took the lead in piloting a two-year study system in 72 master's programs in the university. In 2004, Wuhan University began to fully promote the two-year program. In 2005, Tsinghua University changed the duration of all master's degree programs to a two-year program.
However, only a few years after the implementation of the flexible study system reform for two-year graduate students, some universities in China have changed back to the three-year system on the grounds that "the quality of master's degree training has declined".
"The length of study has been extended, most notably by the increase in the length of the graduation thesis and graduation project. In the past, the requirements for both length and quality of papers were lower than those of master's degrees, but in recent years, the requirements have increased significantly. Han Yatong, who is studying for a master's degree in a university in Beijing, said.
Xiong Bingqi, president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, told the 21st Century Business Herald that the training orientation of master's degree and professional master's degree is different. The master's degree is to provide academic talents for doctoral education, with a focus on academic training for graduate students. The professional master is to cultivate high-quality applied talents, focusing on vocational training for students. Therefore, it is not possible to train a professional master according to the master's training model.
The "Opinions" have made arrangements for the development of the classification of graduate education for the two degrees in terms of setting, layout, scale and structure. For example, in terms of dissertation evaluation reform, it is proposed to "encourage the implementation of multiple dissertation or practical achievement assessment methods (special research papers, research reports, case analysis reports, product design/work creation, scheme design, etc.) for professional degrees".
(Several measures for the development of graduate education classification Source: "Opinions")
"Extending the length of study means paying an extra year of tuition. The tuition fee for my major is 10,000 yuan per year, which is a lot of money. Liu Dong, a college student in Beijing, said.
In recent years, the tuition fees of many colleges and universities have risen. According to media statistics on tuition fees from 147 universities, 38 colleges and universities have increased tuition fees from 2019 to 2022. More than 26.4% of full-time master's programs have experienced price increases, and some have more than one round.
According to reports, in 2020, the tuition fee for the journalism and communication major at Zhejiang University increased from 8,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan, and the tuition fee for the new master's degree in communication at Fudan University increased to 50,000 yuan per year before 2020, excluding accommodation fees. Some candidates are puzzled why the tuition fee for master's degree is usually 8,000 yuan and relatively stable, while the tuition fee for master's degree is several times that of master's tuition and is still rising.
The treatment of master's degree and professional master's degree in some colleges and universities is also different. Peking University (Headquarters) has made it clear in the 2024 Graduate Admissions Guide that it will not provide dormitories for professional and master's degrees. In this regard, the staff of the Research and Recruitment Office of Peking University (the main department) said that it has been several years since the dormitory resources of the school were tight.
Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Education Sciences, believes that colleges and universities have chosen a larger base of post-secondary students in the case of limited dormitory resources, which is conducive to alleviating the current situation of dormitory tension, while master's students are relatively longer in school and need to use academic resources, so this measure has a certain rationality. For the sake of fairness, the university should also make certain compensation measures for post-secondary students, such as giving certain rental subsidies.
The person in charge of graduate education in a university told the 21st Century Business Herald, "The difference in the tuition level between the master's degree and the master's degree is mainly considered to be the different subject attributes and future employment prospects. ”
The "Opinions" also put forward classified support for different types of investment mechanisms, requiring increased financial investment in academic degrees, especially basic disciplines. Increasing financial investment means that lower tuition fees can be guaranteed accordingly. The "Opinions" also proposed to further improve the cost-sharing mechanism for professional degree training and improve the dynamic adjustment mechanism for tuition standards.
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