The latest release of the Ministry of Education: Expansion of enrollment for professional and doctoral degrees

Poster News reporter Jiang Xueying reports from Beijing

"The Opinions take 'Classification Development' as the theme and center of the entire document, and systematically promote the classification and development of academic and professional degrees. ”

On December 19, the Ministry of Education held a press conference to introduce the recently released "Opinions on Further Promoting the Development of Graduate Education for Academic Degrees and Professional Degrees" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"). Ren Youqun, director of the Department of Degree Management and Graduate Education of the Ministry of Education, introduced that the "Opinions" clearly stated that the new master's degree authorization points are mainly professional degree authorization points, and will further increase the proportion of professional degree graduates.

Graduate students with academic degrees and professional degrees are equally important

"The Opinions take 'Classification Development' as the theme and center of the entire document, and systematically promote the classification and development of academic and professional degrees. Ren Youqun, director of the Department of Degree Management and Graduate Education of the Ministry of Education, said that academic degrees and professional degree graduate education are important ways for our country to cultivate high-level innovative talents, and the two types of degrees are equally important, and the training units should pay equal attention to them.

According to the opinions, professional degrees adhere to the demand orientation, the new master's degree awarding units only carry out professional degree graduate education in principle, the new master's degree authorization points are mainly professional degree authorization points, and the fields with academic degrees and professional degrees focus on the layout of professional degree authorization points, so as to fully support the development of the industry and the region.

Ren Youqun explained that the Ministry of Education should emphasize the distinction between academic degrees and professional degrees, mainly emphasizing that professional degree categories are more accurately connected with industry needs, and emphasizing that the corresponding goals and tasks of talent training in different fields are different, but it does not mean that the knowledge of graduate students should be narrowed, and it does not mean that professional degree graduate students should be equated with a kind of skilled talent training, on the contrary, professional degree graduate students should have the ability to innovate in practice, and should be able to refine scientific problems in practice, multi-disciplinary, multi-field broad vision, cross-field collaboration and innovation ability in a prominent position in talent training, accurately understand the relationship between accurate classification and broad knowledge.

"Briefly, these are two different degrees, but it can't be understood as a professional degree is to lower the requirements, you don't have to learn so much, just learn some operational things, that's not what it means. Ren Youqun said, "At present, the idea we put forward is to grasp the two key points of basic discipline talents and excellent engineer training, and take the lead in creating a new paradigm of talent training. The training of outstanding engineers focuses on innovating the joint training mechanism, breaking the traditional organizational model of discipline and department system, deepening the integration of industry and education, and strengthening organized joint training. These are two different priorities to advance. Through the above two reform breakthroughs, it is hoped to lead and drive the transformation and upgrading of the whole chain of professional talent training in various disciplines, enhance the operability of the reform, and achieve steady and comprehensive advancement. ”

Peking University: The first batch of pilot and full implementation of the "application-assessment" system for doctoral students

"Peking University has built a relatively mature classification training model and classification management mechanism for graduate education. The postgraduate education of academic degrees focuses on the development of knowledge innovation and cultivates academic innovative talents. Wang Bo, vice president of Peking University, introduced at the meeting that basic disciplines are the "four beams and eight pillars" of Peking University. Over the years, Peking University has actively explored and practiced, giving full play to the advantages of a complete range of basic disciplines and strong strength, and constantly promoting the construction of an academic innovative talent training system under the guidance of the cultivation of talents in basic disciplines.

Wang Bo said that Peking University combines the law of talent training in basic disciplines to explore the cultivation of undergraduate and doctoral degrees, and create a more focused, inclusive and sustainable growth environment. Since the beginning of this year, the number of doctoral students who have been admitted through the direct doctoral method has been increasing. The first batch of pilot projects and the full implementation of the "application-review" system for doctoral students, optimize the talent selection criteria, focus on the comprehensive ability of students, and strengthen the investigation of scientific research innovation ability and professional academic potential.

In 2023, the university will open more than 150 dissertation writing and academic standard courses, and set up about 7,000 doctoral assistant positions to promote students' original innovation ability in scientific research tasks. At the same time, a closer teacher-student interaction mechanism has been established, the management of postponed doctoral students has been strengthened, and a multi-channel diversion training system such as "doctoral to master's degree", "completion" and "dropout" has been established.

In recent years, Peking University has stepped up its efforts to introduce talents, covering key areas such as basic disciplines, frontier disciplines, and interdisciplinary disciplines, and its strategic reserves have been continuously strengthened. We will continue to promote the reform of doctoral supervisor selection, implement the new system of teaching and research teachers to directly recognize the qualifications of doctoral supervisors when they are introduced, optimize the structure of the tutor team, and the proportion of teachers aged 35 and below in the newly selected doctoral supervisors has increased significantly. Strengthen the dynamic adjustment mechanism of tutor positions, and guide the allocation of resources in the enrollment plan to the flow of tutors in areas of urgent need of national strategy, active scientific research and high training quality through the annual enrollment qualification review. Focusing on cutting-edge scientific issues, we will give full play to the important supporting role of major national platforms, major projects and scientific research teams in educating people, strengthen joint training with nearly 100 units such as national laboratories, scientific research institutions and leading scientific and technological enterprises, and continuously promote the deep integration of scientific research and the cultivation of academic innovative talents.

In the future, Peking University will continue to follow the rules of graduate education, adhere to the principle of becoming a talent among adults, specializing in general education, achieving in choice, innovating in integration, and being independent in opening up, further optimize the training path of different types of graduate students, and continuously improve the quality of independent training of top-notch innovative talents. Wang Bo said.

Tsinghua University: Take the lead in completing the reform of graduate degree evaluation standards and breaking the tendency of "only papers".

"Tsinghua University is one of the first universities to advocate and explore the development of graduate education classification. Jiang Peixue, vice president of Tsinghua University, introduced at the meeting that since the reform and opening up and the resumption of graduate education, the school has adjusted the positioning of graduate education from cultivating teaching and scientific research talents based on teachers to cultivating professional and technical talents serving the national economic construction.

The poster news reporter learned that at present, Tsinghua University has 55% and 45% of the graduate students with academic degrees and professional degrees respectively, 26% and 74% of the master's students respectively, and 87% and 13% of doctoral students respectively.

In 2014, Tsinghua University issued the "Several Opinions on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of Education and Teaching", which called for "improving the classification training mechanism...... further form a pattern of equal emphasis on the cultivation of academic talents and professional talents", and the concept of equal importance and classified development of the two types of degree education has gradually become a consensus. In recent years, new understandings have been further formed that doctoral education takes the cultivation of academic talents as the main body and reflects the height of university talent training, and master's education takes the cultivation of professional talents as the main body and reflects the vitality of universities in serving the country's economic and social development. Tsinghua University adopts the "project system" for the training of professional degrees, interdisciplinary and international graduate students, and sets training goals, allocates enrollment plans, formulates training programs, and carries out education and teaching according to the project. In addition, it also explores the establishment of an enrollment and selection mechanism that adapts to the training objectives and characteristics of different types of graduate students, improves the training mechanism for the integration of science and education, industry and education, and strengthens the management of the whole process of training.

"In the next stage, Tsinghua University will Xi implement the spirit of the Ministry of Education's document, further promote the development and integration of academic degree and professional degree graduate education, further optimize the layout of disciplines and majors, establish and improve the classification management mechanism of instructors, improve the classification selection, classification training and classification evaluation mechanism of graduate students, explore the construction of a graduate student funding system with classified support and cost sharing, and simultaneously improve the training quality of the two types of degree graduates, so as to make new and greater contributions to the construction of an educational power. Jiang Peixue said.