Text | Zhang Duanhong (Director, Education Policy Research Center, Tongji University)
Liu Hong (Associate Researcher, Institute of Development Research, Fudan University)
On April 26, the Ninth Session of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress voted to pass the Academic Degrees Law of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the "Academic Degrees Law"), which will come into force on January 1, 2025.
The degree system is the basic system of education in mainland China. The Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Academic Degrees (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations on Academic Degrees") enacted in 1980 was the first education law in mainland China, which established the degree system in mainland China. However, as the mainland enters a new stage of development, the Regulations on Academic Degrees can no longer meet the needs of practice. The enactment of the Academic Degrees Law on the basis of the Regulations on Academic Degrees is the first comprehensive revision of the Regulations on Academic Degrees since its implementation more than 40 years ago, and also marks the beginning of a new historical stage in the rule of law and quality assurance of academic degrees in the mainland.
The practical significance of the promulgation of the Degrees Law
With the continuous expansion of the scale of higher education in mainland China, the effective management and supervision of degree awarding has become an urgent problem to be solved. The promulgation of the Academic Degrees Law aims to regulate and manage all aspects of degree awarding, protect the legitimate rights and interests of degree applicants, ensure the quality and authority of degrees, and consolidate the achievements of the reform of the degree system at the legal level. This is undoubtedly of positive significance for promoting mainland universities to improve the quality of talent training and achieve high-quality development of higher education.
After the promulgation of the Academic Degrees Law, the conditions, procedures, and regulatory mechanisms for the awarding of degrees by colleges and universities need to be adjusted accordingly in accordance with the law. This will help optimize the degree management system of mainland China, enhance the gold content of degrees awarded by mainland universities, and continuously enhance the international competitiveness of mainland higher education.
In recent years, there have always been some problems and challenges in the process of conferring degrees in colleges and universities, such as plagiarism of dissertations and disputes over degree evaluation, etc., and the original Regulations on Academic Degrees have been difficult to fully adapt to the development of the new situation. Legal disputes and judicial cases arising from the management of academic degrees are not uncommon, and many of them have become cases of widespread concern to the whole society, and the mainland urgently needs a new basic law on the management of academic degrees to effectively regulate the relevant issues.
Therefore, the promulgation of the Academic Degrees Law is of great practical significance, which is not only the result of long-term expectations of all parties, but also the result of the efforts of education legislators.
Responding to differences in judicial practice
The Academic Degrees Law has made new institutional arrangements in many aspects, which to a certain extent responds to various differences in judicial practice and is conducive to resolving legal disputes in the administration of academic degrees.
The Law on Academic Degrees stipulates that the State shall implement a three-level management system for academic degrees. The Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, the Provincial Academic Degrees Committee and the Academic Degrees Evaluation Committee of Degree-awarding Institutions are the three-level entities of degree management. The Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council and the Provincial Academic Degrees Committee lead the academic degree work of the whole country and the administrative region respectively. The duties of the Academic Degree Evaluation Committee of the degree-awarding institution include reviewing the degree-awarding system and standards of the institution, deliberating on the addition and revocation of degree-awarding points, making resolutions on whether to confer or revoke degrees, handling disputes over degree-awarding institutions, and accepting complaints or reports.
Although the three-level management has formed a corresponding institutional arrangement in practice, it is the first time that it has been recognized in the form of national legislation, especially the responsibilities of the provincial degree committees have also been confirmed by law. Behind this is the legal recognition of the empowerment of provincial and university levels by the national degree administration. At the provincial level, serving regional economic and social development can be regarded as the orientation of the review of new degree authorization, which is conducive to further implementing the provincial overall planning power of higher education.
The Academic Degrees Act clarifies the types of academic degrees and professional degrees. The Academic Degrees Regulations only focus on academic degrees and lack relevant provisions on the professional degree system. The Academic Degrees Law stipulates that academic degrees emphasize academic research ability, and the training link focuses on academic research training, while professional degrees emphasize professional practice ability, and the training link emphasizes professional practical training. In terms of degree review, academic degree students emphasize the defense of their dissertation, while professional degree students need to defend their practical results or other prescribed results.
In the future, there will be a stronger institutional guarantee for the training orientation and training norms of academic degrees and professional degrees, and the classified training and evaluation of graduate students will become the spirit of the law. There are only differences in the type of academic degree and professional degree, and there is no difference in gold content.
The Academic Degrees Law expands the autonomy of degree-awarding institutions, on the one hand, establishes a system of independent review of master's and doctoral degree awarding points, and on the other hand, stipulates that if the quality of postgraduate training does not meet the prescribed standards, or if there are serious problems in the quality management of degrees, the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council has the right to revoke the self-examination qualifications of relevant units. This is of great significance for safeguarding and expanding the autonomy of degree-awarding units, further promoting the standardized management of degree-awarding units, and stimulating the vitality of colleges and universities.
Correspondingly, it has become an inevitable choice for degree-awarding institutions that have obtained the right of independent review to keep this right in the process of continuously improving the quality of graduate training through self-restraint, standardized management, and strengthening construction.
In addition, when establishing the conditions for the awarding of degrees, the Academic Degrees Law also grants degree-awarding institutions more autonomy and academic autonomy in running schools, and requires each degree-awarding institution to formulate specific standards for awarding degrees with its own characteristics in accordance with the provisions of the law and in combination with the academic evaluation standards of its own units. This is a new breakthrough.
The Academic Degrees Act attaches great importance to the quality assurance of academic degrees. Specifically, the first is to emphasize the main responsibility of the degree-awarding unit for quality assurance, and requires the degree-awarding unit to strengthen the degree quality assurance system of the unit, and if the quality of the degree-awarding unit does not meet the relevant requirements, the degree-awarding qualification can be revoked; the second is to stipulate that the national and provincial levels regularly organize experts to conduct quality evaluation of the approved degree-awarding units and degree-awarding points; third, it stipulates that the training unit shall provide graduate students with teachers with good moral character, high academic level or strong practical ability. Scientific researchers or professionals serve as instructors, and establish mechanisms for selection, assessment, supervision, and dynamic adjustment. A multi-pronged approach has been taken to build a relatively complete degree quality assurance system.
The Academic Degrees Law focuses on the protection of students' rights and interests. The right to education is one of the fundamental rights of citizens. In recent years, the field of higher education has carried out full exploration and practice around the protection of students' rights and interests, and the dispute resolution channels for degree awarding have been continuously improved in practice. In this regard, the Academic Degrees Law further clarifies the requirements and regulations for graduate students and their supervisors, and provides detailed provisions on the degree awarding procedures and quality assurance clauses, which will help to further demonstrate procedural justice.
For example, the Academic Degrees Law stipulates that if a degree applicant disagrees with the conclusion of the academic evaluation and is dissatisfied with the refusal to accept the degree application, not confer the degree or revoke the degree, etc., the applicant may conduct a review and resolution. This makes the appeal and relief channels for degree disputes further protected by law, which is more conducive to protecting the legitimate rights and interests of degree applicants.
The spiritual inheritance of the Academic Degrees Regulations and the Academic Degrees Law
While responding to the demands of the industry and society, there are also some legislative directions that the public expects have not been included in this legislation.
For example, the Academic Degrees Law does not change the basic form of national degrees on the form of national degrees and school-based degrees, which is of great concern to everyone. In terms of the relationship between the defense committees, whether there is the right of review by superiors over subordinates, whether the evaluation results made by grass-roots academic organizations can be denied, and whether or not they can apply for administrative reconsideration or file administrative lawsuits for degree disputes, these major issues of general concern in the educational and legal circles need to be further resolved in future legislation and law amendment work.
In addition, there are some institutional spirits that have always been upheld in the Regulations on Academic Degrees and the Law on Academic Degrees.
The first is the unremitting pursuit of independent training of high-level talents. The Regulations on Academic Degrees have made necessary regulations for the independent training of high-level talents for more than 40 years. In the past 40 years, the mainland has initially achieved the supply of high-level talents, mainly local degree-granting institutions. The Academic Degrees Law will also play a greater role in comprehensively improving the quality of self-cultivation of talents in the new era.
The second is to adhere to the basic principle of protecting the rights and interests of degree applicants. On the basis of the amendment to the Academic Degrees Law, the degree management system will put the protection of basic rights in a higher position and further optimize the protection mechanism for the rights and interests of degree applicants.
Finally, it emphasizes the value orientation of quality. Although the Regulations on Academic Degrees do not explicitly mention quality, what is revealed between the lines is the basic requirement for the quality of professional personnel training. The Academic Degrees Law has a special chapter on the quality of academic degrees, and puts the guarantee of the quality of academic degrees in Article 1 of the General Provisions, emphasizing that special institutions are responsible for the evaluation and quality supervision of academic degrees.
In short, the promulgation of the Academic Degrees Law will have a far-reaching impact on higher education and related fields in the mainland. The mainland is seizing the opportunities brought about by the new wave of scientific and technological revolution, speeding up the construction of a strong country in education, science and technology, and talent, comprehensively improving the quality of independent training of talents, striving to cultivate top-notch innovative talents, and realizing the integrated development of education, science and technology, and talents, which has become the top priority in the field of education.
After the promulgation of the Academic Degrees Law, it is necessary to strengthen the popularization of law among the national and local education administrative departments, institutions of higher learning, teachers and students and other key groups, vigorously promote law enforcement supervision, ensure that the spirit of the law and the system are implemented, and provide a solid legal guarantee for the cultivation of innovative talents in the new era, so as to better realize the comprehensive standardization of degree management and the overall improvement of degree quality, and provide solid support for the construction of an educational power.