The Surging News reporter Zhang Chengjie intern Zhao Menghan
【Editor's Note】
On September 21, 2017, the Ministry of Education announced the first batch of "double first-class" construction list. Since then, Chinese universities have begun the historical process of "double first-class" construction.
Not long ago, the first round of "double first-class" construction colleges and universities has ushered in a cycle summary work. In the first round of the cycle, what achievements have been made in the "double first-class" construction of Chinese universities? What difficulties were encountered? What new measures are the "double-first-class" universities ready to take in the future?
The Paper launched the "What is a University" topic, focusing on the construction and development of Higher Education in China, trying to answer the highly concerned topic of how Chinese universities can build world-class universities.
Today's publication is an interview with Yao Yang, president of the National Institute of Development Studies at Peking University.
In 2020, the first round of "double first-class" construction ushered in the year of cycle summary.
In September 2017, the Ministry of Education announced the list of the first batch of "double first-class" (world-class universities and first-class disciplines) construction universities in China, with a total of 137 universities entering.
At present, the first round of "double first-class" construction cycle is basically nearing the end. In the second half of 2020, a number of universities have successively held a summary of the "double first-class" construction cycle from 2016 to 2020 and conducted expert review. Most of the evaluation results gave high evaluations, such as "high-quality and comprehensive completion", "overall entry into the ranks of world-class universities", "comprehensive realization of short-term goals" and so on.
However, the evaluation of some "building a world-class university" has also aroused widespread controversy in society. Yao Yang, dean of the National Development Research Institute of Peking University, said in an interview with the surging news (www.thepaper.cn) that in fact, there is no need to say that it has been built into a "world-class university", but we must have confidence in China's higher education, in foreign countries, universities like Tsinghua Peking University are ranked in various indicators, and their popularity and influence are recognized by everyone, at least it is also a university in the world's first camp.
In Yao Yang's view, the core of higher education is the discipline, and the most important thing in discipline construction is to recruit talents, talents are also the basis for the development of an academic institution, and excellent talents can even build disciplines.
Yao Yang's National Development Research Institute of Peking University is a multidisciplinary comprehensive school based on economics at Peking University, and the National Development Institute has many well-known scholars at home and abroad in the fields of economics, management, political science, educational economics, demography and other disciplines, such as Lin Yifu, Zhou Qiren, Zhang Weiying, Song Guoqing, etc.
In 2017, 41 disciplines of Peking University were selected into the list of "double-first-class" construction disciplines, including theoretical economics jointly built by the School of Economics and the National Development Institute. On November 30, 2020, the Ministry of Education announced the list of the first batch of national-level first-class undergraduate courses, and Professor Lin Yifu of the National Development Institute was selected for the course "China Economic Topics".
At present, the fifth round of national subject evaluation is about to begin, in the noise of various "double first-class" data and subject rankings, Yao Yang, as the dean, has expectations and worries.
"The ministry of education's assessment orientation is correct, from 'heavy quantity, heavy citation rate' to 'heavy quality, heavy research problems', which can promote researchers to combine research methods with problem awareness, and truly write papers on the motherland." Yao Yang also mentioned that the current "short and fast" social atmosphere is very influential on university education, "I found that many students from the beginning of the first year of anxiety about employment, everyone is like 'ants on a hot pot', anxious to go to the outside of the school internship, learn skills, there is no way to learn the basic knowledge in a down-to-earth manner, the first-class teaching environment is regarded as a 'technical school', a great waste of public resources." ”
Yao Yang called for internships for college students to be allowed during the holidays, but it is forbidden to go out to practice during classes, and the most important thing for universities is to learn basic knowledge and cultivate personality, which is also the difference between universities and technical schools. Enterprises should assume the social responsibility of cultivating talents, rather than treating college students as cheap labor, if the recruitment of students with rich experience in internships, it is recommended to directly dock with Lanxiang Technical School.
Yao Yang, dean of the National Development Institute of Peking University, provided a photo by the interviewee
【Dialogue with Yao Yang】
Adhering to the problem-oriented research orientation
The Paper: The Beida Development Institute was established in 2008, but in fact, the history can be traced back to the China Economic Research Center founded in 1994, how to understand the historical tradition of the National Development Institute and the current characteristics of running schools?
Yao Yang: The National Development Institute is actually a relatively special college in Peking University that integrates teaching, scientific research and policy research.
The predecessor of the National Development Institute is the China Economic Research Center, which should generally have two origins: one source is the Institute of Structural Reform (Institute of Chinese Economic System Reform) and the Institute of Development (Rural Development Research Center of the State Council), which had a very great influence in the 1980s, and they are characterized by the study of China's practical problems, such as Song Guoqing and Zhang Weiying, who belong to the Institute of Structural Reform, Mr. Lin Yifu is the deputy director of the Institute of Development, and Teacher Zhou Qiren is the soul of the Institute of Development; the other is the Economic Association in the United States. We have five former presidents of the Economic Association in the United States, such as Haiwen and Yi Gang, so the relationship between the National Development Institute and the Economic Association in the United States is also very clear. This combination is very interesting, the institute of structural reform and development institutes have made us pay more attention to the practical problems of China; the Economic Association in the United States has brought us a lot of academic qualities, and the combination of these two, I think, is unique in China.
In terms of scientific research, The Peking University Development Institute has always been adhering to the problem-oriented research orientation, such as Lin Yifu, Zhou Qiren, Zhang Weiying, and Song Guoqing, who began problem-oriented research in the 1980s and have maintained such a tradition from generation to generation.
In short, it is oriented to solving China's problems, extracting some propositions of general significance from them, and then contributing to economics. Such a problem-oriented research provides the necessary foundation for our policy research, and is of great significance for the teaching staff of teachers and the cultivation of students.
The most important thing in discipline construction is talent
The Paper: In 2017, Peking University was selected into the list of national "double-first-class" construction universities, the theoretical economics participated in the construction of the National Development Institute was selected into the list of "double-first-class" construction disciplines, and the list of the first batch of national-level first-class undergraduate courses also included the "China Economic Topics" course of Professor Lin Yifu of the National Development Institute.
Yao Yang: Comprehensive teaching is a highlight of our National Development Institute. The National Development Institute not only has economists, but also experts and scholars in multidisciplinary fields such as political science, management, sociology, education and demography.
I think the most important thing in discipline construction is talent, we actually have no specific planning, that is, as long as you have talent, no matter which field you are in, we all recruit. In terms of labor economics, we have teacher Zhao Yaohui, teacher Lei Xiaoyan, teacher Zhang Dandan; development economics teacher Zhang Xiaobo, teacher Lin Yifu...
The orientation of the college is that good talents can establish a good discipline, such as health economics, at the beginning we did not plan to do it, with teachers Li Ling and Liu Guoen coming to the college, the camp in this regard will become stronger, and the disciplines will be naturally established.
In the past, the National Development Institute had the "Sino-US Economic Two-Track Dialogue", and then it engaged in the "Sino-US Health Two-Track Dialogue", and it was the cooperative units of the United States that came to find us, because Teacher Liu Guoen was here, and after having talents, he would bring a lot of resources, and everyone would go together.
The Paper: What are your criteria for recruiting talents?
Yao Yang: This is the biggest pain we face, because recruiting people is also a gamble. Look at his past publications, talk to him, what he plans to do in the future, and whether he has the will to do better things in the future.
Some professors in their forties, you know he's very capable, but there are risks, and he doesn't work or do research after you recruit him, so you also have to know if he's willing to keep doing it, it's unknown.
The Paper: What difficulties have been encountered in the construction of disciplines at present?
Yao Yang: Some of our disciplines are still slightly weaker, such as macroeconomics, because it is more difficult to publish in the macroeconomic field, we have not been able to recruit very good sendors, and there is a bit of a gap in this regard at present, which is a direction that needs to be reinforced.
The Paper: What is your ideal discipline system of the China Development Institute?
Yao Yang: There is never the most ideal, that is, to continue to gather excellent talents, have talents and everything, and continue to get better.
The new round of discipline evaluation is well oriented
The Paper: The fifth round of discipline evaluation is about to be carried out in full swing, how do you think of the new round of discipline evaluation system?
Yao Yang: I think the Ministry of Education is determined to guide this round of assessment. Previous assessments were all-encompassing, but this round has a clear focus, emphasizing significant results rather than quantity. A discipline declares a fixed number of articles, no longer as before to carry out article array tactics, engaged in a large number of publications, looks good, published in well-known magazines, but actually does not make much sense.
Moreover, the number of papers included and the citation rate are now diluted, and the SCI and ESI related indicators are no longer the basis for direct judgment, stipulating that a certain proportion of Chinese journal papers must be included in the representative works, which is also conducive to overcoming the phenomenon of Chinese scholars writing papers for foreigners to read for free for foreign "part-time work".
To tell the truth, some foreign magazines publish Chinese articles, it has a curious idea, they are not looking at the problems that Chinese care about, but the problems they care about, which leads to some opportunistic articles that cater to the values of the magazines to be published, good articles that really study the problem cannot be published, and the citation rate is definitely poor, so it will certainly not work for a long time.
There is also a key point, not to talk about heroes with "hats", and really began to pay attention to talents, in fact, I think the focus of the work of the National Development Institute is still very in line with the leading ideology of the Ministry of Education.
My good friend, Liu Shouying, dean of the School of Economics of Renmin University, does not even have a doctorate, you have to look at hard indicators, Dean Liu is not ranked among the economists in our country, but this time the Yangtze River scholars evaluated, he ranked first. I think this is a strong signal that scholars have made it clear that they are eclectic and demoted. Dean Liu's publication in China is not very good to be honest, but in the study of China's land issue, he is no.1 in our hearts, a first-class economist. So your article is published well, but you can't do real problems, sorry, you can't get on.
The Paper: So you think the subject assessment is of great significance?
Yao Yang: Yes, at least it will affect the orientation of the academic circle. Of course, it is also sub-disciplinary, taking economics as an example, what problems to study is very important, and there must be a breakthrough on this issue, this is what we should do when we do learning, the difficulty is definitely greater than before, but it has a deeper meaning.
The Paper: Are you under pressure for a new round of evaluations?
Yao Yang: There is pressure. After the last round of evaluation, because we did not get A+ in theoretical economics, the school pressure is very high, this is a discipline that we jointly built with the School of Economics, and we definitely hope that the next round can ensure that we can return to A+. How to do it specifically, it is definitely still what I mentioned before, talent.
Academic research cannot be divorced from Chinese practice
The Paper: The first round of "double first-class" assessment is nearing the end, from the overall point of view, how do you think China's economic discipline has developed in this round?
Yao Yang: I think the achievements in economics are very big, but there are also many problems. Looking back at the path taken by economics in the past 30 years: (last century) in the 90s, we were basically in the stage of introduction, digestion and absorption, when the China Economic Research Center made great contributions, such as Haiwen teacher produced a set of textbooks, but also translated a set of textbooks, this set of translated textbooks is still in use today, which has a great impact on domestic postgraduate education.
The first decade of the new century was mostly imitation, that is, how the United States did research, and we followed suit.
In the past decade, we have published many articles abroad, and many people have published in the five major domestic magazines, which has also improved the quality of articles in domestic magazines.
But the problem facing the economic discipline is that many studies have not formed China's own issues, academic research is seriously divorced from Chinese practice, people study this problem abroad, we also study this, and the traces of imitation are very heavy.
We always say that we must have our own right to speak, and we must write the paper "on the land of the motherland", so how should we do it? It's about finding topics.
The so-called issues are some issues that China can continue to study, such as China's "shadow banking" problem, if someone continues to do some research, it will form a legacy, and then produce economics rooted in China, promote the construction of local disciplines, and produce our own economics in China.
At present, there may be some people who are problem-oriented, but the research methods are not good, and they cannot form problems; and some people who come back from overseas and write some articles with Chinese data actually do not understand China at all.
In short, my feeling is that there is a lack of a topic, and with this topic, everyone will feel that someone has done it and published it well, and I should do it, and then others will follow suit, which is a virtuous circle.
The Paper: How do you think this situation should be improved?
Yao Yang: I now intend to set up some special committees under the "Annual Conference of Chinese Economics", each committee is responsible for a field, 5-7 people in a field, everyone will discuss together, through the setting of topics, selected articles to carry out research on China issues, and publish working papers, so as to lead everyone to do real cutting-edge, local problem research, which will also play a leading role in the national economic discipline.
Now looking for cutting-edge topics, everyone generally goes to see the papers of the US Bureau of National Economic Research or other foreign research institutions, then in the future, everyone can find cutting-edge topics through the Annual Conference of Chinese Economics and through the Chinese Economics Teaching and Research Network.
The Paper: Is the "academic detachment from practice" you mentioned a commonality in some disciplines of higher education in China at present?
Yao Yang: Yes, this problem is actually quite serious. But I am more familiar with economics, and I still use economics as an example, and I can also see the shadow of other disciplines.
I think that we have not yet skillfully combined research methods with practical problems, of course, there is also this problem in foreign economic research. In the case of China, there are many problems worth studying in every province, and we should not blindly study abroad and follow others to do research, but should pay attention to China's practical problems.
If you continue to study the old theory, you just make a footnote to the existing theory of others, you can not have innovation, only to do it in reality, and then fully understand what is happening in reality, you can produce new theories, so as to better study practical problems, this is a virtuous circle.
Chinese should have confidence in their higher education
The Paper: The construction of "double first-class" is currently a hot topic in higher education. Not long ago, some universities have announced that they have entered the ranks of world-class universities, but this self-rated "world-class" has been questioned by the public. What should be the ruler and criteria for evaluation?
Yao Yang: I think the main thing is influence.
First, it is necessary to have influential scientific research results, which is closely related to the construction of the teaching team; second, to have influential students; third, whether graduates can be employed and influential in academia is also very important. If evaluated in this way, Peking University's science subjects such as mathematics and chemistry are definitely the first camp in the world, because its scientific research is first-class, and some of the students trained by the School of Mathematics are now the world's top mathematicians.
Of course, the so-called "influence" is difficult to define, we usually say that there must be international influence, which can be measured for science, but many studies in the social sciences and humanities have national boundaries, there is no way to compare them across borders, and the international standards are not clear.
The Paper: You have studied at home and abroad, and you have come into contact with many universities, what do you think is the gap between domestic universities and world-class universities, such as Harvard, Stanford, etc.?
Yao Yang: In fact, china's top five universities, especially Peking University and Tsinghua University, our education and foreign countries are not big, the evaluation of foreign countries is also very high, Chinese should have confidence in their own higher education, and the "world-class universities" are in the construction period, certainly can not emphasize their own entry, but self-confidence is to have.
So in fact, our university education may not be bad, poor in the social atmosphere.
College students are called upon to ban internships during class
The Paper: What do you mean by "ethos"?
Yao Yang: Today's students, like "ants on a hot pot", just started to study for a doctorate, and they want to quickly publish articles and find jobs quickly. I asked those students studying in the United States, where is the gap between us and the United States? They said that in fact, the gap is still in the students themselves, and everyone cannot calm down. Like our doctoral students, the first year of the course is a lot, very difficult, compared with other disciplines, day and night, many people take a break.
Our small environment is like this, and so is the big environment, and such a social atmosphere brings the heart of doctoral students to "hair". In fact, our phD students are already very good, but society puts too much pressure on them.
Take doctoral education, in the United States, in fact, do not expect doctoral students to publish, but now our universities recruit teachers, recruit young doctoral graduates, require them to publish at least two articles in the top journal, "Economic Research", "Economic Quarterly", "Chinese Social Sciences", "Management World" These "four" you have to publish. But do you think, in three or four years, can you write an article like this? It will only cause "short flat fast".
In this way, the doctoral student does not have the heart to seriously make a thesis, and the paper written by the doctoral student is the most attentive article in his life. Writing an essay during your PhD takes about two years, and you have to keep polishing and polishing. If a student is "short and fast" during his doctoral studies, and after working, his income, reputation, and position are all linked to publication, he will not sit down and patiently write an article, and his research will be more "short and fast".
At this year's "Annual Conference of Chinese Economics", we held the "Academic Star" activity, the purpose is also to explore some students who can be patient and academic, have ideas, and at the same time want to change the mentality of students and promote students to conduct academic research.
The Paper: This kind of "short and fast" social atmosphere should not only be in the academic aspect.
Yao Yang: Yes, this is what I mean by the whole social atmosphere. Our current students are too anxious, unhappy, anxious about employment problems from the beginning of the first year, should have been in the classroom time outside the internship, there is no way to learn the basic knowledge solidly, the pursuit of some quick skills, completely ignoring the university should bring the knowledge infiltration, so many teacher resources are wasted, the university as a technical school, this is brought about by the external pressure of society.
I plan to start with economics, calling on schools to ban students from practicing outside during class, and only during holidays.
The Paper: But everyone feels that universities and society are disconnected, so many students will take up a lot of time to intern.
Yao Yang: Like medicine, courses are internships, but many disciplines require four years of college to learn the basics.
Now many enterprises do not have a sense of social responsibility, the internship as the premise of student work, requiring students to have hands-on ability, but why should students intern, why should they have hands-on ability? College students should study well and enrich themselves, rather than doing cheap labor, otherwise the books will not be read well, and the work will not be done well.
I think that what enterprises have to do is to cultivate talents, for example, when students arrive at the enterprise, the enterprise becomes a university, teaching students experience and skills, giving them sufficient time, rather than immediately "squeezing" him.
We are now a "worst equilibrium", enterprises are not willing to spend time to cultivate people, just want to use it, afraid of spending their energy to cultivate and finally be "poached", but there is also a "good equilibrium", that is, the whole society of enterprises to cultivate talents together, everyone has cultivated, it does not matter "digging people", unfortunately many well-known enterprises in China do not have such a sense of social responsibility.
Education is not about cultivating a bunch of machines
The Paper: Many students may feel that internships can better learn theory, practice and theory.
Yao Yang: Talents should be cultivated slowly, in the past, our master's degree in the National Development Institute did not intern, but the market liked it, because they had done their own research, had their own knowledge framework, knew more, and accumulated a lot. If he goes to the internship every day, he will have time to do research.
The student's theoretical knowledge is solid, infiltrated in the university to form a complete personality, and then to practice, he will immediately be enlightened, this is the use of higher education, otherwise we will not all become Lanxiang Technical School? What else do you want to do in college? Now is a vicious circle, in fact, skills can be mastered quickly, but the four years of college you out of the campus no longer have time and energy to cultivate, which is why many people say that Chinese is less, students are busy to intern, companies are busy recruiting cheap labor, there is no long-term vision.
I think the Ministry of Education should appeal to the whole society in this regard to resolutely prevent students from going to internships during their studies and can practice during vacations. If you encounter an internship during the class, you will be expelled. I think we're going to discuss that.
The Paper: What do you think is the most critical thing in talent training, and what should teachers and schools do?
Yao Yang: The school should give everyone full freedom. I think our current universities are too "fractional" and ignore the essence of student learning. Our undergraduate and master's knowledge may be good to use 20% of our work, but why do we need them to go to college and go to a good university? People must enrich themselves, we cannot cultivate a number of machines, the Chinese nation must be greatly rejuvenated, the quality of people must be improved, people must be trained to read Shakespeare, read "Dream of the Red Chamber" ... , you can't turn everyone into a bug in the end, for life, purely to take life as the goal of their own life, that is to dwarf people.
The most important thing for teachers is to cultivate students' ability to think freely, that is, to be critical. When I speak critical, in English, critical thinking, I mean that students should look at authoritative ideas and look at this society with an independent and critical eye, so as to discover new things. If the people cultivated in the school are only non-committal, and only repeat the books and repeat the teacher's things, then there can be no innovation.
Education is not about teaching what to do, but about how to do it well
The Paper: What are your expectations for higher education in China?
Yao Yang: There are too many expectations, the biggest expectation is the whole society, to let our university develop according to its own laws, don't worry, those employers, don't always come to our university to recruit interns, want cheap labor, go to technical schools, let students study on campus with peace of mind, enjoy four years of good time happily, and let individuals have full development.
Society wants to reduce pressure, and now the "screws" of the whole society are too tight. I now see that our students are really tired, we went to college in the 80s, every day the sun is shining, the mood is happy, and the current students are really anxious, which is caused by external pressure, unhappy.
The Paper: Many people may feel that graduates of universities such as Peking University Tsinghua University have enjoyed high-quality educational resources and have been pinned on a lot of hopes, and their work should be more "tall".
Yao Yang: Is Li Xueqin not tall? She herself is depressed, let everyone be happy, her talk show is better than others say, Peking University students to sell pork, talk show, as a singer, I think it is very good, they are also doing a very good job, people should develop in many ways, the most important thing is a sound personality, interesting soul, all walks of life will produce talents, society should be colorful.
What a "first-class university" should teach is not what it should do, but how to do it to the extreme, which is also the meaning of education.
Editor-in-Charge: Jiang Ziwen
Proofreader: Ding Xiao
![Yao Yang: The global industrial chain has not been broken, and the integration process is still accelerating[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)