The Rule of Law Daily reported on August 19th that recently, official website, the graduate school of Southern Medical University, issued the "Public Notice on Handling 16 Postgraduates, including Huang Moumou", and 11 doctors and 5 masters failed to complete their studies within the longest study period, so the school automatically dropped out.
Previously, Sichuan University, Jinan University, Jilin University and other universities have also retired a number of graduate students, mostly because graduate students did not complete their studies within the maximum study period stipulated by the school.
In an interview with reporters, experts in the education sector expressed their support for the practices of relevant universities, and hoped that universities should work harder on enrollment and training to improve the quality of postgraduate education.
Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the China Academy of Educational Sciences, believes that the elimination of unqualified graduate students in colleges and universities sends a signal that graduate recruitment and graduation have changed. In the past, as long as a graduate student entered the door, it was equivalent to getting a degree, which was equivalent to having an "iron rice bowl." Nowadays, the management mode has changed, and the assessment of graduate students is more based on the actual situation, and they are eliminated and entered regularly.
Over the longest study period, many graduate students were expelled.
The reporter found out that in recent years, many colleges and universities have dropped out of some graduate students.
In June 2020, Sichuan University retired more than 200 graduate students at one time; Shanghai Normal University dismissed 125 graduate students who could not graduate beyond the prescribed study period.
In May, 2020, the School of Management of Jinan University issued a notice to expel 85 graduate students. The reasons for the expulsion are "the longest study period has been exceeded", "not enrolled in school" and "applying for withdrawal".
In April 2020, several colleges of Jilin University successively cleaned up the overdue graduate students; Shanghai Jiao Tong University expelled 21 graduate students at one time, most of whom were international students.
In November 2019, Yanbian University sent 136 graduate students a decision to drop out of school because they "exceeded the maximum study period".
In October 2019, Fudan University retired 12 graduate students at one time, mainly international students, because "the graduation or completion requirements have not been met after the expiration of the study period".
In August 2019, the Graduate School of Southern Medical University dismissed 28 graduate students because "they did not complete their studies within the longest study period stipulated by the school (8 years for doctoral students and 5 years for master students)".
In June 2019, Tsinghua University dismissed two doctoral students; China Communication University dismissed 61 overdue graduate students; China Geo University retired 52 graduate students at one time; Ningxia University dismissed 29 overdue graduate students … …
The reporter concluded that the reason why the above-mentioned graduate students were "retired" was mostly related to the failure to complete their studies within the maximum study period stipulated by the school.
What is the possibility of being expelled if you choose to postpone your studies and still have not completed your studies? According to the data shown in the "2020 National Postgraduate Enrollment Survey Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") recently released by China Education Online, the situation is not optimistic.
According to the Report, under the trend of expanding enrollment scale, the actual number of graduate students is lower than the expected number of graduates, and the gap between them is widening. In 2018, the number of graduate students is expected to be 773,000, and the actual number of graduates is 604,000. More than 20% of graduate students will postpone graduation. Among them, more than 60% of doctoral students cannot graduate normally.
According to the Report, in addition to research interest and academic ability, the frequency of tutors’ guidance, the size of students, the regulations on the publication of scientific research results, and the topic selection of papers have become the main reasons for the delay in graduation of graduate students.
"There is no hard elimination mechanism behind the retreat work as a support. Colleges and universities have different standards in implementation, and the maximum length of schooling is the only hard lever." Lou Shizhou, a professor at Zhejiang Normal University, analyzed that at present, China’s use of study period as the main standard to clear out overdue graduate students is related to the traditional concept of academic system. In China, the per capita funding for graduate students is based on the academic system. If a large number of students postpone graduation for a long time, the operation of the school will bear greater financial pressure.
Blindly expanding or existing disadvantages, the quality of education needs to be improved urgently.
According to the data of the Ministry of Education, the number of graduate students studying in China will exceed 3 million in 2020. In 1949, the number of graduate students in China was only 629.
According to the national statistical bulletin on career development, there were 145,400 graduate students and 2,906,400 college students in China in 1995. This means that the number of graduate students studying in China has increased by 20 times in 25 years, and the number of graduate students studying this year has exceeded the number of students studying in this college 25 years ago.
Because of this, many people point the reason why graduate students are "retired" to the problem of enrollment expansion. Some netizens said that blindly expanding the number of graduate students will do more harm than good to students. Students can’t graduate, largely because of problems in school management and postgraduate education team.
Regarding this statement, Yao Jinju, director of the Research Center for Chinese and Foreign Education Law of Beijing Foreign Studies University, said: "Some schools are actually exploring. For example, in terms of discipline setting, if the number of disciplines remains unchanged as a whole, internal adjustment is needed to increase the number of disciplines; In terms of enrollment, some are the overall enrollment expansion, and some are the enrollment expansion of some majors; Realistically speaking, colleges and universities need to explore, and the attempt may not be successful, but it is also the embodiment of the autonomy of colleges and universities. "
However, Yao Jinju also mentioned that there are indeed some schools blindly pursuing the expansion of graduate students, which involves the investment mechanism of colleges and universities. The education funds of schools are allocated according to the number of students. Universities will consider factors such as discipline construction and evaluation when expanding enrollment, and the number of students is often one of the evaluation criteria.
In Chu Zhaohui’s view, universities are mainly driven by the policies of administrative departments. In management, including the determination of enrollment indicators, administrative departments and universities are still integrated, but their respective responsibilities are not clearly defined, so the relationship between responsibilities and rights is not clear in the process of postgraduate training, which leads to how to evaluate students and how much to eliminate is not a university’s decision.
"Training a doctoral student and a master’s student requires a lot of corresponding resource allocation, and there are educational costs in teacher resources and hardware configuration. Looking at the recruitment requirements of many units, it is not difficult to find that the degree demand of employers is rising, but if the quality of training is good enough, this demand is actually unnecessary, so the core of the problem is to improve the quality of education. " Yao Jinju said.
Yao Jinju believes that the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China puts forward that the important task of the development of higher education in the new era is to accelerate the construction of first-class universities and first-class disciplines and realize the connotative development of higher education. In recent years, many policies have been put forward to realize this problem. Therefore, the emergence of problems such as college students and graduate students being dropped out of school can be said to be an attempt and effort to improve the quality of training and the competitiveness of higher education, which is also the return to the essence and initial heart of higher education.
Xiong Bingqi, president of 21st Century Education Research Institute, told the reporter that in the past 10 years, most graduate training institutions in China have adopted the practice of repaying overdue graduate students to control the quality of graduate education. This practice undoubtedly makes graduate students have greater pressure to study.
Strict entry and strict exit become the trend, and the autonomy of colleges and universities is guaranteed.
On February 26, 2019, the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued the Notice on Further Standardizing and Strengthening the Management of Postgraduate Training, which put forward a series of stricter normative requirements on the enrollment and training management of postgraduate examinations, such as "paying close attention to dissertations" and "degree awarding management". This is also regarded by many people as one of the reasons why many universities have retired graduate students.
In Chu Zhaohui’s view, the phenomenon of repaying overdue graduate students frequently recently shows a change from "strict entry and lenient exit" to "strict entry and strict exit", which involves teachers, schools and management departments. In order to achieve efficient and sound development, we must go through this transformation process. The relevant documents of the Ministry of Education only provide support. In fact, some schools have strictly adhered to the requirements of "paying close attention to dissertations" before the Ministry of Education issued the documents. However, a considerable number of colleges and universities are undecided, and the documents of the Ministry of Education have reassured these undecided schools.
Yao Jinju believes that whether "strict entry and strict exit" actually depends on university administrators, and "strict entry and strict exit" will become a trend in the future. "As for who will become the leader of this trend, it depends on the university’s own courage and action. Whether it is ‘ Wide entry and strict exit ’ Or ‘ Yan Jin Yan Chu ’ Strict quality control must be a trend. Which university is more willing to do this kind of exploration in the future also means that it will occupy a better position in the construction of colleges and universities. "
Some insiders also said that although the Ministry of Education had expressly stipulated before, there were also rigid rules for unqualified students to be retired. For example, some "exceed the longest study period" and naturally should be retired. However, some colleges and universities are as "cautious" as possible in repaying graduate students, fearing that students will not be able to graduate or have a negative impact.
"If schools have full decision-making power, I believe many colleges and universities will choose ‘ Yan Jin Yan Chu ’ . If the school has little autonomy, it will still be affected by other factors. So from this perspective, ‘ Yan Jin Yan Chu ’ Whether it can become the norm is directly related to the reform of the management system of colleges and universities, the size of the autonomy of colleges and universities, and whether there is sufficient autonomy in enrollment teaching evaluation. " Chu Zhaohui said.
In Yao Jinju’s view, colleges and universities should have confidence and confidence within the scope of autonomy, and further improve the management system with ensuring the quality of higher education as the core. At present, the management of undergraduate students is relatively perfect, but the management of graduate students needs to be further standardized, such as postgraduate entrance education, study style education and regular warning reminders.
The National Conference on Postgraduate Education held in July this year requires that colleges and universities should focus on improving the quality of postgraduate education, deepen reform and innovation, and promote connotation development. Take research as the basic index to measure the quality of graduate students, optimize the layout of disciplines and specialties, pay attention to classified training and open cooperation, and cultivate high-level talents with research and innovation ability; Strengthen the construction of tutor team, improve the education evaluation system according to different degree types, strictly control quality and school spirit, and guide the high-quality development of postgraduate education.
In the eyes of many people in the industry, these requirements release two signals: First, the quality of graduate education must be well grasped, and quality cannot be sacrificed because of enrollment expansion; The second is to implement "strict entry and strict exit", that is, to ensure the quality of training, not only to ensure the "export", but also to improve the quality in the training process.
Establish and improve the tutor system and manage the whole process in all directions.
Although retiring overdue and unqualified graduate students is a way to control the quality of postgraduate training, "being retired" is not the result that schools and students want to see. Graduation exit is the last pass. Students have several years from enrollment to graduation. What can the school do for postgraduate training during their school years?
In 2017, the Ministry of Education and the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council jointly issued the 13th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Degree and Postgraduate Education, which made it clear that the graduate training diversion and withdrawal system should be improved.
In 2019, the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued the "Notice on Further Standardizing and Strengthening the Management of Postgraduate Training", which reiterated that "graduate students who are not suitable for continuing their degree should be diverted as early as possible and the diversion efforts should be intensified".
According to Wu Hewen, a professor at Shaanxi Normal University, retiring is only a way of diversion, and the main means of diversion generally include graduate dropout, graduate graduation and demotion training. At present, the demotion of graduate students is mainly due to the fact that graduate students who are not suitable for doctoral training will return to the master’s training stage.
In the public report, the reporter has not found any examples of graduate students’ demotion training, but only found the news that 18 students of Huazhong University of Science and Technology changed from undergraduate to junior college in 2018 because their credits were not up to standard.
"Another important reason why China uses the duration of study as the main criterion to clear out overdue graduate students is that after the length of schooling, there will be no more per capita funding." Xiong Bingqi told reporters that in addition, China’s logistics services for graduate students are not socialized, but provided by universities. If a large number of students postpone graduation for a long time, the service pressure of universities will be enormous.
Xiong Bingqi believes that at present, taking the years of schooling as the standard for repaying students will have a certain effect on improving the quality of graduate education. At least students can’t just be "nominal students" after they are admitted to graduate schools, but the effect on improving the quality of graduate students in an all-round way is limited. For example, students who fail to register after the school’s prescribed time limit may not want to study at all. In addition, some students who have been dropped out of school due to overtime put the blame on schools and tutors, thinking that they are not strict in management and requirements. If there is strict process management and evaluation, then there is no need to wait for centralized retreat.
The reporter noted that in "Further Standardizing and Strengthening Postgraduate Examination Enrollment and Training Management", all training units are not only required to "pay close attention to degree thesis" and "degree awarding management", but also strictly implement all-round and full-process management of degree awarding.
In Xiong Bingqi’s view, the omni-directional whole-process management proposed by the Ministry of Education is the right medicine for the quality problems of postgraduate education, which puts forward higher requirements for universities. Compared with all-round and whole-process management, it is too easy to simply clear out overdue graduate students.
Xiong Bingqi believes that in order to achieve all-round and whole-process management, universities need to reform the evaluation system for teachers and establish and improve the tutorial system. At present, universities carry out quantitative evaluation on teachers, so teachers pay more attention to quantifiable topics, funds and thesis indicators, but not enough investment in talent training. Only by reforming the evaluation system can teachers be guided to spend more time and energy on guiding and cultivating students, instead of some students being "stocked" because their tutors are busy, and they don’t see their tutors several times a year, while others are regarded as "wage earners" by their tutors to "do odd jobs" for teachers’ topics and projects.
"A sound tutorial system is to systematically train students through the joint study and research of tutors and students, improve their academic ability, and at the same time guarantee the quality of postgraduate training with the educational reputation and academic reputation of tutors." Xiong Bingqi said.
Yao Jinju also suggested that it is necessary to distinguish levels, responsibilities and fine management. Colleges and universities need a good postgraduate management team, and tutors should also carry out corresponding training to clarify the rights and obligations between students and tutors. The responsibilities of the tutor and the management team should be further clarified, so that students can clearly understand their future training programs. While ensuring the quality of education, we should also ensure the corresponding rights of graduate students.
"In addition, we can also reflect through the retreat. Does everyone want to pursue high education? This requires individuals to rationally choose higher education according to their own conditions. In the future, there may be corresponding adjustments in degrees, such as whether vocational education also needs corresponding degrees, so as to improve China’s degree mechanism in all directions and at different levels from different needs. " Yao Jinju said.
