Postgraduate education is the highest level of higher education, a key symbol to measure the competitiveness of a country's higher education, and the main channel for the independent cultivation of top-notch innovative talents. In the graduate education system, how are "academic degree graduates" and "professional degree graduates" respectively positioned and how are they developed? A few days ago, the Ministry of Education issued the "Opinions on Further Promoting the Development of Academic Degree and Professional Degree Graduate Education" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), which made clear arrangements for this.
On December 19, the Ministry of Education held a press conference to interpret the Opinions in detail.
"The notion of emphasizing academic degrees over professional degrees needs to be further reversed".
In 2022, there will be 3.65 million graduate students in China, ranking second in the world in terms of total scale, and it has become a major country in graduate education. Since the beginning of the implementation of the professional degree education system in China, after more than 30 years of development, the categories of professional degrees have been continuously enriched, the scale of training has continued to expand, the pattern of classified development of academic degrees and professional degree graduate education has been basically formed, and the system of coordinated development of two types of degrees with Chinese characteristics has been initially completed.
At present, only by taking the development of classification as the starting point and renovating, upgrading, reshaping and reconstructing the graduate education system can we realize the fundamental transformation of graduate education from quantitative to qualitative change. Ren Youqun, director of the Department of Degree Management and Graduate Education of the Ministry of Education, introduced that the "Opinions" pointed out that the two types of degrees are equally important, and that academic degrees and professional degree graduate education are important ways for the country to cultivate high-level innovative talents, and it is necessary to improve the setting, layout, scale and structure of the two types of degrees.
According to data from the Ministry of Education, from a national perspective, the total number of professional degree authorization points accounted for 37 percent of the total number of degree authorization points 10 years ago6% to 442%, of which the number of doctoral professional degree authorization points increased by 3 times. In terms of talent training, the number of professional degrees awarded accounted for 3229% to 56 in 20224%。
The Catalogue of Graduate Education Disciplines (2022) released in 2022 has changed the way in which the catalogue of professional degree categories was presented as an appendix to the discipline catalogue in the past, and the first-level disciplines and professional degree categories with similar main knowledge bases are grouped into the corresponding disciplines, which highlights the equally important status of the two types of talent training.
Zhong Binglin, a professor at Beijing Normal University, believes that because the training of professional degree personnel is carried out later than the training of academic degree talents, there are erroneous views in society such as "the status of professional degree graduate education is lower than that of academic degree graduate education" and "the gold content of professional degree is lower than that of academic degree". In fact, the difference between the two types of degrees is only reflected in the type of talent training. Therefore, the "Opinions" once again emphasize that the two types of education have the same status and are equally important, and clearly put forward that by 2027, the long-term mechanism within the training unit that is conducive to the classified development and integration and innovation of the two types of degree graduate education will be more perfect, the pattern of the two types of education with their own characteristics and going hand in hand will be fully formed, the training quality of academic and practical innovative talents will be further improved, and the governance system of degree and graduate education will continue to be improved and the governance ability will be significantly improved.
At present, the concept of emphasizing academic degrees over professional degrees still needs to be further reversed, and the phenomenon of homogeneous development of the two types of degrees still exists, so it is necessary to further promote the classified training and development of graduate students, so as to further improve the quality of independent training of top-notch innovative talents and further highlight the support and contribution of graduate education to high-quality development. Ren Youqun said.
Promote the development of two types of degree classifications in a systematic manner
The Opinions take 'classification development' as the theme and center of the entire document, and systematically promote the classification and development of academic degrees and professional degrees. Ren Youqun introduced.
What are the specific aspects of "classification development"? The "Opinions" make it clear that it mainly strengthens the "differentiated requirements for positioning, standards, enrollment, training, evaluation, teachers and other links". For example, in the admissions stage, the two types of candidates have different priorities, emphasizing the participation of industry and enterprise experts in the recruitment of professional degree graduates.
How to classify and optimize the culture program? The "Opinions" put forward that the training program of academic degrees should highlight the theoretical frontier of education and teaching, strengthen the theoretical foundation, broaden the academic horizon, strengthen the training of scientific methods and the improvement of academic literacy, encourage interdisciplinarity, enhance the original innovation ability of scientific and truth-seeking in various forms of academic discussion and exchange, and scientific research tasks, and pay attention to strengthening the vertical connection of the teaching content of each stage of the academic degree and the horizontal cooperation of the teaching content of each course. The professional degree should highlight the professional practice of education and teaching, emphasize the organic combination of basic courses and industry practice courses, and advocate the use of case teaching, professional Xi, real situation practice and other forms to improve the ability to solve practical problems in the industry.
In terms of classification and improvement of the training mechanism, the "Opinions" put forward that academic degrees should strengthen the integration of science and education and collaborative education, and further play an important supporting role in the education of major national scientific research projects and major scientific research platforms. Professional degrees should strengthen the integration of industry and education and collaborative education, closely connect talent training with employment needs, further build a joint training base for professional degrees, and strengthen the connection mechanism between professional degree categories and corresponding vocational qualification certification.
Academic degrees highlight academic foundations, while professional degrees highlight applied practice. The "Opinions" respectively give the directional requirements and implementation measures, which need to be implemented by the graduate training unit in all aspects of graduate training, including enrollment, training program formulation, curriculum setting, curriculum construction, mid-term assessment, topic opening and writing, practical ability, etc. Zhong Binglin said.
Take the reform of basic disciplines and the training of outstanding engineers as a leading demonstration
The reform path of the two types of degree education is clear, what are the focuses in the implementation, and how to open a breakthrough?
Ren Youqun introduced: The reform of basic disciplines and the training of outstanding engineers is used as a leading demonstration.
As far as the reform of academic degree graduate education is concerned, the "Opinions" proposes to "focus on the training of doctoral students in basic disciplines". Based on the cultivation of future academic leading talents, we should support qualified high-level research universities to carry out pilot reforms in the cultivation of talents in basic disciplines, mainly position basic disciplines in cultivating doctoral students with academic degrees, and further increase the proportion Xi of direct doctoral students.
In terms of deepening the reform of professional degree graduate education, the "Opinions" proposes to "take the training of outstanding engineers as the traction". Specifically, it is necessary to aim at the national strategic layout and urgently needed areas, and improve the layout of engineering degree master's and doctoral degree authorization points in universities and scientific research institutions; We will create a "model room" for the training of master's and doctoral degrees in engineering that is oriented to practical ability, vigorously promote the pilot reform of the training of master's and doctoral degrees in engineering, and comprehensively promote the reform of the training of outstanding engineers.
*:Light**.