Now recalling the mood when she walked out of the graduate school entrance examination room, Yaxin not only relaxed with "relief", but also had more confusion: can she go ashore and what can graduate school bring?
Yaxin applied for a master's degree in mental health education at the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. After the results of the 2023 postgraduate entrance examination were announced, to her surprise, the score line of the master's degree in the same major was much higher than that of the master's degree.
Half a year after entering school, she has a lot of new gains and puzzles. "After a semester of graduate school, my research skills have improved, and I have explored a wide range of professional interests, and I have a direction for what I really want to do in the future. However, in the usual study and internship, Yaxin often feels some unfriendliness to the master's degree, "The master's degree is only a difference in the training direction, but everyone still thinks that the master's degree is one level higher than the master's degree." ”
In China, the classification of academic degree and professional degree graduate education has been developed for more than 30 years, and the scale of professional degree graduate students is also expanding. However, in reality, the concept of emphasizing master's degree over master's degree is still stubborn.
In November 2023, the Ministry of Education issued the "Opinions on Deepening the Development of the Classification of Academic Degree and Professional Degree Graduate Education" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), which clearly proposed that it is necessary to further promote the development of graduate education classification, and promote the construction of a high-quality graduate education system, so as to provide stronger support for accelerating the construction of a strong country in education, science and technology, and talents.
What is the significance of the development of classification of graduate education?How to truly realize the "same level, two types, and two paths" of academic degree and professional degree graduate education?
Decoding: The "Past and Present" of the Development of Graduate Education Classification
Guo Mingliang is a 2010 graduate student of the College of Resources and Environment of China Agricultural University, and an early resident of the Science and Technology Academy. Now, he has set up an agricultural enterprise in Guangxi, and with the help of the combination of planting and breeding model of "rice + out-of-season crayfish", he has driven local farmers to achieve a jump in rice yield from 1,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan per mu.
Guo Mingliang was admitted to the Science and Technology Academy across majors. Although he studied agriculture as a bachelor's degree, he was still uncertain about the future when he was about to graduate, "not knowing what he should do, and fearing that he would do nothing." It was also in the Science and Technology Courtyard that Guo Mingliang began to understand agriculture, rural areas and farmers, and finally chose "Three Rurals" as his lifelong career.
In 2009, a year before Guo Mingliang entered the Science and Technology Academy, China Agricultural University established the first Science and Technology Academy in Baizhai Village, Quzhou County, Hebei Province, which opened a reform and exploration of the talent training model for graduate students with agricultural professional degrees. Also in this year, the Ministry of Education issued the "Several Opinions on Doing a Good Job in the Training of Full-time Master's Professional Degree Graduates", and formulated the training program for full-time professional degree graduates for the first time.
Zhang Hongyan, a member of the founding team of the Science and Technology Academy and a professor at China Agricultural University, said that although the timing was a coincidence, at that time, "we felt more and more that with the expansion of graduate students, talent training must be closely integrated with production practice and industrial needs, otherwise students and society will definitely vote with their feet."
According to Ma Yonghong, a professor at the Institute of Higher Education of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2009 is the "first year" of full-time professional degree graduate education. As a result, the development pattern of academic degree graduate students and professional degree graduate education in China has been accelerated.
In the 90s of the 20th century, marked by the professional degree setting of MBA, China officially opened the training of professional degree graduate talents. Although the start was only 10 years later than that of academic degree graduates, before 2009, China's professional degree graduate students were mainly in-service personnel receiving part-time education, and the overall scale of postgraduate training was still dominated by academic graduate students. According to data from the Ministry of Education, in 2009, the number of graduate students enrolled in professional degrees in China accounted for only 14% of the total number of graduate students.
With the development of postgraduate education, it should be noted that the training of graduate students in China has shifted from the original purpose of solving the shortage of teachers and talents in teaching and scientific research institutions to better meeting the demand for all kinds of high-level specialized talents in social and economic development. Zhang Wei, a professor at Northwestern Polytechnical University, said that with the expansion of the scale of graduate training, the proportion of professional degree graduate students has increased relatively, and the proportion of academic graduate students has been relatively reduced, "which is not only the international experience, but also the requirements of China's overall career development and the overall development of the industrial industry for the postgraduate training structure."
In 2010, the Academic Degrees Committee issued the "Overall Plan for the Development of Master's and Doctoral Professional Degree Graduate Education", proposing that by 2015, the strategic transformation of master's degree education from cultivating academic talents to cultivating applied talents should be realized. In 2020, the Academic Degrees Committee and the Ministry of Education issued the "Professional Degree Graduate Education Development Plan (2020-2025)", proposing that by 2025, the enrollment scale of master's professional degree students will be expanded to about two-thirds (66%) of the total enrollment scale of master's students, and the number of doctoral degree students will be greatly increased.
After years of development, in 2021, the number of professional degree graduate students in China has accounted for 56 percent of the total graduate enrollment7%, of which, at the level of master's training, this figure reaches 61%.
On December 19, 2023, at a press conference held by the Ministry of Education, Ren Youqun, Director of the Department of Degree Management and Graduate Education of the Ministry of Education, announced that at present, the pattern of classified development of academic degree and professional degree graduate education has been basically formed, and the system of coordinated development of two types and ** degrees with Chinese characteristics has been initially completed.
Nowadays, the total scale of graduate students in China has ranked second in the world, and at the master's level, professional degree graduate students have become the main body of training, so no matter in terms of scale and structure, China's graduate education has reached a new period.
Today, there has been a major change in the proportion and structure of postgraduate education in our country. How to adapt to and lead high-quality development of graduate education, and how to provide strong support for the construction of a strong country in education, science and technology, and talents, has become a major issue. Ma Yonghong said that in this context, the "Opinions" for the first time systematically discussed the development of graduate classification, which is of great strategic significance.
After more than 30 years of practical exploration, we have produced a lot of experience and lessons in the development of graduate education classification, it can be said that it has reached a moment when it can be summarized in stages, on the other hand, both professional degree graduates and academic degree graduates are facing the problem of needing to systematically leap forward and improve the quality of training. Ma Yonghong believes that compared with the requirements of building a strong country in education, it is also necessary to vigorously and deeply 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.
Exploration: How to break the situation in the homogeneous development of graduate education.
Although our major gave different training programs for master's degree and professional master's degree when enrolling, I slowly found out that there was not much difference between the course arrangements and graduation conditions of the two. Xiao Zou is a graduate student majoring in English at a university in Beijing, and in the first semester of her admission, she struggled to get the internship opportunities she expected in her professional studies.
To make academics more academic and majors more professional" is an important goal of the classification and development of graduate education. However, in practice, the phenomenon of homogeneous development of the two types of degrees still exists.
In the process of restructuring the postgraduate training structure, some postgraduate training units do not have a deep understanding of the connotation of professional degree postgraduate education. Xiong Bingqi, dean of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, observed that the professional degree graduate education of many schools is not fundamentally different from the academic degree graduate education in terms of curriculum, faculty and training mode.
On the other hand, although the training of academic graduate students is the advantage and specialty of universities, more efforts are still needed to cultivate top-notch talents with original innovation ability, especially doctoral students.
With the development of graduate education classification, how to make "academics more academic and majors more professional"?
According to a survey conducted by Peking University Health Science Center on the employment prospects of 2022 graduates, 961% of clinical medicine students have entered jobs directly related to medicine after graduation, and the professional training received by students has reached a high degree of consistency with the career choices they have made.
From the perspective of employer satisfaction, Qiao Jie, director of Peking University Health Science Center, said that Peking University medical graduates are very popular with employers in the job market, especially clinical professional doctors, who can directly enter clinical work after being trained by the complete clinical training system and multi-department rotation of Peking University, which is very recognized by employers.
Why is the quality of clinical medicine degree training at Peking University Health Science Center recognized by many parties?
The key is to do a good job of medical and educational coordination. On the one hand, both belong to graduate education, both emphasize the cultivation of students' thinking and research ability, but on the other hand, the training of academic degree graduates takes academic career as the main goal and is guided by academic exploration, while the training of professional degree graduates should highlight (non-academic) career orientation and practical ability.
This orientation of training for professional degree graduate students determines that it is difficult to improve the quality of talent training by relying only on the strength of colleges and universities themselves.
Since 2013, the Peking University School of Medicine has taken the lead in exploring the pilot work of standardized training of specialists, and has realized a new situation of "trinity" of medical and educational synergy of training and assessment coordination, personnel system coordination, and specialist doctoral degree collaboration by innovating the organic connection system of standardized training of clinical medicine doctors and specialists, and has built a "Peking University model" of high-level clinical medicine talent training that smoothly connects graduate education and industry standardized training.
In the pilot of the comprehensive reform of specialist training, we firmly grasp two orientations, one is the specialty setting oriented by clinical needs, and the other is the ability training oriented by post competency. Duan Liping, deputy director of Peking University Health Science Center, said that in the training, the school pays special attention to the cultivation of students' competency for clinical specialty positions.
Nowadays, a series of medical-educational collaborative measures have been widely practiced by various medical schools, represented by the integration of inpatient training into the education process of clinical medicine students.
The reform of clinical medical personnel training has given great confidence to the education community. In some occupations with high professional maturity and high entry thresholds, our professional degree graduate education can learn from the successful experience of medical and educational collaboration, strengthen strategic coordination in the industry and education field, solve outstanding problems such as insufficient practical resources and insufficient industry-oriented industries, and deepen classified training. Ma Yonghong said.
In fact, there are many such examples in the existing practical explorations in the development of graduate education classification.
In 2023, Ma Bingzheng will enter the School of Outstanding Engineers of Harbin Institute of Technology as a direct doctoral student. When choosing a personal training plan, Ma Bingzheng chose a school-enterprise joint training model of 2 years of on-campus learning and 3 years of professional practice. Flipping through the training plan, he was pleased to find that the college's curriculum configuration is diversified and the course selection space is large, giving him ample learning space: "The new training plan formulated by the college has a distinctive customized color, and I am looking forward to it." ”
Focusing on the reform of the training of engineering master's and doctoral students, Harbin Institute of Technology, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Zhejiang University and other universities have cultivated engineering talents with outstanding technological innovation ability and good at solving complex engineering problems by strengthening school-enterprise cooperation, establishing a core index system for the cultivation of outstanding engineering talents, and highlighting the orientation of practical innovation ability.
Focusing on improving the quality of academic postgraduate training, high-level research universities such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Fudan University have explored a comprehensive talent training model from basic education to postdoctoral stage by improving the enrollment and selection mechanism, optimizing the training program, and strengthening the integration of science and education, so as to promote the cultivation of academic innovative talents.
Many agriculture-related colleges and universities represented by China Agricultural University are actively exploring the trinity of talent training, scientific and technological innovation and social service in the science and technology academies of agricultural masters, driving the construction of thousands of science and technology academies in colleges and universities across the country, taking root in the land of China, solving people's livelihood, governing culture, and educating new people, which has been affirmed by the general secretary.
Each school has carried out active exploration around the classification training model. Ren Youqun concluded that in the past 10 years, the number of academic degree doctoral authorization points has doubled compared with 10 years ago, and the discipline support for the frontier and key fields of science and technology has become more powerful, and the total number of professional degree authorization points has accounted for 37 of the total number of degree authorization points 10 years ago6% to 442%, of which the number of doctoral degree authorization points has increased by 3 times, and the response ability to the demand for high-level professionals in all walks of life has been strengthened.
Prospects: How to promote the development of graduate education classification.
According to data from the Ministry of Education, the number of applicants for the national master's admission examination in 2024 will be 4.38 million, down 360,000 from 2023. This also means that since 2015, the growth trend of the number of applicants for postgraduate entrance examination in China has been interrupted for 8 consecutive years. Topics such as the cooling of the "postgraduate entrance examination fever" caused by this have sparked extensive discussions recently.
According to a previous survey by an institution on the motivation of candidates to take the postgraduate examination, nearly sixty percent of the candidates believe that a postgraduate degree is of great help to employment. However, in recent years, due to the growth of graduate students and the economic impact, it is not easy for graduate students to find the job of their choice. "The depreciation of graduate degrees" and "little help for employment" are regarded by many people as the reason for the decrease in the number of applicants for graduate school this year.
However, in the view of Chen Yan, executive vice president of the Graduate School of Fudan University, at present, behind the discussion on the depreciation of graduate degrees, there may also be a "false surplus" phenomenon of graduate master's students, "on the one hand, the supply of academic master's students in some majors exceeds demand, and on the other hand, there is a serious shortage of applied and compound high-level master's talents urgently needed by the society."
The problems in the development of classification of graduate education need to be solved by further promoting the development of classification.
Experts generally believe that as a basic document to promote the reform of graduate education under the new situation, the "Opinions" aim at building a high-quality graduate education system and improving the quality of talent training, take the integration of science and education and the integration of industry and education as the direction, transform and upgrade the existing talent training process, and put forward the direction and requirements for the cohesion and cooperation of the whole chain and all link reform measures.
To implement the requirements of the "Opinions", Zhen Liang, member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and vice president of Harbin Institute of Technology, believes that it is important to clearly understand and reverse the concept of emphasizing master's degree over master's degree. He said that in the next step, colleges and universities should further change the "ivory tower" training concept, actively enter the enterprise, investigate the actual needs of enterprise employment, set up a program for the practical ability training of graduate students, and actively carry out the tracking and evaluation of the employment of applied talents, understand the employment needs and employment status of applied graduate students, flexibly adjust the professional setting of professional degree graduates, and enhance the adaptability and support of graduate education to economic and social development.
At present, our thinking is to focus on the training of talents in basic disciplines and outstanding engineers, and take the lead in creating a new paradigm of talent training. High-level research universities can focus on cultivating doctoral students with academic degrees in basic disciplines, and use master's degrees as a channel for diversion to strengthen the integration of science and education and interdisciplinarity. Ren Youqun analyzed. According to the next key work deployment of the Ministry of Education, through the reform and breakthrough of the above two types of talent training, it is necessary 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.
The issuance of this document has given the university a very important starting point and institutional support, and we also expect that more schools will take this opportunity to adjust the institutional construction and governance system for the classification and development of graduate education. Ma Yonghong suggested that on the one hand, we should consider the cultivation of academic graduate students from the height of strengthening the national strategic scientific and technological strength, and encourage the exploration of a new paradigm for the cultivation of academic innovative talents.
To make professional degree graduate education form a benign interaction with the industry, enterprises and associations, and to go in both directions, it is necessary to reform the governance system, to recognise and actively participate in the industry, to social organizations, and to actively play the initiative and exploration spirit of schools and education systems. Ma Yonghong said.
The classification development of academic degrees and professional degrees involves important issues such as classification planning, classification selection and enrollment, classification training, and classification construction. According to Zhong Binglin, a professor at Beijing Normal University, at present, the problem of classified training and classification evaluation is particularly prominent.
He pointed out that although various training units have formulated different training programs for academic degrees and professional degrees, and there are some explorations of classification and evaluation, on the whole, there is little difference between the cultivation of academic degrees and professional degree talents in practice, and even some disciplines or professional degree categories are almost the same.
As the highest level of academic education, postgraduate education is an important indicator of a country's economic and social development level and development potential, and can provide strong human resource support for accelerating the construction of a strong country in education, science and technology, and talents. Zhong Binglin believes that the "Opinions" have given directional requirements and implementation measures, and in the next step, the graduate training unit needs to implement the spirit of the document into all aspects of graduate talent training, including enrollment, training program formulation, curriculum setting, curriculum construction, graduate mid-term assessment, opening and writing, degree evaluation and other aspects, and promote the construction of a high-quality graduate education system with more diverse practical exploration. (Reporter Liang Dan, Zhang Xin, trainee reporter Hu Ruohan).