What are the reasons why universities are extending their graduate program? New Observations and Adjustments in Education | School System | Education

Release time:Apr 14, 2024 12:49 PM

Entering August, many 2024 postgraduate candidates are gradually entering the preparation stage. According to past practice, universities will announce their enrollment brochures in August and September. According to the latest graduate enrollment brochures released recently, many universities will extend their graduate education system from 2024 onwards.

On July 20th, Shanghai Sport University issued a notice on the adjustment of the 2024 master's and doctoral entrance exams, which clearly stated that starting from 2024, the doctoral program will be uniformly changed to four years. The 2024 Master's Admissions Brochure of Shaanxi University of Technology, released on July 10th, shows that all disciplines and majors at the university have a 3-year academic system. For a long time, the tradition of a specialized master's program lasting 2-2.5 years and a master's program lasting 3 years has been well-known to the public. Now, starting with a master's degree of 3 years and a doctoral degree of 4 years, may this "basic education system" become the mainstream in the future?

Actually, this is not a new change this year. In the past few years, many domestic universities have begun to adjust and extend the graduate program, especially the specialized master's program, which has become a trend. Southeast University stated in the "2023 Enrollment Regulations for Master's Students" that the duration of all majors for master's students is three years. Central South University also mentioned in its 2023 Master's Admissions Brochure that the university's graduate program consists of three years for full-time and part-time master's programs, with a maximum study period of five years for full-time graduate students and six years for part-time graduate students. This also means that the professional master's program at Central South University is already a three-year program, just like the academic master's program. In addition to adjusting the training cycle for all professional master's programs to 3-year schools, some universities have also implemented a three-year specialized master's program reform in some majors. For example, in the enrollment announcement released by Nanjing Normal University in August last year, it was planned to change the duration of master's degrees in international business, Chinese international education, translation, journalism and communication from the previous 2 years to 3 years in 2023.

Similarly, the four-year doctoral program is not uncommon in domestic universities. According to the 2023 admission regulations for doctoral students at Shandong University, the basic length of study for undergraduate direct doctoral students is 5 years, the basic length of study for continuous master's and doctoral students is 3 years, and the basic length of study for application assessment doctoral students is 4 years. The 2023 Doctoral Enrollment Brochure of Beijing Institute of Technology also proposes that the basic length of study for doctoral students is 4 years, with a maximum of 6 years. The basic length of study for undergraduate, doctoral, and master's and doctoral programs is 6 years, with a maximum of 8 years. From the actions of several "Double First Class" universities in the reform of graduate education, it can be seen that the extension of graduate education has gradually become the norm.

Why are universities extending their graduate program? Fan Xiudi, director of the Education Evaluation and Research Center at Tongji University, believes that extending the graduate program in universities should reflect practical needs. Today's society has entered the fourth industrial revolution and requires greater knowledge reserves. Since research is to be conducted, it is necessary to innovate on the basis of predecessors, and the requirements for student knowledge accumulation are becoming increasingly high. Meanwhile, nowadays engineering students need to spend a lot of time doing experiments, and in addition, writing papers for publication itself requires a long time. Therefore, the development of society has put forward higher requirements for graduate students.

From a student's perspective, some students who switch majors to pursue postgraduate studies, as well as those recommended by graduate students for admission without examination, have relatively weak basic knowledge and require a lot of time to supplement it. In addition, students nowadays face more opportunities, such as studying abroad, participating in competitions, etc., which also occupy their study time; Some students reach the age of graduate school and have many personal matters to attend to, such as pregnancy, elderly family members falling ill, or students who work and pursue graduate studies cannot fully devote themselves to their studies. Some students themselves are not willing to graduate early because if the length of education is too short, others will question their professional and academic level; Some students take the civil service exam while working on their thesis, and some even need to take several rounds of exams, which is also very busy. They are willing to have a longer study period, so that they can have more time to enjoy the employment policies of fresh graduates.

Fan Xiudi pointed out that the ideal response measure is to implement a flexible learning system, provide more personalized learning plans and programs, and allow students to consider their own needs, academic completion status, etc. comprehensively, and determine their academic years. Due to the distinction between full-time and part-time master's programs, as well as direct doctoral, master's and doctoral programs, and general doctoral programs, regardless of the educational system, students have different backgrounds, needs, and living conditions. Some students already have jobs; Some students need to find jobs; Some students are single, and their study time and energy can be guaranteed; Some students are already married and need to spend more time and energy raising their children; Some girls may be in pregnancy or breastfeeding. In summary, the length of time required for students to complete their studies varies, and it is not advisable to adopt a completely unified system for the master's and doctoral stages of education.

Therefore, most education experts believe that a flexible system is more reasonable. As long as students complete the training plan and meet the graduation requirements, the length or duration can be determined according to the actual situation. Compared to adjusting the academic system, what needs to be done more now is to improve the training program, increase support, and standardize the dual mentor system.

In fact, some universities have simultaneously announced new training plans when announcing the extension of their academic system. Taking the Social Work major at Hohai University as an example, after the adjustment of the professional master's program to a 3-year program, the credit requirements and course offerings have increased from 20 credits for degree courses to 23 credits, while non degree courses have decreased from 12 credits to 9 credits. The schedule shows that in terms of basic courses, social policy and social research methods have been excluded from the original 6 courses; Professional courses, humanistic literacy courses, and innovation and entrepreneurship and vocational quality courses have added 3, 1, and 4 courses on the basis of the original 2, 3, and 14 courses, respectively. The credits for innovation and entrepreneurship courses have been changed from 10 elective credits to at least 6 elective credits.

The Graduate School of Jiangsu University released the "Work Measures for Dual Mentors of Graduate Students at Jiangsu University" in January last year. The work measures proposed to further improve the quality of graduate education, strengthen the integration of science, education, industry, and education in joint training of graduate students, encourage cooperation between teaching and research teams to guide graduate students, and jointly guide the training of professional degree graduate students by on campus and off campus practical guidance teachers. Graduate students who undergo joint training in science, education, industry, and education in the joint training base jointly built by the school are also guided by dual mentors.

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