Graduate schools need to catch up
- Source: Global Times
- [08:21 January 17 2011]
- Comments
Some 1.5 million students registered to sit for China's graduate school admission examination on Saturday, a new record. But the number does not offer any comfort about China's graduate school education, which lags far behind peers in advanced countries.
Inadequate graduate education leaves the whole educational system in a poor state. Despite solid undergraduate and basic education systems in China, graduate schools have not produced enough properly trained talent to fuel China's progressive modernization. It's like a soccer team, great at mid-field, but not good enough to score a goal.
Technological progress and management upgrading depend increasingly on qualified graduate students. The US media has been warning that America has lost its advantage to China in terms of basic education, however, at the graduate level, China has little to show.
China's elite universities, for example, Peking University and Tsinghua University, are mainly known for their undergraduate education. Their undergraduate students enjoy a high reputation.
But the quality of graduate education, even at top universities, has been seriously compromised. On resumes, it is always the undergraduate education that matters the most.
Out of the record number of students taking the graduate school admission test, unfortunately, a fairly large number are not planning further studies or research. Many simply use the graduate school time as a grace period from job hunting. Some are hired cheaply by faculty advisors to help with their own projects.
The history of China's graduate education system is much shorter than the undergraduate system. It will take a long time to catch up with advanced countries. What China lacks is not research facilities, but a top academic environment and the determination to build a top graduate education system.
To some extent, the supply of China's talent is like its manufacturing sector: oversupply of low-level products, but relying on imports for specific items.
The slogan of "From Made in China to Created in China" has been widely adopted in Chinese industries. Doesn't China's graduate education system need a similar breakthrough?
