news

recently, there have been frequent reports of majors being "taken offline" in colleges and universities.

on august 23, northwestern university released its 2024 professional adjustment plan: it plans to cancel seven undergraduate majors, including chinese language, financial engineering, finance, and advertising. at the same time, it plans to apply for four new majors: artificial intelligence, integrated circuit design and integrated systems, environmental science and engineering, and digital economy, all of which are "hot" majors that have been popular for several years.

in the previous two weeks, lanzhou university and china university of petroleum (beijing) also announced the latest professional adjustment plans: both of them reduced more than added. on july 10, sichuan university announced that it would cancel 31 majors, which aroused widespread public attention.

july to august is the concentrated application season for colleges and universities to adjust their majors for the new year. but what is particularly different this year is that a large number of colleges and universities have announced the cancellation of a large number of majors. according to the latest statistics, more than 20 colleges and universities plan to stop canceling some undergraduate majors in 2024, involving more than 100 majors.

"the intensity, frequency and number of this round of professional adjustments are unprecedented," wu daguang, dean of the lanzhou university institute of higher education and deputy director of the ministry of education's higher education professional setting and teaching guidance committee, told china newsweek.

many experts pointed out that domestic universities are undergoing a new round of major adjustments. in march this year, the ministry of education announced the results of the filing and approval of undergraduate majors in ordinary universities in 2023. the addition, cancellation and adjustment of undergraduate majors involved a total of 3,389 professional locations, the largest in history. in march 2023, the ministry of education and five other departments issued the "reform plan for adjustment and optimization of discipline and major settings in ordinary higher education" (hereinafter referred to as the "reform plan"), proposing that by 2025, about 20% of the discipline and major locations of universities will be optimized and adjusted, a number of disciplines and majors that adapt to new technologies, new industries, new formats and new models will be newly established, and disciplines and majors that are not suitable for economic and social development will be eliminated.

this is the first time that the ministry of education has used indicators to regulate university majors. after the release of the "20% target", all universities began to add or reduce majors in a drastic manner. behind this round of "big reshuffle", where should the adjustment of university majors go?

artificial intelligence fever

“what is the difference between smart construction and traditional civil engineering?”

in june this year, just after the college entrance examination, lu liu, a master of civil engineering from a "double first-class" university, began to answer this question over and over again. friends and relatives, as well as prospective freshmen who came to him through various connections, all came to him to consult about the intelligent construction major that has been very popular in recent years. this major was only established in tongji university six years ago. this year, a total of 46 universities have been newly approved to have this major.

"my answer is that there is almost no difference." lu liu, who graduated from a traditional civil engineering school, believes that "whether it is smart construction or smart manufacturing, the focus is on the last two words, and the first two words are just a vest." on social media, if you type "smart construction", you will also see various advice from seniors, "it's just civil engineering in a new skin, don't come, run away!"

but in fact, with the graduation of the first batch of smart construction students, such comments have only started to appear frequently in the past two years. back to 2020, the pressure on china's real estate market and civil engineering industry has become increasingly prominent. civil engineering topped the list of "new sinkhole" majors, and the application was cold. it was at this moment that "smart construction" became the "savior" to save the traditional civil engineering major.

the major saw a "surge" for the first time that year, with 23 universities successfully applying, including chongqing university, southwest jiaotong university, harbin institute of technology, hebei university, etc. for candidates and their parents, in the well-known era of artificial intelligence, a major with the word "smart" at least sounds like it will not be a problem for employment.

in this round of major adjustments in college majors, the popularity of "intelligent construction" is representative. the reporter found that in the past five or six years, the new majors added by colleges and universities across the country are mainly new engineering majors, and the most common are new majors named "intelligent/wisdom + traditional engineering", such as intelligent manufacturing engineering, intelligent construction, intelligent medicine, and smart energy. the other type is to respond to major national strategic needs and industrial needs, the most typical of which are integrated circuit design and integrated systems, new energy science and engineering, and carbon neutrality-related majors.

"once, i received five or six consultation calls during a meal. i asked why they were so concerned about carbon neutrality, and they said that people with this major would have a job for the next 40 years," chai qimin, director of the strategic planning department of the national climate strategy center, told china newsweek.

among all the new engineering majors, artificial intelligence is undoubtedly the most popular. starting from 2019, when 35 universities established the first batch of artificial intelligence majors in the country, artificial intelligence has been the most popular major in universities for three consecutive years. the number of universities adding this major once reached an average of about 100 per year. at present, this major has been introduced into 533 universities across the country.

amid the frenzy, some people have seen some dangerous trends: some universities, without preparation and conditions, have rushed to add popular majors such as artificial intelligence based on the needs of recruitment and employment, or simply to respond to certain national policies, without considering whether there are sufficient teaching resources. many interviewees said that this utilitarian major adjustment will have many adverse effects on the school itself and students, and will also waste resources.

in a southern province, more than a dozen colleges and universities have newly established artificial intelligence majors in just four years, but two colleges and universities have stopped recruiting students, and one of them took the initiative to stop recruiting students the year after its first enrollment. "this shows that the artificial intelligence major may have been overheated, and the homogeneous competition among colleges and universities is too fierce, resulting in a gap between the actual enrollment of some colleges and universities and expectations." a person in charge of the major adjustment in the provincial education department explained to china news weekly.

in the opinion of the aforementioned person in charge, there is a certain degree of blindness in the application of majors by colleges and universities. taking the major of integrated circuit design and integrated systems as an example, this involves one of the most critical bottleneck technologies in the national strategic needs. he communicated with several higher-level universities in the province, and they all said that the existing subject resources in the school could not support the construction of such a high-end major. at most, they would try to open one or two experimental classes under the computer major to conduct small sample exploration first. but at the same time, two private universities in the province added the major of integrated circuit design and integrated systems, and one of the schools stopped recruiting students after one year of opening.

"many universities have a mentality of occupying a spot. when they see the strategic fields listed by the country, they want to enter them. they think these fields will become popular in the future, and the government may introduce special policies to support talent training. these universities want to reap the policy dividends." the aforementioned person in charge said. he still remembers that last year, after the government released a policy signal to cultivate football talents, "within one day, 10 schools in the province applied for football majors." he had to call the schools one by one to persuade them to withdraw their applications, because many of the applying universities had no relevant sports training traditions.

"once the profession is overheated, students will face challenges in finding employment," said lin jian, head of the engineering education department at tsinghua university, to china newsweek. taking the artificial intelligence industry as an example, on the one hand, various research reports continue to output information to the public that "the total talent gap in china's artificial intelligence field is as high as 5 million, and the average monthly salary of artificial intelligence engineers ranks first in the professional salary list"; on the other hand, the phenomenon of unevenness in the artificial intelligence talent market is very prominent, and the "huge supply and demand gap" is mainly for the top talents of famous universities. many interviewed local education department personnel revealed that the job-hunting situation of artificial intelligence students graduating from local ordinary colleges in the past two years has not been ideal, and a trend of oversupply has begun to appear.

there have been similar lessons in the past. lin jian recalled that at the beginning of the 21st century, with the first major expansion of higher education in china, majors such as management, accounting, and computer science flourished. but just five or six years later, there was a "backlog" of students in these majors.

it is not easy for colleges and universities to adjust their majors without being too short-sighted. in july this year, li peigen, an academician of the chinese academy of engineering and a professor at the engineering education research center of huazhong university of science and technology, and others published a paper titled "adjustment of engineering majors in my country in the past decade: logic and reflection", pointing out that in recent years, the main force in opening new majors has been applied universities, which, driven by enrollment logic and government logic, have "drastic" and aggressively promoted major adjustments, "never tired of it".

relatively speaking, many high-level research universities are more cautious, and their professional adjustments are mostly driven by academic logic. however, in recent years, limited by the quality of students and competition in the job market, research universities have also "gradually fallen", and many "double first-class" universities and even top research universities have successively opened new engineering majors such as intelligent manufacturing engineering.

lin jian pointed out that in this round of major adjustments, colleges and universities should be wary of two tendencies: being too eager for quick success and overestimating their capabilities. they should not only look to the future and analyze the market demand for some "hot" majors from a long-term perspective, "at least considering five years later", but also consider the positioning and service orientation of colleges and universities in light of their own shortcomings and advantages.

zhou guangli, dean of the school of education and executive director of the evaluation research center of renmin university of china, suggested to china newsweek that the adjustment of college majors should be considered from multiple dimensions: professional positioning, social needs, student source evaluation, teaching staff, employment results, etc. this requires a comprehensive market demand analysis and quantitative effectiveness evaluation. "only decisions based on evidence are truly rational, but most colleges and universities are still adhering to the principle of creating conditions to set up new majors without conditions."

"if you just follow the trend, you will always be following behind others and it will be difficult to become a leader among similar institutions," said lin jian.

two-pronged approach

the first time huihui learned that the english department she was studying in would stop recruiting students this year was from a teacher from another major.

she is an english teacher at a public second-tier college in jiangsu. from the time she learned about the incident to the time the "shoe" landed, it took only a few days, and the whole process was so "smooth": a coordination meeting was held within the college to solicit teachers' opinions. the opinions did not conform to the school's development, so the school decided to stop recruiting, and all teachers in the english department were transferred to the public basic teaching department...

it is the end of april 2024, more than three months before the summer vacation. for huihui, in addition to serving the last batch of english students on campus, her job is to teach public english classes to undergraduates. after being notified that the major was closed, the 29-year-old decided to apply for a doctorate. "up to now, one young teacher in the department has gone to the united states to study for a doctorate, and another young teacher is studying for a doctorate in thailand. the old teachers over 40 are basically waiting to retire." huihui said in an interview with china newsweek four months after the major was closed.

the same situation is happening in other universities. after the "reform plan" released in march 2023 proposed the quantitative indicator of "optimizing and adjusting the distribution of about 20% of the disciplines and majors in colleges and universities by 2025", the pressure from the central documents was transmitted to colleges and universities layer by layer.

zhou guangli, who has been paying close attention to the adjustment of disciplines and majors in colleges and universities for a long time, was a little surprised when he first saw the "20% target". the ministry of education has been regulating the dynamic adjustment of disciplines and majors in colleges and universities by adjusting the discipline and major catalog. originally, the catalog was adjusted about once every 10 years. in 2022, the ministry of education announced that the adjustment cycle of the discipline and major catalog will be shortened from 10 years to 5 years, which means that the adjustment of majors in domestic colleges and universities has entered the fast lane. however, zhou guangli believes that the "20% target" as a hard constraint is "more impactful" than any other policy, because "this is the first time that the country has adopted quantitative indicators to adjust disciplines and majors, and it works together with catalog management in a two-pronged approach." he roughly estimated that based on the current total number of 66,000 undergraduate majors in ordinary colleges and universities across the country, an optimization of 20% means that about 13,000 majors need to be adjusted.

why is this round of national “action” so unprecedented?

ma luting, a senior professor at zhejiang normal university and deputy director and secretary general of the academic development advisory committee of the china higher education society, pointed out to china newsweek that on the one hand, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is accelerating, and artificial intelligence technology is playing a leading role with strong spillover and driving force. higher education must adapt to the great changes in the industry, and the major professional adjustments promoted from top to bottom at the national level are proactive arrangements.

on the other hand, the increasingly tense international competition, especially the intensified strategic game between china and the united states, has prompted domestic higher education to adapt to the new development pattern of "domestic and international dual circulation" as soon as possible, which further strengthens the importance of national strategic needs. the "notice on the establishment of undergraduate majors in ordinary higher education institutions in 2024" issued by the ministry of education in july this year clearly proposed to lay out in key areas such as integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, quantum technology, life and health, energy, green and low-carbon, and cultivate national strategic talents and urgently needed talents.

at the university level, adapting to the great changes is the primary task of professional adjustment. in fact, long before the ministry of education started this round of professional adjustment, many universities had already taken the initiative to "cut off" outdated majors while adding emerging majors. for university management, it is not easy to abolish existing majors, which involves the vital interests of departments and teachers. but from 2017 to 2021 alone, the number of undergraduate majors revoked nationwide increased from 241 to 804, more than three times.

many interviewed experts analyzed that this is related to the "double first-class" construction launched in 2017. the "double first-class" construction is based on disciplines, and various policy designs will guide universities to "concentrate limited resources to create comparative advantages." "in the past, majors were regarded as school resources, and no one would give up their own resources, but now, many university leaders told me that the school's majors are also a burden." zhou guangli said.

sichuan agricultural university stopped recruiting students for 18 majors between 2019 and 2021, including hotel management, cultural industry management, exhibition economy and management, and marketing. cao sanjie, director of the school's academic affairs office, told china news weekly that after the country proposed the "double first-class" construction, sichuan agricultural university no longer pursued "big and comprehensive" and considered how to concentrate on running the school's advantageous and distinctive majors. the main targets of the suspension of recruitment are majors with "weak disciplinary support, difficulty in recruiting students, high proportion of students changing majors, and poor employment quality."

from a national perspective, according to incomplete statistics, in this round of professional adjustments, the majors that have been "cut" the most include english, accounting, marketing, public utilities management, information management and information systems, etc. management, which was once "flooded" in the first decade of the 21st century, is the "main battlefield" for the abolition of majors. data provided by the sichuan provincial department of education show that from 2019 to 2023, a total of 142 majors will be cancelled in colleges and universities across the province, mainly in the fields of public management, electronic information and education.

on this basis, the "20% target" proposed by the ministry of education last year became the "last straw". "with stronger policy guidance, it is easier to form a joint force when adjusting majors." liu meng, dean of the undergraduate school and director of the academic affairs office of chongqing university, told china news weekly that this year, this "double first-class" university adjusted 20 majors at once by suspending enrollment, optimizing and integrating.

upgrade

the addition or elimination of majors is only the first step in "adaptation".

when traditional engineering majors are named "intelligent" or "wise", are they really more intelligent? this is one of the reflections raised by li peigen and others in the aforementioned paper.

lu liu soon realized that the core courses of intelligent construction majors in many universities are still the traditional civil engineering courses: theoretical mechanics, material mechanics and structural mechanics, and only a few new computer programming language courses are added. the courses are not learned in depth and the knowledge integration effect is very poor. "it is just a simple accumulation of computer courses, which cannot be well integrated with professional knowledge. students cannot understand it, and the course burden is greatly increased. overall, it is still 'old wine in new bottles'."

with the emergence of various "smart +" majors, a large number of "patchwork" courses have also appeared in colleges and universities. the fundamental problem lies in the teachers. lu liu said that the teachers who teach smart construction are still the same group of traditional civil engineering teachers, and many of them still have a vague understanding of intelligence.

wu daguang, dean of the higher education research institute of lanzhou university and deputy director of the higher education professional setting and teaching guidance committee of the ministry of education, pointed out to china news weekly that the adjustment of university majors is not a simple matter of "cutting" or "increasing", but a systematic reconstruction of the knowledge system, curriculum structure and teaching staff in an organized way. "if there is only an increase or decrease in quantity, the adjustment of majors will hardly be worthy of the name." in his view, this round of university major adjustment is essentially a way to promote the reform of the talent training system of chinese universities as a whole.

ma luting emphasized that the essence of a major is "a rigorous structured design". starting from the goal of talent training, it is necessary to think about what kind of knowledge and ability structure the entire major should build. "just like building a house, if the structure is not established, we will add a few courses based on which courses are fashionable and remove a few courses based on which courses are outdated. in the next round of professional adjustments, these majors will definitely be the first to be eliminated."

so, how can we go beyond just being innovative in name?

at a school-enterprise exchange meeting at the end of 2021, relevant leaders of southeast university and wu bo, the founder of estun automation, discussed the issue of discipline construction. wu bo is an old alumnus of southeast university. the company he founded, estun, is known as the "number one" in domestic industrial robots. during the exchange, wu bo mentioned that the current robotics industry is no longer limited to traditional industrial robots. new robot forms such as nanorobots and bionic robots continue to emerge, and application scenarios have also expanded from manufacturing to special environments such as medical care, space, and polar regions. however, many of the talents trained by universities are traditional industrial robot talents, which do not match the needs of enterprises.

on the same day, yin guodong, director of the academic affairs office of southeast university, was present. he later described the exchange as "an instant hit": since there is no major, why not create a new one? this is the starting point for southeast university's future robotics major. previously, southeast university had established the country's first robotics engineering major in 2016. throughout the first half of 2022, yin guodong kept responding to questions from all parties: why build another robotics major when there is already one?

zhang ya is a professor at the school of automation at southeast university. she participated in the preparation process for the future robotics major. she told china newsweek that some of the existing robotics engineering majors in domestic universities are placed in the school of automation and some in the school of mechanical engineering. the curriculum design will inevitably focus on the corresponding disciplines of the college. however, future robotics will be supported by multiple disciplines such as mechanical engineering, control science and engineering, instrument science and technology, and integrate emerging technologies in information, computers, materials, biomedicine, etc. it is a major with strong cross-disciplinary attributes.

"when southeast university reported this major to the ministry of education, it could only fill it out under the existing professional categories, so it reported the mechanical category. however, during internal discussions within the ministry of education, it felt that it was inappropriate to put it in the mechanical category. in the end, a new professional category was added to the undergraduate catalog - interdisciplinary engineering. in the future, robotics will become the first major under the interdisciplinary engineering category." yin guodong told china newsweek.

the construction and training of new majors no longer rely on the original colleges. in may 2021, southeast university became one of the first 12 universities in the country to build the future technology college. this is an important measure for the country to actively layout future industries and an upgraded version of the construction of "new engineering", in which the future robotics major is included. the future robotics major reconstructs the entire curriculum system, implements the university division system and project system, and integrates multidisciplinary content such as robot structure, drive and control, decision-making and perception interaction into three "unified robotics" courses.

however, reconstruction is not easy. zhang ya said that the future technology college is positioned as an incubation platform with strong cross-disciplinary and future attributes, which can break the traditional disciplinary barriers and fully mobilize the resources of each college. but when communicating the specific training plan, she found that each college believed that its subject knowledge was important and it was difficult to choose.

zhou guangli reminded that in this round of discipline and major adjustment, in addition to adding and abolishing disciplines and majors, the core is the upgrading and transformation of disciplines and majors, that is, the modernization of traditional disciplines and majors. the transformation must adhere to the principle of "keeping the integrity and making innovations", that is, we must think about three questions: what to inherit? what to abandon? what to change? most schools only focus on the last point in the transformation of disciplines and majors, and fail to follow the principle of "keeping the old roots and opening new branches". in the end, they lose sight of the main point and become a formal and superficial transformation, "adjustment for the sake of adjustment".

in the end, lu liu dissuaded all students who consulted him about applying for the smart construction major. from the perspective of employment, the prospects of smart construction are no better than those of traditional civil engineering majors. although they learned more computer knowledge, it is "better than the best and worse than the worst", and it is difficult to effectively transform it into an advantage in job hunting. many of the first wave of students in smart construction wanted to use it as a springboard to change careers, but most of his seniors who wanted to change careers "did not succeed."

sprint phase

with only a few months left until 2025, the adjustment of college majors has entered the final stage. the pressure on local education administrative departments is not small either.

"20% is not an easy number to achieve," said a relevant person in charge of the higher education department of the sichuan provincial department of education to china newsweek. he found that after the provincial government strengthened the regulation of majors, the speed of adding new majors in colleges and universities in the province has slowed down in the past two years. previously, the number of new majors was 80-90 per year, and in 2023, there were only 47 new registered and approved majors. since the number of "added" majors is limited, considering the requirements of the total target, the next step is to strengthen the "reduction". in the future, the list of majors that will be suspended or abolished in sichuan province may continue to lengthen.

in this round of professional adjustments, a very clear signal is to strengthen the national macro-control mechanism of disciplines and strengthen provincial professional coordination. the "reform plan" points out that provincial-level education administrative departments should guide colleges and universities to set up majors that are in line with the school's positioning and characteristics based on the actual industrial development of the region, do a good job in the review of the form of adding majors, and provide a list of majors that are urgently needed and in short supply and have low employment rates.

in february 2024, the sichuan provincial department of education issued the "implementation rules for the management of undergraduate majors in ordinary higher education institutions in sichuan province", which is the first professional management method issued at the provincial level in sichuan since 2012. "there has never been such a strong effort in major adjustments before." the aforementioned person in charge said. prior to this, the sichuan provincial department of education had intensively issued a series of supporting policies, such as the "employment-enrollment-training" linkage mechanism jointly issued by the department of human resources and social security, as well as the monitoring and evaluation plan for newly established undergraduate majors and the annual normalized monitoring mechanism for undergraduate majors, "this is to institutionally guarantee the intensity of professional regulation."

other regions are similar to sichuan. the reporter combed through the official websites of the provincial education departments and found that since march last year, various provinces have successively issued professional adjustment policies that are "corresponding" to the central government's "reform plan". the jiangxi provincial education department has continuously issued notices on the optimization and adjustment of the undergraduate professional structure and professional setting of ordinary colleges and universities, clearly proposing to set up a number of urgently needed and scarce majors, restrict and reduce a number of saturated and oversupplied majors, suspend and cancel a number of misplaced and low-quality majors, cross-integrate a number of emerging specialty majors, and transform and upgrade a number of traditional disciplines and majors.

the means of professional regulation in various provinces are similar, and there are two main types: the first is the provincial control mechanism, which is mainly aimed at newly added majors. according to relevant officials from the sichuan provincial higher education department, sichuan has implemented strict control over majors with more than 15 professional locations in the province and a low rate of implementation of graduation destinations. in the past, it was "one advance and one retreat". if a university wants to apply for a major included in the provincial control list, it must take the initiative to stop and withdraw another major. from 2022, the control will be stricter and "one advance and two retreat" will be implemented. this system can effectively control the blind expansion of schools. "this year, the artificial intelligence major has also been included in the provincial control."

the second is the professional early warning mechanism, which is related to the cancellation of majors. sichuan province stipulates that for majors whose graduation placement rate is less than 50% for two consecutive years, colleges and universities must rectify within a time limit. if the rectification is not in place, or if the rate is less than 50% for three consecutive years, they will be required to stop recruiting. "this is a new policy this year. compared with the guiding regulatory measures in previous years, the current regulation is more rigid and more powerful." the aforementioned person in charge explained.

compared with sichuan, jiangxi's policy is stricter. according to jiangxi's professional adjustment mechanism, yellow cards will be given to majors with a graduation destination implementation rate of less than 50% in the previous year, requiring relevant colleges and universities to adjust the enrollment plan for the major accordingly; red cards will be given to majors with a graduation destination implementation rate of less than 50% for two consecutive years, and they will be ordered to stop recruiting. a staff member of the higher education department of the jiangxi provincial department of education told china news weekly that in the past, when compiling the province's enrollment plan, the total enrollment plan was generally allocated to colleges and universities, and each college independently compiled the enrollment plan for each major. starting this year, the management of enrollment plans for each college and university by major will be implemented, and the review of the enrollment plans of each college and university will be refined to the major. after the reform, if a major is warned with a yellow card or a red card, the provincial department of education can directly adjust it when reviewing the enrollment plan for each major.

however, zhou guangli believes that it is "dangerous" to decide whether to cancel a major based solely on the employment rate. on the one hand, the employment rate is easily diluted. under the situation where employment pressure is transmitted layer by layer, many students just fill in the numbers casually, and the teachers are tacitly aware of it. on the other hand, the employment rate changes every year, and there may be multiple complex reasons behind it. it is very short-sighted to judge the "hotness" of a major based on this, and the provincial government should not use this as the policy logic for adjusting the professional layout of colleges and universities. lin jian also believes that the professional early warning mechanism with employment rate as the core is not comprehensive and systematic enough, and cannot reflect the quality of a major.

from the perspective of the education administration, many interviewees pointed out that the employment rate is at least an indicator that attracts a lot of public attention and is easy to collect and compare horizontally. due to the large differences between different majors, other indicators are more difficult to use as a basis for decision-making. in addition, 50% is actually a very low line. if the line is drawn too low, it will not have the effect of professional regulation; if it is too high, there is a worry that colleges and universities will be greatly affected.

heilongjiang's early warning mechanism is relatively complex. the head of the higher education department of the heilongjiang provincial department of education told china news weekly that heilongjiang has listed five indicators, namely: professional establishment rate, student-teacher ratio, employment rate, first-choice admission rate and the level of the teaching staff. if a major "hit" any two of the five items, it will be included in the early warning major, which will serve as a reference for colleges and universities to adjust their majors. "it can be actively revoked or upgraded, but colleges and universities must take action."

based on the five indicators, heilongjiang has conducted data analysis on more than 1,800 undergraduate majors in the province since april this year, and formed targeted recommendations for key adjustments to majors. most of the warning majors on the list are traditional engineering majors, such as electronic information engineering, automation, mechanical design and manufacturing, civil engineering, etc.

after careful analysis, the aforementioned head of the higher education department found that the two indicators with the most warnings were the first-choice admission rate and the level of the teaching staff, especially the teacher development indicators, which involved the number of full-time teachers, the proportion of teachers with senior titles, the proportion of masters and doctoral degrees, etc. many majors were given warnings for this reason, indicating that the talent team building of heilongjiang universities urgently needs to be optimized.

unlike the "red and yellow card" mechanism centered on a single indicator, heilongjiang's approach involves many indicators, but the number of majors affected is often hundreds. in practice, it is difficult to transform this into a basis for rigid decision-making and can only serve as a guiding policy. this reflects the embarrassment and dilemma in provincial professional coordination.

in zhou guangli's view, there is a deeper problem behind this: my country's higher education has long been based on supply-side reform, with the characteristics of top-down "strong planning". the same is true for professional adjustments. in the overall requirements of the "reform plan", it is clearly proposed to deepen the supply-side reform of disciplines and majors. what majors to add and what majors to reduce all follow administrative logic, but this is a certain distance from the market, and the result may be a new round of structural mismatch.

in this round of professional adjustments, it is not only the ministry of education that is strengthening macroeconomic control. the "reform plan" was jointly issued by the ministry of education, the national development and reform commission, the ministry of industry and information technology, the ministry of finance, and the ministry of human resources and social security. this shows that optimizing disciplines is no longer an internal issue of the education system, but is related to the integrated development of the country's economy, industry, technology, and talents.

in a southern province where the person in charge of the above-mentioned professional adjustment is located, guiding professional guidelines have been issued for three consecutive years, mainly focusing on industries urgently needed by national strategies and key regional industries. since the majors included in the guidelines are more likely to be approved, colleges and universities in the province will focus on the guide catalog when applying for majors. "this is a very clear guidance and the effect is good." the person in charge said.

many experts have observed that in this round of professional adjustments, various policies from top to bottom have been constantly emphasizing that professional adjustments must be based on serving national strategic needs and cultivating urgently needed and scarce talents represented by science, engineering, agriculture, and medicine. this orientation is originally correct, but in a system based on the principle of supply-side reform, it is easy to get into trouble.

what zhou guangli is most worried about is that there is now a clear trend of "suppressing the humanities and social sciences." many of the majors that have been eliminated are in the humanities. some of the motivations are indeed due to the aging of the majors, while some also believe that "the humanities are useless."

he suggested that the adjustment of disciplines and majors should be based on demand-side reforms, supplemented by supply-side reforms. the third plenary session of the 20th cpc central committee reiterated that the market should play a decisive role in resource allocation. the demand side is the market. universities are closest to the market and are very sensitive to changes in social demand. they know very well what new industries, new technologies, new formats and new models are, and how to combine their own accurate positioning, develop their own characteristics, and which majors to add or reduce, so as to quickly "seek change". local governments can provide more guiding information, such as national strategic demand areas and talent demand data, for reference by universities when making decisions.

however, supporting the autonomy of universities in adjusting their disciplines and majors does not mean that universities can be completely free of constraints and regulations. experts call for universities to establish a systematic dynamic evaluation mechanism for disciplines and majors. taking the american experience as an example, zhou guangli introduced that in american universities, a comprehensive professional evaluation or review is usually conducted every 5 to 8 years. the evaluation is carried out by the school's academic affairs department and expert groups inside and outside the school. from the exit to the entrance, the entire process of the professional source of students, the training process such as teachers, curriculum setting, financial support, teaching facilities and scientific research conditions, and employment quality are evaluated, and condensed into a professional evaluation report for reference by the school leadership.

"this is to change external evaluation to internal evaluation. the government only looks at the training results and supervises afterwards. but currently in china, few schools have such a dynamic evaluation mechanism, because no major or teacher is willing to take the initiative to put themselves in the spotlight." zhou guangli said. (lu liu and huihui are pseudonyms in the article)

(source: china newsweek)