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recently, dozens of universities have announced plans to cancel majors in 2024. a total of more than 100 undergraduate majors in the relevant universities will be cancelled. according to data from the ministry of education, the latest round of additions, cancellations, and adjustments to undergraduate majors in universities involved 3,389 locations, of which 1,670 were cancelled, accounting for nearly half.

why do colleges and universities cancel certain majors?

(source: internet)

first, the employment prospects are not good. ma wei, director of the academic affairs office of anhui jianzhu university, said that the school has cancelled three majors this year because the employment situation of the relevant majors is not good; xiong lichun, a teacher at the school of economics and management of zhejiang agricultural and forestry university, said that the school collected information on the employment of graduates and found that the employment rate of some majors was low, so it chose to cancel them.

some majors have also become the targets of cancellation because they are "outdated". 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"), which clearly proposed that by 2025, about 20% of the disciplines and majors of colleges and universities will be optimized and adjusted, and a number of new disciplines and majors that adapt to new technologies, new industries, new formats, and new models will be established, and disciplines and majors that are not adapted to economic and social development will be eliminated. chu zhaohui, a researcher at the chinese academy of educational sciences, analyzed that some university majors are out of touch with social needs, and it is difficult for students to find suitable jobs. the employment rate of professional graduates has continued to decline. colleges and universities urgently need to make adjustments to their professional settings.

some universities have cut majors because they added too many in the past. some experts said that in recent years, with the increase in the number of newly-built local undergraduate colleges, some universities have quickly launched many new majors in order to expand the scale of the school as soon as possible; some universities have rushed to set up majors in the name of responding to policies, and now it is time to cool down.

majors are not only related to employment, but also to the positioning of the school. xiong bingqi, dean of the 21st century education research institute, said that even if a major is popular, if the establishment of this major does not conform to the school's educational positioning and cannot allow the school to play its advantages in the existing track, the school can consider canceling it; and even if a major is considered unpopular, if it is a specialty of the school and cultivates talents necessary for society, the school should insist on holding it and form a reasonable talent training structure.

many experts said that economic and social development has diverse demands on schools and talents, and universities need both "all-round players" and "single champions". it is a rational choice to create advantages and characteristics, focus on the school's positioning, concentrate resources to create comparative advantages, and stop the one-sided pursuit of "big and complete" in majors.

(source: internet)

in fact, there is also a process for a university to cancel certain majors.

according to the "reform plan", first, the national level will promptly revise the undergraduate major catalog of ordinary higher education institutions, strengthen the adjustment of existing disciplines and majors, and improve the exit mechanism; second, provincial-level education administrative departments will conduct quality inspections on discipline and major construction, and issue warnings or set a deadline for rectification for majors with serious deficiencies in school conditions, poor teaching quality, and excessively low employment rates; finally, colleges and universities will refer to the guiding information of administrative departments, do a good job in optimizing, upgrading, and replacing disciplines and majors, and make specific plans for the adjustment of their own majors.

it is very important for relevant administrative departments to assume the warning function. for example, 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 it is less than 50% for three consecutive years, they will be required to stop recruiting; heilongjiang province uses the major setting rate, student-teacher ratio, employment rate, first-choice admission rate and teaching staff level as measurement indicators. if a university major "hit" any two of them, it will be listed as a warning major, and the school can choose to cancel the major or upgrade it.

in practice, generally speaking, colleges and universities will first stop recruiting students for the relevant majors for a few years, and then cancel the registration after all students in the major have graduated, while ensuring that the graduation certificates and degree certificates of current and graduated students are not affected in any way. some colleges and universities will also divert relevant teachers to similar disciplines or encourage and support teachers to visit and study.

in general, when universities cancel majors, they should focus on long-term solutions rather than short-term solutions. they should start from the goal of talent training and think about what kind of knowledge and ability structure the entire professional system will build. "universities should take advantage of this opportunity to optimize and adjust majors to promote the establishment of a modern university system and improve the professional mechanism of professional settings. this is more important than how many majors are canceled," said xiong bingqi.

text/dian cang