college enrollment is "upside down" between undergraduate and postgraduate studies. research universities should pay more attention to quality
2024-09-21
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recently, lanzhou university has also joined the ranks of "undergraduate-research inversion", which has attracted widespread attention. the so-called "undergraduate-research inversion" refers to the phenomenon that the number of graduate students or students enrolled is higher than that of undergraduates. it is more common in universities with strong scientific research capabilities and many "master's" and "doctoral" programs. therefore, some people believe that "undergraduate-research inversion" is an inevitable choice for universities to "develop into research universities" and an important step in building high-level research universities.
indeed, in the evaluation of universities, the “ratio of graduate students to undergraduate students” was once one of the indicators for evaluating research universities. in the past, the development of graduate education in universities generally lagged behind undergraduate education, and the equality of graduate enrollment and undergraduate enrollment was a key node in the evaluation of research capabilities in the development of universities. in a specific period of china's higher education development, this judgment was reasonable and practical to some universities to a certain extent. compared with complex standards such as scientific research capabilities and r&d scale, its simpler and more intuitive characteristics also make it a well-known reference standard for judging research universities.
however, in recent years, driven by some employers’ blind worship of high academic qualifications, “academic qualifications only” and the expansion of universities, the expansion of graduate students in some schools has deviated from the connotation of higher education, resulting in the so-called “depreciation of academic qualifications” and a decrease in the reference value of “undergraduate-research inversion”. therefore, using the “research-research ratio” as a criterion for determining research universities is neither in line with the current development trend of higher education nor conducive to the formation of a healthy and effective talent training mechanism for universities.
whether a university is a research university, the primary criterion is still whether it can cultivate high-level research talents and whether it can produce high-quality scientific research or technology transformation results. the number of graduate students and their ratio to undergraduates are essentially just an external form. some universities have also shown a trend of "focusing on teaching and neglecting research": graduate students spend a lot of time listening to lectures, doing homework, and reading papers, and have fewer and fewer opportunities for actual hands-on research, resulting in "lame" academic and research abilities. a few universities even ignore their own actual scientific research and teaching conditions, blindly expand enrollment plans, and regard graduate students as a bargaining chip to cope with evaluations and seek more funds and projects. this is not conducive to the overall layout of building a high-quality higher education system and cultivating talents that meet the needs of scientific research and innovation in the new era.
therefore, the construction of a research university must be directly targeted, and be guided by major national strategies, key areas and major social needs. it must improve the quality of the school's education, teaching and research work, and improve the evaluation and assessment system of research universities and scientific research projects. only in this way can we cultivate high-level research and innovative talents in a targeted manner and produce high-level academic research results.
on the one hand, it is imperative to improve graduate education and training in order to build a high-quality research university. compared with undergraduates, graduate students who have undergone undergraduate basic education and examination screening do have certain advantages in academic ability. on this basis, if we can cultivate graduate students through efficient mechanisms to form standardized and innovative research capabilities and concentrate resources to create a better research environment, we will surely have higher educational and scientific research efficiency, which is more in line with the original intention of building a research university.
on the other hand, referring to the experience of world-class universities, high-quality undergraduate education is also a necessary part of building a high-level research university. on the one hand, the cultivation of talents is continuous, and many outstanding researchers have shown outstanding talents in high school and undergraduate studies. improving the teaching quality and the proportion of scientific research at the undergraduate level may discover talented research talents early and shorten the training cycle. on the other hand, improving the intensity of education and scientific research at the undergraduate level will also lay a better foundation for the graduate stage. ignoring undergraduate education and expecting to promote talents from graduate students is tantamount to building castles in the air. therefore, building a research university must pay more attention to undergraduate education.
in addition, a few people are limited by their concepts and believe that there is a clear distinction between scientific research and technology, and they lack attention to technological innovation. this is actually an obstacle to the professional degree to give full play to its unique advantages, and it is an issue that must be paid attention to when developing research universities. in fact, the cultivation of academic and practical innovative talents should be given equal importance, so that scientific research can be transformed into technology, technology can benefit industry, and industry can feed back to scientific research in a balanced cycle, and the integrated development of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation can be achieved.
a university is not a place with big buildings, but a place with great masters. as higher education continues to develop, the reference value of "undergraduate-research inversion" in building a research university is gradually disappearing. whether we can cultivate more professional research talents and create more valuable scientific research outputs is the key to building a "university" in the new era. (the author is a researcher at the chinese academy of educational sciences)
