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reality and serious problems

recently, taiyuan preschool teachers college (hereinafter referred to as "taiyuan preschool college") plans to recruit 10 doctoral students with professional titles, which has attracted attention on social media.

according to the "announcement of the interview scores and the list of personnel entering political review and physical examination for the second batch of doctoral students in 2024" (hereinafter referred to as the "announcement") published on the school's official website, the majors of the introduced doctoral students are concentrated in art, management, sports and exercise, chinese language and literature, etc., and the graduate schools include: thailand's chulalongkorn university (2 people), thailand's assumption university, thailand's shinawatra university, thailand, philippine christian university, philippines adamson university (2 people), south korea's jeonju university, south korea's chonbuk national university, and autonomous university of barcelona.

among them, the doctoral student introduced from jeonbuk national university in south korea, whose major is chinese language and literature, has sparked discussion on social media. some netizens complained: "studying in south korea with a major in chinese language and literature? how funny."

china newsweek called the personnel department (talent office) of taiyuan preschool college regarding this matter. a staff member named zhang said that only the interview results have been made public at present, and political review and physical examination procedures will be required in the future. everything is being done according to the procedures, and the recruitment stage has not yet begun.

when asked about the details of the school's introduction of career doctoral students and the attention and discussion it has aroused, the staff member said that he was "just a staff member" and "the details still need to be verified and we need to contact the school officials." he said he would provide relevant contact information later, but as of press time, china newsweek had not received a reply from him.

china newsweek subsequently contacted the aforementioned staff again and called the school's public office phone number and publicly posted supervision phone number several times, but no one answered the calls.

taiyuan preschool college building. photo: taiyuan preschool college official website

dispute

according to the "public notice", the second batch of doctoral students to be introduced in 2024 will be employed in professional and technical positions and also do administrative and counseling work. a total of 10 people will enter the political review and physical examination after interviews. their majors are art, educational management and leadership, physical education, sports and exercise, pedagogy, art psychotherapy, management, and chinese language and literature.

of these 10 doctoral graduates, except for three who graduated from universities in south korea and spain (from jeonju university in south korea, chonbuk national university in south korea, and autonomous university of barcelona respectively), the rest graduated from universities in thailand and the philippines.

screenshot of the announcement. photo: taiyuan preschool college official website

among them, two people graduated from thailand's chulalongkorn university, both majored in art; one person graduated from thailand's assumption university and one person graduated from thailand's shinawatra international university, majoring in educational management and leadership, and management respectively; two people graduated from adamson university in the philippines, majoring in sports and exercise; one person graduated from philippine christian university, majoring in physical education.

according to the "announcement on the recruitment of the second batch of civil service doctoral students in 2024" published by the school, full-time doctoral students who graduated from ordinary overseas universities will be provided with a settling-in allowance of no more than 200,000 yuan, a scientific research start-up fee of no more than 100,000 yuan for science and no more than 50,000 yuan for liberal arts.

it is mentioned that 50% of the settling-in allowance will be paid in one lump sum after the employee takes up the full-time position and signs the employment contract, and the remaining 50% will be paid based on the three-year scientific research target assessment; the scientific research start-up fee will be paid according to the length of service and the specific usage methods of the scientific research laboratory center.

in addition, the employment issues of the spouses of doctoral students should be properly resolved according to the establishment, work needs and the spouses' own conditions. if the spouse has already joined the workforce and has the title of university lecturer or above, they can go through the transfer procedures for him/her in accordance with the relevant provisions on the flow of personnel in government agencies and public institutions, in accordance with the principle of "matching people to positions and matching majors", and based on the school's vacancies, after passing the assessment and being reviewed and approved by the organization, human resources and social security, and establishment departments.

regarding the large number of doctoral students from thailand and the philippines recruited by taiyuan preschool college, some netizens questioned whether the above-mentioned positions were set up based on personal preference or were “personal recruitment”. another netizen posted on social media platforms, questioning: “is the southeast asian water expo making a comeback?”

an industry insider who has been engaged in study abroad services for a long time told china news weekly that southeast asia and some countries in east asia are recognized as the regions where it is easiest to obtain academic education. the admission review procedures for master's and doctoral students at some universities are simple, and the graduation requirements are relatively low. therefore, many people call the master's and doctoral graduates from these universities "water masters" and "water doctors."

china news weekly noted that adamson university of the philippines is a private university in the philippines. in november 2021, it was included in the "strengthening certification review for academic degree certification" list by the ministry of education's study abroad service center; the philippine christian university was also included in the "strengthening certification review for academic degree certification" list by the ministry of education's study abroad service center in july 2024 due to significant abnormalities in master's and doctoral degree certification data and frequent related reports.

zhao zhiqun, a vocational education expert and professor at the institute of vocational and adult education of beijing normal university, told china news weekly that the quality of overseas higher education varies. generally, the quality of education in famous universities in developed countries is higher, but the quality of talent training in some universities in developing countries, especially some special programs for foreign students, deserves special attention. if someone can get a degree more easily through "shortcuts" or get better opportunities in the competition for employment and job promotion, "i think this is particularly unfair to those doctoral students who work hard and study hard." zhao zhiqun said. in his opinion, this is a realistic and serious problem.

chu zhaohui, a researcher at the chinese academy of educational sciences, told china newsweek that the overall quality of doctoral degrees from these universities is "not high, and this is an indisputable fact." he said that since there are doubts in society and on the internet, the school has the responsibility to do a good job in responding to social doubts. "if there are indeed some inappropriate aspects in the recruitment process, they must be corrected in a timely manner," he said.

chaos

according to the official website, taiyuan preschool college is a full-time public ordinary preschool teacher training college approved by the shanxi provincial people's government on march 23, 2018 and registered by the ministry of education on may 10, 2018. it is an important base for training preschool education and art education teachers in shanxi province and taiyuan city. at present, there are 7,560 students in various majors.

zhao zhiqun told china newsweek that, according to his understanding, some higher vocational colleges have introduced a large number of overseas doctoral graduates, "because these colleges want to be upgraded to undergraduate schools, but the ministry of education has a hard requirement for upgrading, that is, the proportion of doctoral students among the teachers in office must reach a certain proportion. in order to meet this requirement, some schools have adopted some unconventional methods."

the "administrative measures for the establishment of undergraduate vocational education majors (trial)" issued by the ministry of education in january 2021 clearly stipulates that the proportion of full-time teachers with doctoral degrees should not be less than 15%. according to the "interim regulations on the establishment of ordinary undergraduate schools", the proportion of full-time teachers with graduate degrees in universities should generally reach more than 50%, and the proportion of full-time teachers with doctoral degrees should generally reach more than 20% of the total number of full-time teachers.

in zhao zhiqun's opinion, taiyuan preschool college may also be trying to meet the requirements for upgrading to a university, because usually if similar colleges want to upgrade to a university, the proportion of doctoral students is often insufficient.

according to the "announcement on the recruitment of the second batch of career-based doctoral students in 2024" issued by taiyuan preschool college, the school currently has 1 senior second-level professor, 1 fourth-level professor, 89 associate professors; 14 specially-appointed flexible experts and professors in various fields and high-level talents; 2 doctoral students, 276 master's students, 11 doctoral students and 22 master's students. obviously, in terms of faculty strength, the proportion of doctoral students in the school is not high.

zhao zhiqun mentioned that in order to meet the requirement for the proportion of teachers with doctoral degrees for promotion to undergraduate programs, in addition to introducing overseas doctoral graduates, some schools even organize their teachers to study abroad.

last year, hunan university shaoyang college spent 19 million yuan to recruit 23 filipino phds, which attracted widespread attention. the public announcement showed that these 23 phds completed their doctoral degrees at adamson university in the philippines from august 2019 to 2021, and their majors were all philosophy (education). except for an associate professor from the school of music and dance who was marked as "introduced from outside the school", the other 22 phds were previously staff members of the school, and the marks were all "graduated and returned to school."

industry insiders mentioned that many cooperation projects send domestic teachers to study for doctoral degrees in foreign partner schools. they only need to take two months of classes abroad each year, and they can get a doctoral degree in two years at the fastest and three years at the slowest. such cooperation is mainly concentrated in universities in some southeast asian countries, some universities in the middle east, and some universities in japan and south korea.

chu zhaohui mentioned that the deep-seated reason behind these universities' enthusiasm for introducing overseas doctoral graduates is that the current management and evaluation system for universities, including the evaluation criteria for the establishment of some degree programs and disciplines, has loopholes and urgently needs to be improved.

some people believe that vocational colleges like taiyuan preschool college also need to attract talents and improve the quality of education. in zhao zhiqun's view, the effect of introducing a large number of graduates from overseas colleges whose quality is difficult to guarantee and who are highly homogeneous, including phds who have obtained chinese language degrees overseas, on the quality of talent training in the short term needs to be carefully considered. "of course, these universities should have enough ability to judge what is talent, if they are willing to do so," he said.

he also mentioned that many vocational colleges are now focusing on upgrading to universities and focusing on the introduction of highly educated talents in the construction of the teaching staff, which deviates from the original intention of vocational education. he said: "the positioning of vocational education is to cultivate high-quality technical and skilled talents. can the great craftsmen and skilled workers we need most be cultivated by phds? we should pay attention to the correlation between the construction of the teaching staff of vocational colleges and the goal of talent training."

in his opinion, these schools need to base themselves on their own realities and the talent needs of society, and do not have to blindly pursue upgrading to universities. "if everyone does not rush to pursue upgrading to universities, there will not be a phenomenon of mass recruitment of overseas phds."