This is not the job Zhou Long had in mind.
"When I was studying law in college, I never imagined that I would be selling
pork after my graduation," said Zhou, 24, who works for a supermarket in
Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province. He received his bachelor's degree from
the Southwest University of Political Science & Law last year.
Zhuang Lei, 24, graduated from Xuzhou Normal University in Jiangsu Province
this year with a bachelor's degree in law. Although she tried her best to find a
job related to the law in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu, she is now a
secretary at a small company in Suzhou.
Ministry of Education figures showed that last year China had more than
200,000 students studying for bachelor degrees in law at nearly 600
universities. About 66,000 working for their post-bachelor law degrees.
And according to a study by the All-China Youth Federation and Peking
University, 62 per cent of this year's graduates with bachelor degrees in law
failed to find jobs one of the lowest employment rates among the fields of
study.
The situation has caused some people in the education and legal communities
to call for a change in the way China trains its lawyers, prosecutors and
judges.
For example, Zhu Chongshi, the president of Xiamen University in East China's
Fujian Province, suggested that the school cancel the curriculum for a
bachelor's degree in law.
"Because in reality people who hold bachelor's degrees are hardly ever
engaged in law-related work after their graduation," he said.
Zhu says law professionals in China need higher degrees and cites the
educational system used in the United States.
"Courses in law should be a basic requirement for undergraduate students, not
an independent major in studies for a bachelor's degree," he said. "If students
plan to become lawyers, judges or prosecutors, they should study law after
holding a bachelor's degree in other majors."
One of the main issues is that China is producing too many law graduates with
only bachelor's degrees, and many say the job market for them is simply too
small. Another issue is that the legal community and educators from some of the
more established law programmes believe many graduates from universities are not
trained properly.
In fact, it is possible to pass the National Judicial Examination (NJE) to
become a lawyer, a prosecutor or a judge in China with only a bachelor's degree.
But even if it happens, the legal community is still unlikely to hire him or her
without at least a master's degree.
Bachelor's degree holders can get a job, but these posts are mainly clerical
positions at a law firm, a prosecutor's office or a court. To enter the legal
profession in China, one generally needs to have earned at least a master's
degree and to have passed the NJE to get the licence to practise law.
Another issue, that of unqualified holders of bachelor's degrees, is a
delicate one. Many smaller institutions that are good at teaching other majors
such as telecommunications and architecture have opened law departments in
recent years with approval from the provincial or municipal government but not
from the ministry.
"Figures on how law education programmes have developed so crazily in the
past few years frighten me," wrote a law teacher at the Shanghai University of
Political Science and Law, who identified himself only as "Tusheng Ageng" on his
blog.
"Some teachers who have taught Chinese language and literature in the past
have become judicial document teachers. If students are taught by these
so-called law professors and teachers, how can we expect these graduates to
become qualified lawyers, law teachers, judges or prosecutors?"
He criticized the schools for opening such new law departments, saying they
were motivated by nothing more than money. He agreed with Zhu at Xiamen
University, saying mere undergraduate degrees in law served no real purpose and
should be eliminated.
An attempt to reach Tusheng Ageng for further discussion was unsuccessful.
