Professor's one-man protest sparks row
China Daily  Updated: 2005-07-04 05:39

Professor He Weifang of Peking University's School of Law claimed in an Internet article that he would temporarily suspend enrolling master's candidates. It is his outspoken protest against China's graduate school enrolment system, which he regards as lopsided and overly rigid. Professor He explained that the present graduate school entrance examination works well when it comes to selecting a knowledgeable student, but probably not one with a strong expertise in certain fields as required.

Different opinions over his protest have been expressed via the media. Excerpts follow:

East China News: People have different views about Professor He's protest, but they agree on one point: China's graduate school recruitment and education formula needs reforming.

Many students who apply for graduate school are not genuinely interested in doing research. For them a master's degree is simply a way of getting a decent job and securing their life in a big city. No wonder people are questioning the overall quality of the current graduate students.

Today, legions of universities want to go research-orientated, so they are seeking to take in more graduate students. Some, simply to see an increase in graduate student numbers, lower the recruitment threshold, with the resulting problem of limited faculty and teaching resources incapable of supporting so large a graduate school.

The fact that recruiting companies prefer candidate employees with higher degrees makes graduate school even more enticing to students. The misleading signal from the job market that people's ability is judged largely by their diplomas will inevitably undermine our postgraduate education.

The education of graduate students is a serious matter. It cannot be usurped to realize some people's rags-to-riches dream nor can it be allowed to degenerate into a mass-production base for master's degree holders.

Jiangnan Times: Starting from last year, the graduate school entrance examination of Peking University's School of Law changed its focus from looking at an applicant's professional knowledge to their overall knowledge structure. The change has infuriated Professor He.

It is difficult to determine whether the change is constructive or destructive, so the jury remains out on Professor He's protest.

The core of the country's graduate school reform lies in how to define the objective of postgraduate education. In past decades, China's postgraduate education has been research-orientated. It undoubtedly needed some innovation. For instance, master's degrees could be further classified as research-orientated, application-orientated and teaching-orientated.

In this regard, the enrolment reform of Peking University's law school should be associated with application-oriented education objective. If universities want to train all of their graduate students to be researchers in scientific or technological fields, the enrolment examination must stress a student candidate's academic knowledge. If universities want to make their graduate education a natural progression of their undergraduate courses, their examination must be more a test of a student's general knowledge.

It seems that Peking University's School of Law prefers the latter one, so Professor He ought to concur with and support its reform of the enrolment examination.

China Youth Daily: Professor He's refusal to recruit master candidates has won a big round of applause from the public. Those happy clappers believe his "break-the-ice" action will impact on China's education system. But it is highly probable that this non-co-operation with the long-existing system will ultimately be in vain.

His non-co-operation, albeit seemingly revolutionary and pioneering, is very much of an evasion, an evasion of the current graduate school enrolment system and an evasion of a professor's due responsibility.

Professors are the elite of university faculties, and should therefore shoulder more responsibilities to educate students. They have every right to take issue against a badly functioning educational system. But they ought never to sacrifice the interests of their students or abandon their responsibilities to teach them.

The reform and completion of our graduate school recruitment programme is not the result of an ill-considered decision. Professors should be a major force in precipitating the cause of reform of the education system by injecting innovation and flexibility into their academic teaching.

Though professors are not policy-makers, their social influence can impact the real policy-makers to make prompt efforts to reform, and their participation can help prevent such reforms from going astray.

(China Daily 07/04/2005 page4)

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