Recently, with the completion of the registration confirmation of the national postgraduate entrance examination in 2022, a phenomenon has attracted public attention, that is, some domestic universities have stopped recruiting academic masters and full-time masters in some disciplines. Some experts believe that this phenomenon indicates that China's graduate training will usher in major changes. However, the author believes that these phenomena are not new phenomena, let alone major changes, but these phenomena indicate that China's graduate education system is becoming more and more diversified.

Diversification is the development direction of graduate education

In the last century, China's graduate education, whether absolute or relative, was very small. Therefore, most of the graduate students trained, whether master's or doctoral students, full-time or part-time, professional degrees or academic degrees, were oriented to academic research posts.

However, with the continuous expansion of the scale of graduate education and the increasing diversification of the demand of China's employment market, the graduate system needs to meet the needs of different kinds of talents. In this context, it is normal for the training structure of graduate education to be adjusted. Therefore, some schools stop enrolling academic masters / full-time masters in a large area, which does not mean that all academic masters / full-time masters in the country will stop enrolling; Some departments are increasing the proportion of direct doctoral students, which does not mean that all departments are increasing the proportion of direct doctoral students. Although in terms of the overall trend, there will be great development of professional degrees at both master's and doctoral levels, and the proportion of professional degrees will rise steadily at the master's level.

Therefore, in the foreseeable future, the graduate education system will develop in a more diversified direction. For example, it is likely that college a of a university is increasing the number of master students with professional degrees, while college B of the same university is reducing the number of master students with professional degrees. Because even in the same university, there are obvious differences in the job market faced by different colleges and departments.

For another example, on the issue of direct doctoral students and ordinary doctoral students, different tutors in the same department of the same university may have different preferences - some tutors believe that direct doctoral students can continue scientific research for a longer time, while others believe that ordinary doctoral students with certain scientific research experience are better; Some tutors believe that interdisciplinary doctoral students can bring interdisciplinary innovation, while others believe that doctoral students in similar disciplines can get started quickly.

From this perspective, the decisions of some colleges and departments on enrollment changes are more appropriate adjustments made by training institutions in combination with their own development plans and the changes in the demand of the job market, not necessarily the reform direction of the whole country.

More consensus should be reached on professional degree training

It should be said that for both master students and doctoral students, training institutions need to promote diversification and "make academic more academic and professional more professional", which is the common topic that all stakeholders of graduate education need to focus on. However, it is by no means easy to achieve this goal, which is actually a worldwide problem.

For example, even in the United States, the world's largest power in graduate education, there are great disputes about the learning process of master's courses and professional degrees, tutor guidance and graduation requirements. Some American scholars and researchers even believe that the requirements for master's courses in the United States are too low, and there is a suspicion of selling diplomas; Some believe that if the thesis of doctoral students with professional degree can not meet the requirements of knowledge production, they can not be awarded their doctoral degree; Some found through research that the dual tutorial system of academic tutors and practical tutors outside the school with professional degrees, or the tutorial group system composed of multiple tutors, is in vain. Finally, all kinds of affairs are "run by the main tutor of the University".

Therefore, in order to be more diversified, China's graduate education system must provide support that can meet the diversified needs of import and export in all links of talent training. The import here is enrollment, but the export includes not only graduation, but also degree evaluation.

Degree evaluation is particularly important and complex, because it is necessary to determine what training, assessment and innovation students have made, so as to obtain what kind of degree. If academic is not used as the evaluation standard of graduate students' degree, what should be used to measure whether students meet the degree requirements?

For academic degrees, whether full-time or part-time, whether master's or doctoral students, whether direct doctoral students or ordinary doctoral students, they are easy to master, because the academic requirements are relatively clear, unified and easy to judge. However, for professional degrees, the relevant standards become relatively vague, divergent and difficult to determine.

When working as a two-way anonymous evaluation expert for professional Dissertations (that is, the reviewers do not know who the author of the dissertations is, and the author of the dissertations is even less clear about who the evaluation expert is), the author often feels in a dilemma: the research objects are often based on a school or even a class, the use of research methods is not standardized, and the empirical analysis is not in-depth, However, the paper really tries to solve the problems encountered in the author's actual work.

For such a professional dissertation, the author can only judge from the following two points. First, whether there is academic misconduct; Second, whether the workload is full. If it is found that there is no academic misconduct and the workload is relatively full, the author generally passes it. However, the author also admits that many academic colleagues disagree with this. Therefore, for the training links of professional degrees, tutor guidance, innovative achievements, degree evaluation and other contents, the domestic graduate education community needs to carry out large-scale and continuous discussion, so as to reach more consensus and truly promote "making the profession more professional".

Can open online graduate attempt

As early as 10 years ago, the author called for the practice of online graduate education. Recently, the author is still conducting relevant research and believes that opening online graduate education can further increase the diversity of China's graduate education system and encourage more high-end human capital investment. However, in this regard, people's doubts about the quality can not be guaranteed are also obvious.

Therefore, the author suggests that taking advantage of the window period of "epidemic prevention bonus", the domestic graduate education community should promote the demonstration and pilot of online graduate education as soon as possible, form a certain consensus as soon as possible, and start online graduate education. In view of the time required for the society to accept and identify online graduate students, the author suggests that we can start from the master level and the academic master with relatively unified evaluation criteria.

In short, the scale of graduate education in China will continue to increase, and China's graduate education system will become more and more diverse - professional and academic, full-time and part-time, online and face-to-face, and so on. At present, all stakeholders of graduate education in China must strive to ensure the diversified implementation of graduate education in terms of enrollment threshold, supporting conditions, training links and degree evaluation, so as to provide Chinese experience for graduate education all over the world.

At the same time, learners themselves should be more rational. According to their own career planning and life planning, they should determine whether they choose postgraduate learning and what kind of postgraduate education and learning.