Rise in number of postgrads

High figures trigger quality concerns

BEIJING: An increasing number of postgraduate students is triggering concerns over the education quality in Chinese universities.

According to the Education Ministry, about 517,000 postgraduate students were enrolled in 2012, over 220,000 more than in 2003.

Postgraduate students in some leading Chinese universities have outnumbered undergraduates, according to the latest research report issued by Wuhan University, based in central China’s Hubei province.

At Tsinghua University, the ratio between the undergraduate and postgraduate students currently stands at 0.61 to 1, said the report quoted by yesterday’s Wuhan Evening News.

In the country’s top ten universities, including Tsinghua University and Peking University, students graduating from postgraduate programmes last year outnumbered those finishing undergraduate programmes, the report said.

For instance, the number of students that graduated from postgraduate programmes in 2011 was about 2,500 more than that for undergraduate programmes at Peking University and the figure stood at 2,800 at Renmin University of China, the report said.

Moreover, Wuhan University had 7,704 postgraduate vacancies and 7,650 undergraduate vacancies this year.

The increase in postgraduate students has posed great challenges to faculty.

According to the report, 15.7% of university professors are supervising more than ten postgraduate students each, and 1% of them are supervising more than 20 students each.

The appropriate number of postgraduate students for one professor is three and the maximum is six, or the professor will not be able to control the quality of his work, said Qiu Junping, director of the Research Center for Chinese Science Evaluation under Wuhan University, which issued the research paper.

The sharp increase in vacancies for postgraduate programmes is believed to help hold some of undergraduate students back from entering the tough employment market, but some universities see it as a source of revenue.

According the Education Ministry’s report on the employment of college students in 2009 and 2010, the employment rate of postgraduates was lower than that of undergraduates in the two years. — Xinhua

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