名古屋高等教育研究

第 9 号（2009）

Confronting Challenges of Chinese Doctorate
Education with Rapid Expansion
SHI Xiaoguang∗
MA Yongxia∗∗
NATSUME Tatsuya∗∗∗＜Abstract＞
Since the mid-1990s, China has witnessed a rapid massification ofhigher education including doctoral education. This article mainly
consists of four parts, in addition to the introduction and conclusion.
The second part describes the status quo of doctoral education in
China, which includes the main achievement and configuration of theprocess. The third and forth sections discuss the qualitative aspects ofdoctorate education−one of the major challenges confronting the
Chinese doctorate given its astonishing growth. The authors analyze influential factors such as:

governmental decrease of publical-

ly-funded expenditures, lack of adequate academic backgrounds of
doctoral students, shortage of suitable guidance from advisors, andsome flaws in training processes and procedures. The forth part includes four possible initiatives to be undertaken for improving thequality and enhancing the competitiveness of doctorate education in
China. In a sense, those initiatives, which are still under discussion,
will indicate or determine? the future direction of doctorate educationin China.

∗

Professor, Institute of Higher Education, Peking University, China Visiting
Professor, Center for the Studies of Higher Education, Nagoya University∗∗

Professor, School of Human & Social Science, Beijing Institute of Technology, China∗∗∗

Professor, Center for the Studies of Higher Education, Nagoya University

239

1.

Introduction

The doctorate education as a significant portion of Chinese education
system stands on top of the pyramid-shaped system. Since the mid-1990s,
China has witnessed a rapidity of massifcation of higher education including doctorate education. This article, apart from describing the statusquo of the doctorate education, would tend to shed light on the configuration, major challenges confronting the doctorate education, also willsummarize the initiatives undertaken to improve the quality and enhancecompetitiveness of the doctorate education in China.

2．Configuration
The configuration of Chinese doctorate education is not what it wasmore than two decades ago. Particularly, since 2000 onward, the feature of
doctorate education in China may also be described by a phrase－"thequantitative expansion with great speed", as the bulk of the doctorate
education has been enlarged rather quickly, accompanying with thedramatic development and profound reform in socio-economic sphere, andwith a realization of massification, privatization, and commercialization of
the higher education. Whatever else it may be, both in terms of quantity or
quality, that Chinese doctorate education lagged far behind many developed, even some developing countries worldwide two decades ago, but thetoday's doctorate education in China is reported as the largest system in
the world in terms of enrolment, presenting some features as follows.
2.1

Quantitative Advantage

One of the most impressive features for Chinese doctorate education ismarked with its astonishing growth. In quite prosaic terms, it is "big leapin twinkle”. In a sense, the case extends far beyond a normal logic. According to Statistic of MOE, the enrolment of doctoral students has increased from 28,752 in 1995, to 222,500 in 2007.The later is as much 54
times as the former. With regard to the reward of PhD, the number ofrecipients has increased from 4,364 in 1995 to 41,400 in 2007. (Figure 1).

240Confronting Challenges of Chinese Doctorate Education with Rapid Expansion

250

208.0

222.5

191.3

200

Thousands

165.5
136.7

150

108.7
100

50

0

85.9
54.0

45.2

67.3

15.0

19.9

25.1

0.0

0.0

0.0

1998

1999

2000

32.1

38.3

12.9

14.6

2001

2002

enrolment
Figure1

2.2

53.3

54.8

56.0

58.0

23.5

36.2

41.4

18.8

27.7

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

48.7

admission

graduation

Growth of Doctorate Education (1998-2007)

A Huge Institutionalized System

Another visible feature is that Chinese doctorate education system has
been institutionalized in the last two decades. There are some evidences toillustrate the case. First, some authoritative administrations in charge ofthe graduate education (the doctorate education included) have been established. Those administrations are all governmental departments oragencies, such as ADC (the Academic Degree Commission, establishedin1981) affiliated with the State Council, and operational procedure isconfirmed and made use to accredit which organizations or units will havequalification to develop doctoral programs. As a result, there are 356 eligible organizations approved and allowed to develop the doctorate education. Among them, 260 bodies are universities nationwide, and the other96 are research institutes affiliated with CAS (Chinese Academy of
Science) and CASS (Chinese Academy of Social Science). Meanwhile, there
are 1,676 programs developed and distributed in 1,361 areas of studies.
Table 1 shows the distribution of officially-approved doctorate programs
and fields of studies (Table 1). OAD (Office of Academic Degree affairs
established in 1981), DGE (the Division of Graduate Education of MOE,
established in 1982); the Working (functioning) office of graduate education

241

(1991) and DDMGE (the Division of Degree Management & Graduate
Education established in 2004). Second, an environment of policy related tothe doctorate education has come into being by constituting bylaws,
statutes, regulations and rules. Third, certain benchmarks and operational
procedure are confirmed and made use to accredit which organizations or
institutions will have qualification of developing doctorate programs.
Table 1

Distribution of Doctorate Programs and Fields of Studies in China

Items
Fields
Type

％

Ins.

％

Programs

％

Ins.

％

HEI

1,222

89.8

193

82.5

1,506

89.9

260

73.0

Academy

74

5.4

23

9.8

93

5.5

62

17.4

Other

65

4.8

18

7.7

77

4.6

34

9.6

total

1,361

100.0

234

100.0

1,676

100.0

356

100.0

Source: http://www.cdgdc.edu.cn:9090/xwwyh/detail.jsp?seq=99&boardid=93
HEI=Higher Education Institutions
Ins.=Institutions

2.3

Suppliers of Scientists and Academics

Generally, the doctorate education preparing PhD holders who will
mostly become scientists, scholars or academics can play an importantrole in socio-economic development. According to Statistic of how many
scientists or researchers who are now some ones responsible for the
projects sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation (NNSF)
graduated and obtained PhD during the period from 2001 to 2006, thenumber of them has been increasing year by year so that the percentage
has reached as high as over eighty percent of the totality of scientists in2006 (Table 2).

242

Confronting Challenges of Chinese Doctorate Education with Rapid Expansion
Table 2

Number of PhD holders

in charge of National R & D Projects
Year

Total

DoctorMasterbachelor

Other

Doctor (%)

2001

4,435

2,929

724

366

416

66.0

2002

5,808

4,041

950

461

356

69.6

2003

6,359

4,535

1,130

440

254

71.3

2004

7,711

5,872

1,132

480

227

76.2

2005

9,111

7,307

1,173

422

209

80.2

2006

10,271

8,493

1,189

407

182

82.7

Total

84,32864,537

12,098

4,881

2,812

76.5

Source: http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/nsfc/cen/10yy/index.htm

Another data can also indicate that the number of PhD holders who has
been awarded the National Prize for Natural Sciences is increasing, because of their excellent performance and extraordinary contribution to thescientific development and the county’s progress. Among the Prize
grantees, the number of first contributors with doctoral degree increased
year by year, from 45 percent in 2002 to 85 percent in 2007 (Table 3).
Table 3

Number of PhD holders

among the totality of National Prize for Natural Sciences

Year

NumberFirst Authorof Prizes& Doctor

2002

24

11

45.8

2003

19

11

57.9

2004

28

15

53.6

2005

38

30

79.0

2006

29

20

69.0

2007

39

33

84.6

Total

177

120

67.8

(%)

Source: report, unpublished243

From the table 2 and 3, we can observe that those who have completed
their doctorate education and earned the doctoral degree are becoming
the most leading forces in the development of science and technology inChina. Therefore, the doctorate education is providing a great deal ofintellective supports with its producing potential scientific forces.
Not only has the doctorate education produced many potential scientificforces but also prepared numbers of academic who are conducting
teaching, research and social service in the Institutions of Higher Education. From the table 4, it can be seen that there were just 3,882 faculty withthe doctoral degree, taking up one percent of the total number of faculty in
1990, but the number increased to 108,605, taking up 10 percent of total
faculty in 2006.As a result, more and more PhD recipients who havepreferred to take posts of teaching and research at the Institutions ofHigher Education has made it possible to enhance a level of the qualification of faculty’s group.
Table 4

Faculty’s Quality of Academic Degree by level

Year

Total

Doctor
N.

%

N.

%

1990

394,567

3,882

1.0

73,467

18.6

1992

387,585

5,404

1.4

69,43318.0

1993

387,808

6,583

1.7

73,69019.0

1994

396,389

8,691

2.2

77,293

19.4

1995

400,742

10,443

2.6

81,42020.3

1996

402,469

12,532

3.1

85,77521.3

1997404,471

15,5003.8

90,491

22.3

1998407,253

18,921

4.7

94,22823.1

1999

425,682

23,136

5.4

100,492

23.6

2000

462,772

28,2286.1

108,210

23.3

2001

531,91034,853

6.5

121,546

22.9

2002

618,419

43,442

7.0

149,392

24.2

2003

724,658

53,6128.0

182,517

25.2

2004

858,393

70,487

8.2

223,860

26.1

2005

965,839

88,4509.2

269,003

27.9

2006

1,075,989

108,605

10.0

317,823

29.5

Source: CYBEB, 2007. N=Number

244

MasterConfronting Challenges of Chinese Doctorate Education with Rapid Expansion

3．Qualitative Concerns
Concerns about qualitative issue are “hot topic” in both public communities and academic circles. Along with the rapid growth in terms of
the enrolment and scale, the issue of quality assurance becomes one of themost perplexing challenges to the doctorate education. Several studies
have recently come to the conclusion that the quality of the doctorate
education is deteriorating (Qiao, 2007, Zhou, 2007).

According a survey

conducted by the research group of Peking University in 2004, about 47.8
percent of doctoral advisors considered the quality of the doctorate
education as the “Unsatisfactory” (Min, 2006).

In 2007, the Office ofAcademic Degree organized the Task Force to conduct the investigation
nationwide. Its primary conclusion from the investigation has proved thatthe qualitative problem has posed the greatest challenge to Chinese
doctorate education.
First, academic level of the doctoral dissertation is not still desirable andsatisfying. Particularly in terms of the original contribution of dissertations.
According to the questionnaire with the one of questions: “What do you

evaluate the dissertation for its original contribution? ” about sixty percent
of interviewees who are, either advisors or administrators both gave it anevaluation with “Mediocre”. (Report, 2008) Moreover, if compared with thecounterparts in other developed countries, the original contribution of theacademic dissertations in most fields was really lower (Table 5).
Table 5 Original Contribution of Dissertation Compared with Overseas Counterparts(the parameter of overseas dissertations assumed as 1)

Original
contribution

HS

SS

NS

E

AGR

M

ADM

Total

1.1

1.1

0.9

0.8

0.6

0.6

1.0

0.8

Problem- solving 1.1

1.0

0.9

1.1

0.9

0.9

1.0

1.0

Revision theory

1.0

1.5

1.0

1.2

1.0

1.0

0.5

1.1

Theory-copying

1.3

1.0

1.1

1.1

1.2

1.3

1.0

1.2

Source: Report Unpublished,
HS=Human Science, SS=Social Science, NS=Natural Science, E=Engineering,
AGR=Agriculture, M=Medicine, ADM=Administration

245

Second, the research capacity of doctoral students needs enhancing.
Although the number of the publications on academic journals, international and national, which are contributed by the doctoral students has
increased fast from 2000 to 2006 (see table 6), however its quantitative
growth of the publication did not change the disadvantageous status andmarginal situation, particularly in the fields of natural science.

The

evidence is that both the Impact Factor and the Citation Rate of the
publications are rather lower, and that their knowledge contribution islimited worldwide. Taking the SCI for instance, a statistic based on 17
institutions indicates that there have been 28,837 articles on 9,563 sorts ofacademic journals (cited by SCI), contributed by doctoral students from2000 to 2006. The problem is that there are only 3,937 articles published on
the top 20 academic journals, only taking 12.6 percent of the totality, andmore than one third (34.5%) of them were published in Chinese version
on Chinese Journal (see the table 7).
Table 6

Articles published by doctoral students by types (2000-2006)
SCI

Year

EI

ISTP

Total

Per.head

Total

Per.head

Total

Per.head

2000

5,165

0.46

3,314

0.30

805

0.07

2001

7,670

0.57

5,001

0.37

998

0.07

2002

6,406

0.45

4,410

0.31

851

0.06

2003

8,675

0.48

6,126

0.34

1,486

0.08

2004

11,570

0.52

9,212

0.41

2,317

0.10

2005

15,6740.57

13,795

0.50

3,133

0.11

2006

28,8370.86

22,995

0.69

6,046

0.18

Source: ADC, 2007

246

or

Confronting Challenges of Chinese Doctorate Education with Rapid Expansion
Table 7

Distribution of articles on the top 20 and its Impact factors in 2006

NO.

Title of Journals

N

IF

1

Acta Physica Sinica( in Chinese)

494

1.051

2

Chinese Physics Letters（in English）

378

1.276

3

Applied Physics Letters

345

4.308

4

Chemical Journal of Chinese Universities（in Chinese）

287

0.771

5

Chinese Science Bulletin（in English）

274

0.783

6

Journal of Crystal Growth

262

_

7

High Energy and Nuclear Physics（in Chinese）

246

0.271

8

Acta Chimica Sinica（in Chinese）

194

0.845

9

CA Chemical Analysis

180

0.397

10

Chinese Physics（in English）

163

1.256

12

J. Phys. Chem. B

151

_

13

Acta Metallurgica Sinica(in English )

148

0.366

14

Materials Letters

140

_

15

Spectroscopy and Spectral Analysis

140

0.557

16

Chinese Journal of Polymer Science

138

0.383

17

Journal of Catalysis

138

0.665

19

Acta Physico-Chimica Sinica

132

0.427

20

Phys. Rev. B

127_

Sub-total

3,937

Total

31,278Percentage

12.6

Source: Task Force,B,2008,N=Number, IF= Impact Factor

Third, the internationalization of Chinese doctorate education is quietly
inadequate, which indicates that Chinese doctorate education still lacks ofcompetitiveness globally. From the Figure 2, we can see that the numberof international students who are pursuing Chinese doctoral degree is verysmall, and only around 230 persons can be granted the doctorate annually.
Such situation is impossible to be compared with the case in Westerndeveloped countries. That also indicates that the quality of the doctorate is247

still lagging behind the international level.
400

368

350
281

300
239

250
200

168

171

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

2002

151

150
100
50

49

76

79

230

100

11

0
2003

2004

2005

2006

Source: MOE, Educational YearBook, 2007

Figure 2

Numbers of PhD of Granting for International Students (1995-2006)

4．Negative Factors
The current negative evaluation has highly caused some concerns andanxiety for policy－makers, university administrators, education leadersand doctoral advisors. Numbers of publications has discussed about what
forces are impacting on the quality (Li, 2007, Li and Wu, 2008). Objectively,
the reasons are various, but some impacting forces are acknowledged bymostly.
First, the governmental incapacity of increasing more public expenditure in the doctorate education after the rapid expansion in its enrolment
is perhaps the most disadvantageous factors impacting on the quality. For
great access to the doctorate education has been realized in the case oflimited input of public expenditure. Taking the R &D expending for instance, the table 8 shows that the distributive percentage of the national R& D expenditure didn’t lean to those institutions of higher education which
the commitment of producing the doctorates are taken, although theirscale of the doctorate education had been rapidly enlarged. No doubt, it
leads to the quality of the doctorate education to be impaired.

248

Confronting Challenges of Chinese Doctorate Education with Rapid Expansion
Table 8year

Distribution of national R & D expenditure unit (billion. RBR)

Num.

Institutes affiliatedwith EnterpriseInstitutes
affected with Gov.

IHE

Total

%

Sub-Total%

Sub-Total%

Sub-Total

%

2000

89.57

100

54.06

60.3

25.82

28.8

76.60

8.6

2001

104.25

100

63.00

64.7

28.85

24.1

10.23

7.2

2002

128.76

100

78.78

66.9

35.13

23.2

13.05

7.6

2003

153.92

100

96.02

62.4

39.90

25.9

16.23

10.5

2004

126.63100

131.40

66.8

43.17

22.0

20.09

10.2

2005

245.00100

167.38

68.3

51.31

20.9

24.23

9.9

2006

300.31

100

213.45

71.1

56.73

18.9

27.68

9.2

Source: Chinese Annual Finance Bulletin on Science and Technology，2000-2006

Second, the academic background of doctoral students becomes worse
than before.

According to the investigation conducted by the researchgroup of Peking University among some advisors in some leading universities in 2004, about 40.9 percent of them thought that the doctoral
students’ academic background has tended to be degenerative (Report,

unpublished). There are three evidences which may prove the case－(a)applicants for doctoral programs from the leading universities are lessthan thirty percent of the totality; (b).

The admission rate of the pro-grams has averagely increased from 2.1 percent in 1982 to 23.3 percent. Itmeans that an applicant will be more easily admitted in a program than
before; (c) the “inbreeding” phenomenon becomes common, for more andmore applicants are selected from the programs they obtain the Master
Degree.
The reason why the situations above occurred is complicated. On one
hand, partly because the employment situation is getting extremely severe so that many promising candidates would enter into the job market
as early as possible rather than take the opportunity to a further study. On
the other hand, because of the vexing phenomenon of “Brain drain” which
results in an embarrassment state in the process of admission. Many institutions find themselves in the competition of looking for the mostpromising applicants (graduates) with their master degrees, who either
prefers to shooting for a possibility of studying abroad, or a desirable
workplace.

249

Third, a shortage of suitable guidance of advisors’ is another factor
directly impacting on the quality improvement. Because of the rapid
expansion of the doctorate education, the ratio of advisor-students increases. As a result, the advisors’ workload has got overloaded. A survey
conducted among the doctoral students in 2004 found that more and more
doctoral students began to complain about their shortage of suitableguidance from the advisors. It revealed that more than 37.1 percent ofadvisors could only provided students with guidance once per month (Houand Guo, 2005).
Forth, some flaws of training process and procedure are considered as acause of the negative influence on the doctorate education. Those flaws
are included as follows: (a) the selection and admission lack of a flexible
system so that some promising candidates can not be accepted into theprograms if they fail to pass contain subjects of the written exams; (b) the
schooling length and year-based fellowship system are regulated rigidly sothat both the advisors and doctoral students would rather debase astandard of the dissertation (or allow them to focus on some easier issues)
than risk delaying the graduation. For the prolonged graduation mightbring them about more headache, even in Chinese context, it might resultin some negative evaluation to the students in their future professional
career; (c) the relationship between advisors and students seems to belinked by some interests (seemingly, alike a kind of employment－which
employers use money to buy employees’ work), so that many doctoral
students loss freedom of selecting an issue or a theme that they are interested in for their dissertation. Instead, some of them have to subject
themselves to commit on the current projects their advisors are in chargeof, (d) a deficient fellowship of the doctoral students can hardly guarantee
them to have full heart for the studies as they have to think too muchabout making money to survive. According to the data of National Bureauof Statistic, the doctoral students’ fellowship subsidy from governments isaverage YMB 280 per month, which is lower than the Urban Minimum
Living Guarantee (average YMB 330) in 2007 (Report unpublished).

As

Professor Xu Zhihong, President of Peking University observed “thematerial amenities for the doctoral students are too low to let them full250

Confronting Challenges of Chinese Doctorate Education with Rapid Expansion
heart for the pursuit of their doctorate. Since some of them have to spend
on doing a part-time job, their school work is more or less affected” (Guo
Shaofeng, 2007).

5．Future Directions
Abraham Lincoln used to comment that “If we could first know where
we are and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do
and how to do it” (Russell I. Thackrey, 1971). The phrase is a fitting introduction to a discussion of future directions of the doctorate education,
for ttoday’s doctorate education in China is at a crossroad. So we deem ittimely to reconsider “what the future directions might lay before Chinese
doctorate education”. There are some future possibilities that ought to be
paid attention to.
The possibility One: It may be witnessed that some initiatives will be
carried out in order to improve the quality of the doctorate education: (a)newly developed doctoral programs will be approved under a competitive
procedure than before; (b) the numbers of doctoral students for an advisor
to accept will be strictly limited in no more than 1 or2 annually; (c)Comprehensive evaluations for the doctorate education will be periodicallyconducted by external or internal sides of universities; (d) the originalcontribution of a dissertation will be highly expected and encouraged.
The possibility Two: numbers of academic doctorates ought to be controlled but the professional doctorate needs speeding up in the near future
because of some new changes of the employment for PhD recipients. The
Statistic indicates that the academic posts in academic communities, suchas universities, institutes have decreased from 61.1 percent in 1995 to 38.5
percent in 2006. On the contrary, the posts at other non-academic public
sectors, such as governments, middle and high schools, and enterprises
have increased from 5.6 percent to 16.7 percent during the same period.
The case requires the institutions promptly responsive to the changing
environment.
The possibility Three: More public funds will be expected to invest in the
doctorate education increasingly, partly because the public expenditure in251the doctorate education will keep increasing while its scale of enrolment
will be effectively controlled in the coming years. Once the public input
increases, the current state of the doctorate education will be greatly
improved. The additional expenditure might be used: (a) to improve somefacility and infrastructure such as classrooms, Labs, resource centers,
which are necessary for advancing teaching and research, (b) to increase
the R & D fund will be allowed to spend on the bonus, subsidy and othertreatments; (c) to enhance the standard of the fellowship that is importantfor doctoral students, (d) to set up some special programs available for
doctoral students to conduct their research at some prestigious universities demotic and abroad for one year.
The possibility Four: Further reforming the doctorate education will bedone in order to reshape a more flexible system including the schooling
length arrangement, admission procedure, curricular design and dissertation requirement and so on. In details, it is visible that percentage of thedoctoral students selected directly form the Master Programs will beenhanced greatly, which indicates that the Master degree is no more thanprecondition for those who are pursuing the academic doctorate.

6．Conclusion
The development of doctorate education in China over the last two
decades has many complex and multidimensional implications. It is clearthat the acclaims vs. criticism retrospect vs. prospect about the doctorate
education signals for ending an age of simply quantitative pursuit andbeginning with a period of claims for both the quantity and quality.
For a start, China has succeeded in shaping the entire system of doctorate education, from nothing in the early 1980s to something in the later
2000－namely the system of Chinese doctorate education is not what it
was any more. As Chinese doctorate education has been making efforts tointroduce the Western Model, norm as well as ideas, combining them with
Chinese traditional ones for less than three decades. Up to now, it becomesthe largest system worldwide in terms of its enrolment In a sense; Chinese
doctorate education has a good reason to display its achievement as252

Confronting Challenges of Chinese Doctorate Education with Rapid Expansion
proudly as a peacock. Generally the achievement of Chinese doctorate
education has been characterized by three aspects: First, a huge of
productivity of the doctorate has not only attached an importance to theInstitutions of Higher Education as suppliers of human resource, but alsoenhance the competitiveness of the Nation; Second, standards and conditions of the doctorate education have moved and continue to advance froma lower level toward a higher level of accomplishment; Third, the development of the doctorate education is mirroring the whole socio-economic progressive moves in the past twenty years.
Following with that, however, the doctorate education is being exposedwith some severe problems essential to deal with. First, China is a populous nation with one of the largest (naturally) but not one of thestrongest systems of the doctorate education; with one of the biggest
sources but not one of the most desirable destinations of the oversea
doctorate education. It means that Chinese doctorate education still lags
far behind that of many developed Nations, as makes China---the largest
developing country, can not help but suffer from the “brain drain”, eventhough it is said that it also benefits from the “brain exchanges” at the ageof the economic globalization and internationalization of higher education.
It ought to be realized that the comparatively advantage of scale in termsof the enrolment does not make any sense sometimes. Second, the qualitative issue of the doctorate education is under question. Some say that it
is a bad fruit of the rapid expansion with pursuit of quantity over quality,
but others argue that it is not. No matter what it is, it is a time for Chinese
doctorate education to speed down, and reconsider what it has done. This
does not mean an attitude of the negativism but criticism, for the criticism
is equivalent to the negativism. The criticism is a kind of reflection that is
helpful to our concerns about the doctorate quality. We are in an age of thereflection, in which something is worth of reflecting.
In the end, we believe that Chinese doctorate education is confronting
an unprecedented opportunity and challenge with a knowledge-based
global economy and internationalization of higher education. At thecrossroad of the future direction, although Chinese doctorate education
doesn’t necessarily stop moving forward, but indeed necessarily take a253break and have a look to recognize what the future possibility is ahead.
Just as an old saying in China expressed, “grinding a reaphook before aharvest doesn’t mean doing useless work”. It reminds us of what we put iton the top agenda today to place a priority on quality over quantity is infavor of a tomorrow’s faster and better progress. We believe that if China
maintains socially and economically stable in the coming years, its doctorate education will become not only one of the largest, but also thestrongest systems worldwide. If it can progress steadily, step by step, it
will certainly benefit the Nation as well as its people.
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中国における大学院博士課程の拡大と直面する課題
施
暁
馬
永
夏 目 達

＜要

光∗
霞∗∗
也∗∗∗

旨＞

1990 年代半ば以降、中国の高等教育人口は急激な勢いで拡大し、博士課程の規模も拡大するに至った。本稿は４つの節からなる。第２節
では中国における博士課程教育の現状を観察し、その形態や普及状況について述べる。第３節では博士課程教育の質的な変化に注目する。
すなわち、博士課程教育の驚異的なペースでの拡大によって、どのような諸課題が生じているかを考察したい。具体的には、予算に占める
政府支出の減少、学生の基礎学力低下、研究指導の不十分さ、コース
ワークや手続き上の未整備などの問題が挙げられる。第４節では、中国における博士課程教育の質向上と競争力強化のために４つの方策を提言する。これらの提言はまだ議論の段階にすぎないが、一定の方向性を示した上で意義があると思われる。

∗

北京大学教育学院・教授
名古屋大学高等教育研究センター・客員教授∗∗

北京理工大学教育研究所・教授∗∗∗

名古屋大学高等教育研究センター・教授

256