Beijing (China Daily/ANN) - China's Ministry
of Education urged universities around the country to enroll fewer students in
programs that usually lead to low employment.
Student intake in these unpopular courses will
be downsized, even the programs canceled altogether, if less than 60 percent
graduating in these subjects in two successive years failed to find work, said
the ministry.
This is the latest move of the ministry in
ensuring employment for university graduates, whose number will reach 6.8
million in 2012, an increase of 200,000 since the current year.
"I could have opted for majoring in
another subject, if the ministry's policy change happened earlier," Wang
Huan, a 27-year-old man working with a travel agency, told China Daily on
Tuesday.
He majored in Russian language, but found his
Bachelor's degree was not good enough to win him a decent job in 2006.
"Now most of my classmates are working in
fields that do not require Russian-language skill, and I have forgotten how to
speak Russian," he said.
Wang Bing, who manages a company for
facilitating business in Russia, told China Daily that Russian language
graduates used to be sought after in Northeast China years ago.
"But we have rarely hired graduates
majoring in Russian language in recent years," he said on Tuesday.
However, teachers of the now-unpopular
subjects have reasons to worry about the new policy.
"Enrollment was cut down from 50 students
in 2008 to 25 this year," a Russian teacher in Shenyang Normal University,
who refused to be named, told China Daily. "The new policy will further
downsize our department, and many teachers might lose their jobs," the
teacher said.
"It's too late for teachers to change
what they majored in," the teacher said.
Han Zijing, a professor of Chinese language
department, Chongqing Normal University, doubted whether reducing the number of
students studying the so-called unpopular subjects was a good idea because
"it is hard to define what a good major is".
For example, biology engineering used to be a
hot major and drew talented students, but its market demand has remained small.
"The country still needs talents in this
field with a long-term view, though many graduates are not able to find a
decent job in the last two or three years," he said.
"The ministry should figure out a special
measure to sustain the programs in subjects that may not lead to a high rate of
employment, but are indispensable to the process of human cultivation, such as
theoretical physics and history research," said Chen Xi, a 27-year-old
doctorate candidate at the institute of semi-conductor under the Chinese
Academy of Sciences.
He also questioned the basis of determining
the employability of a particular subject.
"What is the definition of high
employment rate? Some students got jobs unrelated to their majors. Do they
count in this pool as well?"
The ministry also said, for the first time,
that small and middle-sized enterprises should play greater roles in attracting
more university graduates, according to a notice released on Monday.
"Educational departments will endeavor to
build more platforms to facilitate communication between graduates and these
enterprises," the Minister of Education, Yuan Guiren, said.
"We will promote an information service
system for university graduates around the country by July in 2012," he
said.
"We are also researching how to make use
of text message and micro blog to share employment information with
students," he said.
Many institutes and companies were involved in
developing related information system in China.
"We are targeting at bridging market
demands and school supplies to provide an information platform to both
parties," said Zhao Yuehua, a senior editor of the magazine China
University Students Career Guide.
"We will feed students' profiles into a
computer matching system, and serve both employers and employees," he
said.
Chen Jia in Beijing/China Daily | ANN
Liu Ce and Luo Wangshu contributed to this
story.
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