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As a native Chinese who graduated from a 211 & 985 college in China just few years ago, I think there are really some media manipulation going on here. It's no
by est 15y ago
As a native Chinese who graduated from a 211 & 985 college in China just few years ago, I think there are really some media manipulation going on here.
It's not they are going to do this, the Ministry already started this rule in as early as 2004-12-10.
The problem it trying to solve is that, there are too many low-level buzz-word fancy term majors created in Chinese universities, like "nanotech", "earth science", or "life science".
These majors often only covers a superficial fraction of the subject, and allows quick rote learning only on some intro theory, then quickly issue a diploma. The hardcore part of knowledge is hard thus left to other traditional majors
Why do Chinese have diploma greed? Because diploma is a hyper-inflation profitable industry in China. Nearly every bullshit job requires a BS degree, they employer just want to make the company staff looks "better educated"
These "hot" majors are not really teaching any knowledge, but an easy way to grab a degree, so the students can gain their entry to various job titles. The college make lots of money by expanding cheap majors.
But the students learns too few to start a serious career, so in a competitive job markets these students have much higher failure rate than similar harder majors.
In fact, corrupted officials/businessman can order famous univ. to create a special, private major for themselves, their daughters and sons. They don't even have to spend full 4 year time school to get a very high degree.
In addition, "new & new" majors" name is very similar to other authentic ones (aka ShanZhai majors) but requires a lot less effort to accomplish.
So the Ministry started to ban major frauds, under the name of "low employment rate".
Are they going to cancel or stop funding traditional liberal arts majors? I don't think they are really that stupid. Are there humanities majors effected by this rule? Sure.
- d_r 15y agoThis does make much more sense compared to the assumption we immediately jump to ("eliminating liberal arts majors.") Actual facts aside, what is fascinating is how we arrive to this assumption. The article only mentions "unemployable graduates." Nowhere does it mention humanities or specific majors. It is then we, the readers, who apply our Western worldview and assume this means "humanities majors."
- Tsagadai 15y agoFor what it's worth, the article did end with a mention about humanities majors in the closing line, "psychology, U.S. history and military technologies". While not humanities, Military technologies is an easy one to work out why people are unemployed. There are few people employed in military industries who weren't in the military, hence difficulty finding work. So it is easy to see why comments are about humanities when the article's closing line singles humanities out. Thanks to the grandparent poster for the deeper insight.
- lunaru 15y agoIf what you're saying is true (that this program is targeted at "shanzhai" majors) than this is very different from what this article is trying to portray. In that case, the comments in this thread are a perfect example of how little people understand about China and how everything is portrayed through the lens of flawed media. It's a shame that everything we hear about China here in the states is from second-hand sources that have more interest in telling a shocking black and white story than portraying the gray truth.
- mladenkovacevic 15y agoI've lived in a communist country for 10 years of my life so perhaps I am biased, but I've had a similar suspicion that there's a media war going on against China and their policies (whether intentional or as a side-effect of stereotyping). Certainly there are some Chinese policies which deserve serious criticism, which is why I get really suspicious when numerous articles mockingly talk about about other, less-relevant flaws in China's society such as imitation (fake Apple stores, imitation American jets and cars), developing advanced tech in a careless, half-assed way (high-speed train crashes), or carelessness about the environment (3 Gorges Dam) and then applying this mindless, careless progress as something unique to China.. or dare I say communism. The truth is if you looked at the advancement of any modern superpower you will see nothing but the same kinds of flaws. I'm not saying this kind of crude, unstoppable progress is a good thing.. but passing it as something that's just part of the Chinese mentality is probably a poor representation of the true values of the culture as a whole.
- est 15y agoIn this specific piece, Chinese domestic media started the bias first. The Chinese media (including the State-run ones) industry always bend things to a most ridiculous dramatic angle.
- ansgri 15y agoGood expression for diploma hyperinflation, "Nearly every bullshit job requires a BS degree".
- yinhm 15y agoWhy "Nearly every bullshit job requires a BS degree"? The answer is in the news report:"a generation of jobless graduates."
- pullo 15y agosadly enough the emphasis on education (a good thing) in asian countries (china and india especially) is a driver for diploma greed. there are plenty of institutions , hand in hand with the govt administrators, which set up shop with little or no infrastructure. the stigma associated with someone who does not have a college degree is high and you can forget about a job as a high school grad when a college grad shows up to do the same work. too many students, too few good institutions and corrupt officials result in phantom diploma's. hence many times , the real education starts at the workplace. if the original article is correct, then it would seem they are just shifting unemployment from one kind of majors to another, cause there was no mention of employement shortage in other majors.
- baby 15y agoI know from a reliable source (worked in the gov. now working as a teacher in a uni). People just bullshit with their resume. My friend told me a had a student who did 100+ published articles whereas she is less than 30years old. Everytime she does a shitty stuff she says it's an article, and she steals articles from other people also... Apparently people do that in university.
- dasil003 15y agoDamn I'm glad I learned passion for a craft first, and the importance of social signaling later.
- philwelch 15y ago> "Nearly every bullshit job requires a BS degree, they employer just want to make the company staff looks "better educated". These "hot" majors are not really teaching any knowledge, but an easy way to grab a degree, so the students can gain their entry to various job titles. The college make lots of money by expanding cheap majors. But the students learns too few to start a serious career, so in a competitive job markets these students have much higher failure rate than similar harder majors." Brilliant. They figured out what we were doing in America and then turned around and did it better.
- ErrantX 15y agoAnd now are attempting to fix it. Perhaps that puts them one step ahead.