Research On The History And Present Situation Of Chinese Academic Degree System

We should start studying the origins of the Chinese degree system from imperialexamination system, which was one of the important forms for academic evaluation inmodern China. All of this laid a solid foundation for the development of Chinese degreesystem which would be based on the primitive system and incorporated related experiencefrom the international degree system in a critical way from then on. After the Opium War,"Western language" and "Western technology" schools were built, which provided a basis forthe introduction of the Western degree system. Western degree system could be introduced bytwo main ways: one way is with the help of the Chinese students abroad, the other way is withthe help of foreign mission in China. In addition, Western countries established ChurchUniversities which introduced their degree system to China.During the period of the Republic of China, Ministry of Education promulgated"University Act" in October,1912, which explicitly stated many aspects such as the degreename, the degree censorship, the qualifications for degree awarding and the degree recipientand so on, which symbolized the establishment of Chinese modern degree system. Some lawsrelated to degree system were issued by Yuan Shikai in the early times of Republic of China,which is a vital and pioneering work of the degree system after years of wonky attempts andabsorbing and incorporating international experience related based on actual situation ofChina. These laws have designed main body frame and the basic pattern of the Chinesemodern degree system, which is a milestone in the history of Chinese modern degree system.As for the construction of degree system during the Northern warlords Governmentperiod, firstly, the bachelor degree design system is comparatively comprehensive;post-graduate education-university institute also had been clearly defined, there is only theintention to set the degree system of master’s and doctoral, but there is no detailed rules aboutit. The rules or the regulations were just mentioned, which were not worked out eventually.During the Nanjing national government period, degree system had been set upfollowing the American model. In the earlier times of the Republic of China, degree systemhad been designed by the Ministry of education in accordance with Chinese own degreesystem which based on government regulations, decrees, regulations, system, etc. the degreesystem took the Church Universities’ system as a model which based on the experience ofmodern degree system of western countries and based on the constructional experience ofdegree system of indigenous universities. In the earlier period of Nationalist Government,China’s degree system had been relatively improved. In particular, the establishment that thethree levels of degree systems i.e. bachelors, masters, and doctoral, has indicated a gradualimprovement in the degree system of China.The Anti-Japanese war had caused serious destruction in old China, however,institutional degree construction in China did not stop, Instead, kept on improving, especiallyin the systematization construction of the Bachelor’s degree. Postgraduate education had beenformed primarily in the early Republic of China, objectively which had laid the necessaryfoundation for the development of the degree system during the war and provide possibleground for the construction of doctoral degree system. Government further improved thesystem at the level of policy and institutional, which formed a complete procedure ofBachelor, master, and doctoral degree-awarding system. After the establishment of PRC, our government received and reformed the primitivecolleges and universities, then gradually our government reformed higher education system.The degree system twice went through the process of formation and bankruptcy, and thedegree system was finally completed in1964. however, unfortunately the "culturalrevolution" broke out, which led to the stagnation of degree system development even goingbackwards.After the reform and opening up of China,"the People’s Republic of China DegreeRule" is the first most complete degree legislation. This rule implemented officially in1981.It symbolizes the start of new Chinese degree system standardization process. The degree rulepromulgation, necessary documents, laws, and regulations formulation has provided the legalsafeguard for the Chinese degree system, and also provided the concrete standard and theguideline for safeguarding the personnel training quality. In particular, based on the originallaws and regulations system, a series of laws and regulations related to degree system havebeen successively formulated and promulgated since1986, which further accomplished therelated legal framework, and promoted degree system continuous development in our country.On the basis of reviewing and summarizing the development of the Chinese academicdegrees system, this article analyzes and grasps the general situation of the current Chineseacademic degrees system, which is helpful to deeply understand the existing problems and inmore favor of solving the practical problems. Through the thorough and careful researchinvestigations to the certain agencies, departments and stakeholders, can we find somerealistic problems, which can provide the necessary evidence for improving the currentChinese academic degrees system.This research mainly adopted the methods of literature review, interview, questionnaireinvestigation, and so on to conduct the deep research. Through the research, the authorsummarizes and analyzed the current situations of Chinese academic degrees system, thesettings&functions of the degree organization, the standards&conditions of the degreeawarded, the procudures of the degree awarded in China, etc. Aiming at the existing problemsof the current Chinese academic degrees system, this article discusses the related problemsfrom several levels. The specific problems are mainly reflected in the following aspects:1. On the issue of the relationship between macro management and independentmanagement.2. The guidance and standard of degree authorization departments.3. On theissue of degree legislation.4. Layout on disciplines point.5. The regulation and idea of thedegree.6. The division and establishment of the audit authority.7. On the issue of the auditprocedure.8. Supervising mechanism.9. The subsequent development of degree-grantingunits.10. The discipline establishment of degree-granting units.11. Divorced from the reality,the degree-granting units raising the level of running the school.12. The establishment andthe composition of the academic degrees committee in the degree-granting units.13. Therecognition inconsistency on the property of degree-granting audit and management.In addition, through the analysis of the three representative typical degree systems in theworld, U.S, U.K. France, we get some important lessons and inspirations. This articlediscusses and analyzes the degree systems of the developed countries from the followingperspectives: degree authorization, degree characteristics, degree regulations and Ph.D degreeconfer systems. Combined with chinese actual situation, we can get the following inspirations:from the Mediation-Leading-Model, represented by U.S and Multi-governing Model, represented by U.K, we can learn that on the basis of adhering to the national macro-control,through the moderate decentralization, the mechanism of the degree authorization auditingcan be formed, which managed by the central and provincial government, clarified byresponsibility and right. the relevant assessments by the professional organizations andindustry associations have been carried out in the US, France and UK. In view of theimperfect related system, the unbalance of the the professional and industry organizations, ourcountry can attempt to have the different reform of degree system based on the actualsituations of the different regions. In addition, learning from the advanced experience abroad,through the social organization or the third party intermediary assessment agencies involvingthe higher-education evaluation, the quality of conferred degree can be guaranteed. Even ifthe government being the main body of auditing the degree-confer, the appropriatequalifications and levels of civil organizations can can also be commissioned to perform theaudit in order to offset the insufficient profession of the government. At the same time, byimproving the relevant laws and regulations, can provide the legal basis for the degreeauthorization to follow. As for the Ph. D training, we can implement the method of U.S, whichis the joint-training by the Ph.D supervisors from the same or similar specialties.Through the study of Chinese degree system history and the comparative research ofChinese—foreign degree system, according to the root of the problems, taking history as amirror, foreign things serving China, combining with the current situation, can we have agood speculation of the future improvement and development in order to reconstruct themodern Chinese degree system. On the basis of the main system design principles of definingdegree-granting audit and management, according to the existing problems and releventprinciples, from macro-, medium and micro-levels, this article tries to put forward followingbasic suggestions and strategies to improve our current degree system.1. Improving the relevant laws and regulations and its relief approach.2. Straighteningout the relationship between the macro-management and independent management of thedegree-granting units.3. Strengthening the guidance and standardization of thedegree-granting units.4. Overall arrangement and rational distribution on disciplines pointand training unit, increase the flexibility of degree authorization department.5. Confirmingthe status of the provincial government on the audit and management of degree authorization.6. Refining the auditing procedures of degree-granting.7. Strengthening the supervision andmanagement, reduce the factors of human disturbance in the course of degree audit.8.Strengthening the publicity and supervision, promote the standards of subsequentconstruction on degree-granting departments.9. Achieving the effective integration of variousassessment methods, improve the effectiveness of degree audit.10. Respecting the academicdiscretion of dissertation defense committee.11. Establishing the degree EvaluationCommittee according to discipline, highlighting the academic status of the system running.12.Adjusting the disciplines settings of degree-granting department, improve their socialadaptability.13. Setting up provisional degree Committee, and improve constantly themechanisms of evaluation and review.