Chinese Graduate Student Tutorial System

The tutorial system is basic to postgraduate education, and plays an important role in it. The tutorial system can be divided into three types according to the number of tutors assigned to each student and their functions: the single tutor, the primary tutor with assistants and multiple tutors. Each of these three types has its advantages, serving a variety of students, time frames and areas of study. But regardless of the type of the system each has three functions: to enhance knowledge, ethics and creativity. Only through these functions can the tutorial system continues into the future of postgraduate education.The Chinese tutorial system, adapted from foreign systems, has made great contributions to postgraduate education in the last century. Today with the development of postgraduate education, the tutorial system faces new challenges. To the objective eye, the tutorial system, while retaining many advantages, lacks the flexibility to adapt to modern society's rapid changes. While we are justly proud of our strict standards in selection of tutors and the tight focus of their studies and instructions, we must recognize serious problems in cooperation and communication between tutors and non-tutorial faculty, the lack of coordination between multiple tutors, and the subordination of teaching to financial considerations.Many of these problems stem from the struggle between economies and excellent teaching. The changing market and the emerging technical economy have raised challenges for new solutions. At present we have no mechanism for producing new solutions and the result is that tutorial system has been caught unprepared, exposed to all kinds of problems. We must learn from these painful experiences. How we resolve these problems and make the Chinese tutorial system better serve postgraduate education must be the primary consideration of all tutors and postgraduate educators. Our first actions should be toward establishing a tutor training system, strengthening the tutors selection process, enlarging the tutor supervision program, enhancing interaction between multiple tutors, and release time for further study by tutors. The implementation of these coordinated actions will improve the tutorial system and greatly serve Chinese postgraduate education.