Peking University’s College of Economics and Guanghua School of Management both recently announced that as of the first term of 2003, they will no longer grant admission to doctoral program applicants that want to pursue degrees while maintaining full-time employment.

Though this move has only been made by these two colleges, it has become the focus of heated media attention and even been called the first blow in a new fight against “degree corruption” in China’s institutions of higher education Degree corruption is a term given to a practice common among universities nationwide since the late 1980s. It refers to a specific body of part-time students, mainly made up of government officials and entrepreneurs, who easily earn Master’s or doctoral degrees despite doing relatively little academic work Moreover, such students have their tuition fees paid by their work units or employers or totally waived by the universities.

One major reason for the development of the degree corruption problem has been attributed to the government’s policy of requiring strong academic backgrounds for higher positions in order to improve the quality of top levels of leadership. According to an editorial run in Beijing Youth Daily on January 5, “If the practice of these two colleges of Peking University was expanded to all universities in China, that would go a long way towards fighting degree corruption by preventing part-time graduate students from using public money to pursue degrees.” Both schools, however, told Beijing Today that their basic intent in launching the plan was to improve the overall quality of their doctoral programs, not to specifically address the degree corruption issue.

Raising Doctoral Standards

“With the aim of ensuring all doctoral students have sufficient time to conduct their research work, we have decided to only enroll those students that will be able to devote themselves full-time to their studies,” said Huang Guitian, a teacher from the College of Economics of Peking University. He added that in the past, the college had to make some adjustments to its academic schedule, for instance moving some courses to weekends or holidays, to accommodate the needs of part-time doctoral students.

“That led to inconveniences in our daily arrangements,” Huang continued. “The lack of sufficient time and energy among some part-time students to really go after their studies was the main issue.” The College of Economics is now considering redesigning its graduate programs to raise the requirements for earning advanced degrees.

The decision to no longer enroll part-time doctoral students is just one part of the college’s overall reform efforts, Huang stressed.

The Guanghua School of Management has stated it had similar motives in making the policy change.

“Starting as early as 1998, our school stipulated that tutors under the age of 50 are not allowed to instruct part-time doctoral students, and that policy was later extended to all our tutors,” said Tu Ping, vice president of the Guanghua School. As a result of demands at work, most former part-time doctoral students missed many classes, Tu added. He said that with the school’s increasing emphasis on academic rigor, it has become all but impossible for part-time students to keep up with course work. According to Tu, the school will double the number of required courses while also raising the standards for examination and dissertation performance.

“Our goal is to strengthen management of the awarding of degrees to guarantee the quality of our graduate education, and that demands the absolute devotion of students to their research,” he said. Tu continued that officials or entrepreneurs that failed to concentrate on their studies would probably end up eliminated through competition anyway.

The Struggles of Part-timers

Beijing Today interviewed two doctoral students from the Guanghua School of Management, both of whom expressed approval of the new enrollment standards.

“It’s really difficult for part-time students to earn PhDs since they can’t fully focus on their studies,” said Tian Kun, who enrolled in Ganghua School in 2000 as a doctoral student after earning a Master’s degree at Peking University. Tian passed his doctoral qualification exams, required before starting thesis work, after acquiring over 40 credits in his first year-and-a-half of studies, a course load he said was a heavy burden even as a full-time student.

“I think the school’s emphasis on strengthening academic work is a good way to help us build up a strong base for dissertations. Part-time students who lack sound knowledge of theory can greatly benefit from all the required coursework,” added Tian. Bao Minggang, another doctoral student at the Guanghua school, said, “Even though some part-time doctoral students manage to pull off studying and working at the same time, it’s definitely more difficult for them to fulfill all the requirements because they are more easily distracted.n his view, the ease with which some part-time students have received higher degrees at some universities is completely unfair.

“This kind of degree corruption hurts us full-time graduate students, because we may lose enthusiasm in devoting all our time to our academic work,” said Bao. Both men, however, admitted that most of their part-time classmates are serious about their studies, though they are sometimes unable to attend classes due to work obligations.

A Rising Trend

While taking measures to improve doctoral education, these two schools have emphasized that their decision in no way means they are turning away experienced people who wish to continue their studies in order to further their career development.

“We only require prospective students to give up their current jobs during their three or four years of graduate study so that they can be fully focused,” said Huanguitian.

Peking University is not the only prominent university to take such steps in order to improve the quality of its doctoral education system.

Renmin University of China is considering requiring working doctoral candidates to promise to devote at least one year to full-time study, according to Liu Dachun, vice president of graduate studies at the university.

He stressed that whether a doctoral candidate studies full-time or part-time, the key element to academic success is the strictness of a university’s overall graduate program.

“I think the requirement that doctoral students study full-time will become a trend sooner or later,” said Tian Kun. The decision of our school at least conveys the message that we will turn away doctoral candidates who cannot guarantee absolute devotion to their studies or who hope to bump along to a degree.

(Beijing Today January 15, 2003)