Postgraduate Professional Education in China: Control Mechanisms and Learning Process

Abstract

China’s strong economic growth is undoubtedly due to a set of government initiatives, among which the priority projects are the reform of the higher education system. Since the 80s of the last century, the state has paid special attention to the training of scientific personnel. Thanks to far-sighted state planning and strong budget financing, China has created a competitive national system of postgraduate professional education almost from scratch. As a result, if only 9 postgraduate students were trained in 1978, then in 1985 – already 17004, in 1998 – 47077, and in 2018 – 604368. The number of doctorates degrees awarded from 2005 to 2018 more than doubled: from 27,677 to 60,700.The important factors in the formation of the system of postgraduate education is the promulgation of national laws and regulations governing this area of educational activity, a well-built mechanism for managing the work of postgraduate studies and a strict system to control all stages of the educational process for masters and doctoral students. Therefore, this article focuses on the organization of the learning process in Chinese universities and academic institutes, as well as the management mechanism of the national system of training scientific personnel.In addition, according to the data of China's Ministry of education, official statistical information, publications that are publicly available on the Chinese Internet, as well as scientific articles published in major publications around the world, it is shown how the number of universities and academic institutions that train masters and doctoral students, as well as the number of students, admission and graduation of specialists have changed over the past ten years.