From now on, candidates who apply for Ph.D. candidates will encounter a question: Is it an academic doctor or a professional doctor?

Although there are differences in individual candidates' choices, there is no doubt that the recruitment of specialist doctoral students will usher in a peak in recent years.

Recently, the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council and the Ministry of Education issued the "Professional Degree Postgraduate Education Development Plan (2020-2025)", stating that by 2025, focusing on major national strategies, key areas and major social needs, a batch of master and doctoral professional degrees will be added. Category, greatly increase the number of doctoral degree graduate students, and further innovate the professional degree graduate training model.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Education, as of 2019, a total of 3.218 million professional masters and 48,000 professional doctors have been awarded.

Some experts predict that after a substantial increase in enrollment, the average annual award of professional doctors will reach more than 20,000, which is close to one-third of the current doctoral scale.

Professional doctorate and academic doctorate "same level but different in nature"

  Since this year, a series of adjustment and optimization policies for graduate education have been continuously promulgated, and "enrollment expansion" is one of the obvious signs.

This time the "Plan" clearly stated that the enrollment of professional masters should be increased to about two-thirds of the total scale, which will greatly increase the number of professional doctoral students.

  In fact, for the first time in 2017, the number of enrollment for professional masters surpassed that of masters. By 2018, the enrollment of professional masters accounted for nearly 58%. The enrollment of professional masters has increased to about two-thirds of the total scale. There is no problem.

In other words, this "program" presents the most meaningful and noteworthy changes for doctoral training, especially for the development of professional doctors.

  What is a professional doctor?

What is the difference between a professional doctorate and an academic doctorate?

  "Professional doctors and academic doctors are both at the level of doctoral education, and their training goals are different. Academic doctors emphasize the'top of the sky' and are committed to original research on frontier theoretical issues; professional doctors focus on the'site' and emphasize on complex engineering technology Or creative solutions to management problems.” Professor Liu Yamin of Wuhan University described the difference between the two.

  In 1920, Harvard University first launched the professional doctoral program in the field of education, establishing a doctor of education, aiming to solve practical education problems and "seeking career development in the field of practice"; while the academic doctor, as the "guardian of the discipline", still focuses on academic Research is value orientation.

  "From the beginning of establishment, these are two degrees of equivalent but essentially different levels." According to Professor Bao Shuimei of Lanzhou University, "the essential difference between professional doctors and academic doctors lies in the training objectives, knowledge structure, training model and talents. The quality standards are different.” Specifically, the purpose of academic doctoral training focuses on academic innovation, and professional doctoral students mainly cultivate specialized application-oriented talents in specific social occupations, such as engineers, physicians, teachers, lawyers, etc., and the training purpose focuses on applied technical capabilities.

  At present, many colleges and universities require professional doctoral candidates to have a certain number of years of practical work experience.

Candidates have worked in an administrative position in a university in Beijing for 7 years before applying for a professional doctorate in Li.

She chose to apply for a professional doctorate because she wanted to "study with questions".

The proportion of professional doctors is small, academic doctors are facing "market dislocation"

  In 1997, my country's professional doctorate was established for the first time in the field of clinical medicine, and a total of 436 students were enrolled the following year.

Up to now, six professional doctoral types have been established in engineering, stomatology, education, veterinary medicine, clinical medicine and traditional Chinese medicine. In 2018, a total of 6784 professional doctors were recruited.

  The scale of professional doctoral enrollment is increasing every year.

Even so, in the eyes of some people, there is still room for expansion of the scale of professional doctoral training in my country.

The reason they gave was that in some countries with advanced higher education, professional doctorate accounted for more than half of the total number of doctoral degrees awarded.

  A study by Wang Tan, a doctoral student at Central China Normal University, shows that in the past 20 years, my country's professional doctoral enrollment has expanded by about 16 times, while the total number of doctoral enrollment has only increased by 6.4 times in the same period.

  "In 2018, the number of professional doctoral students in my country was at the highest level in history, and it still only accounted for 7.1% of the 95,502 doctoral students enrolled that year." Wang Tan told reporters, "Regardless of the absolute number or the proportion, my country's professional doctoral students Compared with an academic doctor, the gap is huge."

  The development of professional doctors has entered the fast lane, and there is another factor that cannot be ignored-market demand.

  The "Plan" proposes that the development of doctoral professional degrees is lagging behind, the category is single, the number of authorized points is too small, and the training scale is too small to meet the needs of the industry for doctoral-level applied professionals.

  "From a structural point of view, the proportion of academic PhDs is too high, and the supply exceeds the demand. Their traditional employment channels, such as teaching or academic research in universities or scientific research institutions, are getting narrower and narrower." Liu Yamin found that more and more Many academic doctors go to industries and companies to engage in technology research and development or management.

As a result, the actual supply and actual demand "have been misaligned". It is necessary to increase the type of professional doctors and expand the scale of professional doctoral enrollment through structural adjustments on the supply side to meet the urgent needs of industries and enterprises for high-level application-oriented talents.

  "It is a global trend for doctoral employment to get out of the'ivory tower'." said Wang Chuanyi, an associate professor at the Institute of Education of Tsinghua University. According to the annual follow-up survey of Ph.Ds graduated from 5 to 25 years by the National Science Foundation, only about half of the Ph. Teaching in the annual college.

  This ratio is lower in our country.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Education, as of the end of 2018, only about 38% of Ph.D. graduates in the country had jobs in universities and scientific research institutions.

  Wang Tan’s research confirms this trend. “With the gradual expansion of the enrollment scale of doctoral students and the gradual saturation of academic labor positions, the destination of doctoral graduates is diversified, and the traditional connection between doctoral degrees and academic positions has begun to decouple. PhD graduates have increasingly engaged in non-academic work."

  Regarding the increase in the scale of professional doctoral enrollment, Liu Yamin is difficult to give an accurate judgment, but she frankly said that "the newly-added doctoral enrollment plan will be mainly used for professional doctors."

She predicts that in recent years, professional doctors will focus on incremental adjustments and gradually transition to stock adjustments. "In 10 years, professional doctors in my country are likely to go hand in hand with academic doctors."

Professional settings cannot blindly pursue quantitative expansion

  Liu Yinan, a graduate student of the Communication University of China, is preparing to take the exam.

She has not been affected by the policy of "expanding professional doctors".

On the one hand, colleges and universities have not issued specific plans for professional doctoral admissions. On the other hand, in the field of journalism, there are no professional doctorates.

  In which fields should a professional doctor be added?

What is the standard?

  The "Plan" puts forward that the focus of the establishment of doctoral degree categories is engineers, physicians, teachers, lawyers, public health, public policy and management, and other professional fields that have high requirements for knowledge, technology, and ability. It can also be based on economic and social development. Demands, in accordance with the principle of one maturity and one demonstration, set up in other industries or specialized fields, generally should have a good foundation for the development of master's professional degrees.

  In theory, a substantial expansion of enrollment should be achieved by adding professional doctoral categories.

At present, there are no corresponding professional doctoral types for professional masters such as law masters and public administration masters in high demand.

When setting up a professional doctorate, should there be a corresponding academic degree?

  The development of professional degree graduate education is a whole. The transition from a mature professional master to a professional doctor is a natural trend, but it does not mean that all professional masters will necessarily have corresponding professional doctors.

Liu Yamin said, “This depends not only on the market demand for doctoral-level applied talents, but also on the training conditions of universities themselves.”

  In our country, the government plays a leading role in the examination and approval of professional doctoral programs, type setting, and enrollment plan, and market regulation appears to be relatively weak.

Wang Tan suggested that professional doctors should take the path of high-quality development, and not blindly pursue category addition, distribution increase, and number expansion.

Professional doctors and academic doctors must avoid homogeneity

  The reporter's investigation found that in the past few years, having academic doctorate authorization points is an important support for applying for professional doctorate authorization points. The number of academic doctoral supervisors is a necessary condition for applying for professional doctorate points, but problems will follow.

  Wang Chuanyi said frankly that after entering the school, if professional doctors continue to use the conditions and methods for cultivating academic doctors, they may fall into a dilemma-that is, if the academic requirements are reduced, there is no strengthening of the training orientation of practical innovation, and neither "learning" nor "Professional", professional doctors can easily become inferior to academic doctors.

  Similar problems already exist at the professional master's level.

  Following the same logic, the country has greatly increased the number of enrollment for professional masters in the past ten years, and students' acceptance of professional masters has continued to increase.

Like professional masters, professional doctors have high requirements for the number and quality of professional practice bases and off-campus tutors. Many universities are still trapped in the traditional concept of "emphasizing learning and neglecting skills".

  Wang Tan found that there are two extremes in the training of professional doctors: one is to treat them as "non-staff", which excludes them from the academic doctor training model, and does not form a more mature and independent training model; the other It is regarded as an "attachment" and almost copied the academic doctoral training model, which runs counter to the training goal of "complex and practical" talents.

  "The key issue facing the construction of professional doctors is to find a way to avoid the homogenous development of academic doctors, that is, how to strengthen the practicality." Bao Shuimei suggested that this practicality should be implemented in the whole process of professional degree graduate training. It reflects that classroom teaching can be alternated with practical teaching, increase the proportion of hours and credits in practice, reform the presentation of degree thesis, and use research reports, planning and design, and at the same time, combine professional doctoral education with the qualifications of the corresponding industry Connect with the exam.

  "The development of professional doctoral education has ushered in a significant period of opportunity, but it is still facing the problem of homogeneity, and as the scale grows, the optimization of training conditions becomes more urgent. The construction of a production and education integration base and a dual tutor team and educational evaluation Institutional reforms must be advanced as soon as possible." Wang Chuanyi said.

(Reporter Chen Peng)