Universities taking tougher line with slow master's, doctoral candidates

More universities in China have expelled graduate students who failed to obtain their degrees within the maximum allotted time.

Guangzhou University in Guangdong province expelled 72 graduate students recently for exceeding the time limit－five years for master's degrees and seven years for doctorates.

Similar actions have been taken by other universities. Hefei University of Technology in Anhui province failed 46 postgraduate students. Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu, Sichuan province also said it would expel graduate students who have stayed more than the maximum time, though it did not give the number of students.

Lyu Jian, president of Nanjing University in Jiangsu province, said during the two sessions that it is not unusual for postgraduate students to fail at their research and not get a degree.

Advanced degrees should be difficult to get, and the country should establish a selection system mid-way through postgraduate studies to weed out students that are unfit for advanced research, so that they will not waste more of their time, Lyu said during a Nanjing Broadcasting System interview.

The Ministry of Education has asked universities with advanced degree programs to strengthen their supervision of student enrollment and management after a few high-profile academic misconduct cases tarnished the reputation of the country's postgraduate education.

Universities should scrutinize every step of graduate research and academic paper writing, from choosing a research topic to defense of the dissertation, it said in a statement recently.

Supervisors should serve as role models for advanced degree candidates, and any supervisor found with ethics violations or covering up misconduct will be dealt with seriously, the ministry said.

Universities and educational authorities should also carry out more inspections and random checks on students' academic papers and hold violators accountable, it added.

Chu Zhaohui, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences, told China Daily: "This is a wake-up call for many Chinese graduate students. It is better for them to learn the lesson at school than after graduation."

Because the country has enrolled more graduate students in recent years, it should implement stricter standards and increase academic pressure to improve the quality of university education, since their research forms the backbone of the country's scientific and humanitarian breakthroughs, he said.

Students who do not graduate within the required time are actually consuming precious education resources that could have been given to other students, he added.

The country has also strengthened its requirements for undergraduates, with poor students facing delays in graduation or downgrading of degrees.

Eighteen students at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, Hubei province, have been downgraded from a bachelor's degrees to associate degrees because they fell short of the school's academic standards in 2018.

Among the 4,119 graduates of Yunnan University last year, 220 had their graduations delayed because they had insufficient credits, and six students were expelled.