Beijing - China's Education Ministry declared a major step by removing more than 12,000 “obsolete” undergraduate degree programs, accounting for 30 percent of
the country’s total university offerings across the 2021-2025 period, while also introducing
10.2000 of the new tech-focused programmes, to align higher
education with the nation's development goals.
According to The South China Morning Post, the removal
campaign comes as China races to become a global leader of the hi-tech “future
industries” and solve a severe graduate jobs crisis among young Chinese people.
The cancellations have been heavily concentrated in the fields
that are increasingly seen as outdated or oversaturated subjects in China, including arts, humanities, foreign languages, and management, which is known as the background of 16 percent unemployed young people
at the job market – that being rapidly replaced by artificial intelligence
transformation.
On the other hand, the new programs are closely aligned
with Beijing's economic development goals. As an example, nine universities
have added new majors in embodied artificial intelligence, which are related to the national-driven goal to speed up the integration of next-generation AI into the real
economy.
Universities have faced pressure to adapt to rapid changes
in the Chinese economy over recent years, as graduate numbers have soared to
record levels, but many have found their degrees offer little help when it comes
to finding work.
Senior Researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences Chu Zhaohui warned that switching one program for another is only going to be a short-term fix, and deeper changes to higher education may be needed to adapt to an era of accelerating technological change.
