China’s Education Revolution: China's Strategic Embrace of Professional Master's Degrees by 2025

To meet the demands of the job market in China, the government has decided to emphasize the importance of professional master's degrees in China. Based on this recent China education news, to increase the empirical capabilities of the students in China, the government will be promoting the development of postgraduate education in the country. 

In a conference on 19th December 2023, the Education Ministry of China stated that it is aiming to increase the inclination for a Master’s degree in China and increase it by two thirds by 2025. A professional master'smaster degree drives students towards the practical implication of their theoretical knowledge in distinctive fields. The aim is to change the public perception that the academic master’s degree is the one that focuses on academic and scientific research and has more value than the professional master'smaster degree. 

The training that will be provided throughout this master'smaster in China will help the students in equipping skills that are sought after in the Chinese job market. The growing competitiveness of the job market in China has made it difficult for the industry giants to choose athe qualified lot of students for specific jobs. The number of college graduates in China has reflected a continuous hike of 210,000 year on year. This number is expected to reach 11.79 million by 2024. in the year 2024. 

“China had around 3.65 million postgraduate students in 2022, in the country in the year 2022, which is the second highest across the globe”, as stated by Ren Youqun, Head of the Ministry’s Department of Degree Management and Postgraduate Education.

The ministry has highly emphasized on the fact that both the master’s degree, which is the academic master'smaster degree and professional master'smaster degree, are equally significant and important. China aims to continuously increase the number of postgraduate students with professional degrees within the country to benefit the growing demand for skilled workers in the job market. The institutions that grant master'smaster degree in China are instructed to emphasize more on the professional grooming that brings out the vocational skills in the students. By the year 2025, the government aims to increase the professional master'smaster degree in China to two-thirds. There is continuous growth visible in the trend of students enrolling for a professional master'smaster degree in China, as the number surpassed 60 per cent in 2019. 

Some institutes have also extended their program and prolonged it to three years, given it has a different orientation than the academic master'smaster degree. “Currently, 74 per cent of master's students at the university are pursuing professional degrees”, said Jiang Peixue. 

“The new guideline proposes classified development, pointing out a path for promoting professional master's degrees”, stated Xion Bingqi, Director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute. 

The guideline specifically outlines the importance of concentrating on a student’s ability to perform practically and solve problems independently with all the bookish theories learnt. This is specifically for the evaluation of the dissertations. The dissertation will include practical assessments for the professional master'smaster degree a along with case analysis and product design. Across 4.38 million students in China have applied for a postgraduate degree in the country. The entrance exam is scheduled for 24th December 2023. Although, when we look at the year-on-year number, the number has dropped by 7.6 per cent which is a huge fall in around nine years.