China to Limit Enrollments in Doctoral Programs

Beijing — China’s Ministry of Education has announced that it will slow the growth of doctoral-program enrollments at the country’s universities. China has become one of the leading producers of Ph.D.’s in the world, a government official said, and is concerned about the effect of that trend on academic quality. Yang Yuliang, head of the State Council Academic Degrees Committee, was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency today as saying that China had turned out 50,000 Ph.D.’s in 2006, up from just 19 in 1983. The agency said the rapid growth had led to the production of scholars of questionable quality. It is not unusual for a professor to advise more than two dozen doctoral candidates, the agency said. Xinhua added that more than half of the doctoral-program graduates had gone to work for the government. Mr. Yang told the agency that because most of those students’ tuition and living expenses were covered by the government, it is a waste of money to produce so many graduates for nonacademic employers. Mr. Yang said that China would limit growth in admissions to doctoral programs to less than 2 percent a year while setting aside more money for professional graduate training in areas such as business, law, and education. —Paul Mooney