CHINA: PhD explosion accompanied by quality fears

Often overlooked in the 'miracle' of China's rapid economic development over the past three decades is the 'miracle' of the massive number of PhD graduates it now produces, reports Stephen Wong for Asia Times. China is expected to replace Japan as the world's second biggest economy after the US this year or the next in terms of gross domestic product. But by 2008, it had already surpassed the US as the world's top producer of PhD holders - despite postgraduate programmes only resuming in 1978 after the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution.

Unlike national pride over China's economic success, the expansion of PhD programmes is viewed with suspicion, due to allegations that corruption in the education system has severely compromised academic standards.

According to statistics released by Yang Yuliang, the director of the Academic Degree Commission under the State Council, China's first PhD programmes in 1978 had only 18 candidates. In 1982, the first doctorates were awarded to six of the 18. Since then enrolment in PhD programmes has grown by some 23.4% annually and by the end of 2007 China had awarded 240,000 doctorates. But the number of qualified professors needed to supervise doctoral programmes has not kept pace, raising fears that quantity is not being matched by quality. According to Yang, each qualified Chinese professor has to supervise 5.77 doctorate candidates, much higher than the international level.
Full report on the Asia Times site