Ministry acts to improve postgraduate education

The Ministry of Education will strengthen its management of postgraduate students and the institutions that cater to them, in order to improve the quality of postgraduate education in China, according to guidelines issued on Monday.

The ministry and the academic commission under the State Council released the guidelines, which require that universities and institutions that grant degrees to postgraduate students should be examined and appraised each year by experts sent out by the academic commission, and those that do not meet the standards of "nurturing qualified postgraduates" will lose their qualification to issue such degrees.

The guidelines also said random inspections of doctoral and master students' dissertations will be carried out to see whether there are any problems.

The guidelines state that, each year, 10 percent of doctoral students and 5 percent of master's students' dissertations will be examined and the results will be an important index to evaluate the teaching quality of the university or institution's postgraduate program.