But at present, China's higher environmental education is the largest and most systematic in the world. Because many universities in China have independent environmental colleges or departments, but few in other countries, even in Japan, where environmental engineering developed earlier, its environmental specialty is often attached to civil engineering and other related departments.
China's environmental specialty began in 1970s. At present, about 40% colleges and universities in China offer environmental engineering, with an annual enrollment of about 20,000 students. From 1987 to 1999, the number of colleges and universities increased from 36 to 149, and in 2006 it rose to 305.
1973, only a few schools have set up environmental protection-related courses in undergraduate majors such as water supply and drainage, chemical engineering and metallurgy, or set up professional directions such as wastewater and waste gas treatment; By the time the college entrance examination was resumed in 1977, seven universities had enrolled students under the professional names of "Three Wastes Treatment and Comprehensive Utilization", "Environmental Pollution Control Project", "Environmental Protection" and "Environmental Pollution Prevention Project", and China had a real undergraduate major in engineering. 198 1 year and 1983 set up master's degree and doctoral degree in environmental engineering respectively. 1999, the postdoctoral mobile station of the first-class discipline of environmental science and engineering was established. At this point, the education system of cultivating environmental professionals at different levels in engineering environment specialty in colleges and universities is improving day by day.
The setting of environmental engineering specialty has also been adjusted many times. 1. 1984 The Ministry of Education decided to set up two undergraduate majors: environmental engineering and environmental monitoring. 1993 it is determined that the engineering environment specialty includes three majors: environmental engineering, environmental monitoring and environmental planning. When the major was adjusted to 1998, the major of environmental engineering was set up for environmental undergraduate majors, covering the original environmental engineering, environmental monitoring, part of environmental planning and management, hydrogeology and engineering geology, agricultural environmental protection and other majors. After years of development, environmental engineering has become an independent discipline.
The environmental major is very attractive, and it is also a sunrise major. In Tsinghua, the entrance scores of students majoring in environmental engineering are generally in front of the whole school 1/3. Personally, students who choose environmental engineering are often far-sighted students.
One of the reasons why environmental specialty is attractive is the cultivation of talents. First of all, students in this major have a wide range of knowledge. The courses of environmental engineering are very rich, including chemistry, physics, biology, engineering and other professional courses. Secondly, this major also cultivates the ability of combining micro-thinking with macro-thinking. For example, the concentration of some pollutants is as small as nanogram/liter, but its space is very wide, one large and one small, which just cultivates people's micro-thinking and macro-thinking.
In addition, this major also cultivates people's overall optimization consciousness. Environmental problems are very complicated. There are many kinds of pollutants, some of which are very persistent. Environmental problems often show strong comprehensiveness, regionality and timeliness. For example, the environmental problems in the east and west of China are different, and the problems before 10 and after 10 are different. Technology alone often cannot solve it, but also depends on humanistic means such as management, administration and sociology. Therefore, dealing with environmental problems is very beneficial to cultivate people's overall optimization consciousness.