-after a "poor" evaluation, the superior has a bad impression on you, which will affect the career of the school leaders; The society has a bad impression on you, which affects your admission; It also affects your source of funds.

Young teachers think your headmaster is also hypocritical. You cheated collectively, lied to the Ministry of Education and lied to the expert group. Students will think that your teacher is cheating, so let us help you cheat. What moral power does the school have to ask young people not to cheat?

We are all people sitting in the train, and suddenly we find that the train is going in the wrong direction, but no one dares to jump at this time.

-if we want to change, we should stop the administrative-led teaching evaluation and take social evaluation and peer evaluation as the basis.

-Our error correction mechanism is very insensitive. Once there are so many problems in any healthy place, we should find them quickly and correct them immediately.

Unlike most colleges and universities, which repeatedly mobilized, practiced in turn or even faked the evaluation, China University of Science and Technology chose "original ecology to meet the evaluation". They did not modify the original materials, disturbed the normal teaching order, and received the expert evaluation team with flowers.

In his shabby and crowded office, Zhu Qingshi, president of China University of Science and Technology and academician of China Academy of Sciences, accepted an exclusive interview with Southern Weekend reporter.

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"Original ecology" is because of self-confidence

Southern Weekend: Since it is an "original ecological evaluation", some materials may not be well preserved or do not meet the evaluation criteria. Aren't you worried that the examiner will give you low marks?

Zhu Qingshi: When it doesn't meet the standard, we will make the real situation clear. For example, the evaluation standard requires teachers to have lesson plans in every class, but some high-level teachers in the Chinese University of Science and Technology are familiar with the lecture content and are very busy, so they don't necessarily write lesson plans. Some old professors and middle-aged academic leaders, commonly known as "big professors", were invited by the school to give lectures to undergraduates. Can we ask them to write lesson plans in every class like primary and secondary school teachers? For these teachers, schools should tolerate their practices.

I have worked in the University of California, MIT, Cambridge University and Oxford University. Many professors have no handouts, but they speak very well. It is often the teachers at the top who say this. If you really write the handout in a watertight way, you can read it according to the book.

Southern Weekend: Can such an interpreter agree?

Zhu Qingshi: At that time, the leader of the expert evaluation team was an old educator, and they all understood. The regulations of the Ministry of Education are rigid, and experts can make this indicator come alive as long as they understand it. Real teaching is a very complex and vivid system, and it is difficult to frame it with a standard and unified framework.

In the end, we got a, but not all a, and some places really didn't meet its requirements. We don't argue that some indicators, such as classroom papers, are not uniform.

Southern Weekend: Did you get an A in your thesis?

Zhu Qingshi: We are confident that our thesis will achieve excellent results in the original ecology. There are many undergraduates doing papers in my laboratory every year.

But later, our "original ecological evaluation" was also attacked a lot. When other colleges and universities welcomed the evaluation, they all said that the sanitation in Dalian was not cleaned. The expert group came, and we invited them to classrooms, laboratories and offices, but they didn't sweep the floor.

Southern weekend: I heard that the judges were in class at that time, and the teacher was so absorbed that he didn't even prepare a stool?

Zhu Qingshi: The experts choose their own classes, but the teachers don't know. We didn't say hello to the teacher in advance. Some of them are planned, but we still have to organize serious preparations. Nothing is listed in advance, the experts are just looking around.

Southern Weekend: Where did your inner confidence come from?

Zhu Qingshi: First, we are confident. If HKUST is not good, I think few other universities can do better than us. Second, I think we still have backbone. We HKUST don't want to cheat and gain some false reputation.

If you say that we are unqualified, I will talk to the leader directly and ask for the corresponding funds to improve. This is our mentality. But later, undergraduate teaching evaluation became more and more superficial and bubbly.

Southern Weekend: When I looked at your photos, I found an interesting contrast. You greet the experts and just shake hands warmly. Now most schools are waiting for experts with flowers, and some even use police cars to escort them.

Zhu Qingshi: We strictly follow the regulations of the Ministry of Education in reception. For example, first, no flowers are allowed to greet you, and second, no gifts or banquets are allowed.

At that time, experts lived in the school's guest house-expert building. Some schools say HKUST is not serious. Later we learned the tricks of other schools. They disguised themselves as gifts for experts. For example, let the experts live in, then the complete sets of household appliances are newly bought, and finally let the experts take them away. We didn't do any of this, which is far from the atmosphere afterwards.

Southern Weekend: I remember Guo Chuanjie, secretary of the Party Committee of your school, once said to the experts, "We don't treat you specially, but respect your education and reputation."

Zhu Qingshi: We didn't deliberately arrange anything excessive to welcome the experts. We have backbone. We also believe that real scholars will not like that.

Southern Weekend: Have you done any infrastructure or something? Many schools have built many buildings before the evaluation.

Zhu Qingshi: We haven't made any superficial infrastructure.

Bubble hits academic integrity hard

Southern Weekend: There are not many confident universities like China University of Science and Technology. Most ordinary universities are nervous about evaluation and flatter experts. ...

Zhu Qingshi: Ordinary schools don't have the confidence, because undergraduate teaching evaluation is too important to get a "poor" evaluation. After a "poor" evaluation, your superiors have a bad impression on you, which will affect the career of school leaders; The society has a bad impression on you, which affects your admission; It also affects your source of funds. So I found a shortcut and wanted to reach these targets required by the Ministry of Education. These indicators should have been improved in teaching practice, but many schools find it too difficult to do so. Then his easiest way is to make experts happy and let them give you high marks. So experts get high marks, which doesn't necessarily mean that you teach well. The more evaluation, the more some schools think that we don't need to do well, as long as experts have a good impression and give high marks.

So everyone left the focus of public relations and work to evaluate these four or five days, and the carpet bombing left a good impression on the experts. Teaching evaluation has become stale and frothy. The so-called bubble means that you don't want anything real, just colorful.

Southern Weekend: Some scholars believe that this situation is damaging the credibility of the assessment itself. In the past one or two years, more than 70% schools have received excellent evaluations.

Zhu Qingshi: The credibility of current teaching evaluation lies in the bubble of results, which has seriously damaged academic integrity.

I know the teaching evaluation of many colleges and universities, mobilize professors from various departments to make fake materials and let students participate.

This is the most serious problem. These young teachers think your headmaster is also hypocritical. You cheated collectively, lied to the Ministry of Education and lied to the expert group. Students will think that your teacher is cheating, so let us help you cheat. Then, in the face of these students and teachers, what moral power does the school have to ask young people not to cheat?

A person's personality is slow, but it is easy to be destroyed. After being destroyed, it will take at least one or two generations to rebuild.

Zhu Qingshi: It's hard to tell the truth.

Southern Weekend: Li Zhihong, deputy director of the evaluation center of the Ministry of Education, told me that more than 90% of university presidents think the evaluation is good.

Zhu Qingshi: How about this? Only after we get it can we tell the truth. Now everyone should put in a good word. I have been a principal for ten years, and the most uncomfortable experience is that I know some truth, but if I tell it truthfully, I will be accused. For example, we are all people sitting in the train and suddenly find that the train is going in the wrong direction, but no one dares to jump at this time. Because you have to take a big risk at this time. If you jump out of the car, even if you land safely, others will not recognize you and think you are very unsociable. So everyone has herd mentality. Everyone is wrong, and so am I. Correct me and then correct me. It's safest to do this.

In fact, many principals, including me, think this (evaluation) is not feasible when they speak in private. But few people are willing to say it publicly.

Southern Weekend: So the principals have to run all the way on this train?

Zhu Qingshi: That's right. The headmaster should strive for excellent evaluation. Every headmaster is driven by hidden rules during his term of office. Only by doing this evaluation well can he become competent and capable. If your school is good, but the result is worse, people will think you are a very incompetent principal. On the other hand, if your school is not very good and the results are good, people will think you are a very capable principal. Everyone in this position will bear the pressure of this collective subconscious. I am also like this, and I often have subconscious pressure.

Southern Weekend: I remember you once said, "Have fun with the people for three years, don't judge for three years, and don't hold meetings for three years".

Zhu Qingshi: This feeling was very strong during the SARS period. There were no meetings and evaluations in those six months, and everyone was at ease in their studies.

After ten years as president, my greatest contribution to HKUST is to save HKUST from many troubles in these years. For example, HKUST has not expanded its enrollment on a large scale. It recruited 1300 every year in 1998 and 1800 every year in 200 1 year, and it has been maintained until now.

Southern Weekend: Few universities can resist the temptation of expanding enrollment.

Zhu Qingshi: We haven't built a new park either, which is also very stressful. When the local government wants to build a university town, people hope that HKUST can take the lead. My initial thought was that I couldn't let the school toss. Resolutely resist building new parks. There is no need to expand enrollment, our land is enough. Teachers can work and live quietly in this environment, which is why the teaching and scientific research of China University of Science and Technology has suddenly become more prominent in China in recent years.

Our school is ashamed that there is not enough land and there are not many high-end houses built. Academician like me, the houses are all 107 square meters. But this environment is nice and quiet, and I can also study. There is a steady stream of excellent talents. So in the past ten years, my main contribution to HKUST is not what I did, but what I didn't do.

The evaluation should stop.

Southern Weekend: What needs to be improved in the current teaching evaluation system? How to ensure the quality of higher education?

Zhu Qingshi: The success of the school is not judged by the evaluation of the superior organization. The best university in the world depends on the influence of society and is evaluated by society. For example, employment situation, contribution to society, etc., these are the most real assessments. In the 58 years since the establishment of China University of Science and Technology, one in every 1000 undergraduates has been elected as an academician of China Academy of Sciences or Academy of Engineering. No matter how you evaluate it, this figure shows that our undergraduate teaching is good.

At present, undergraduate teaching evaluation is characterized by strong administrative dominance. It is very wrong to evaluate different types of universities with the same standard.

Southern Weekend: Li Zhihong, deputy director of the evaluation center of the Ministry of Education, also believes that the evaluation criteria will be reformed in the next round.

Zhu Qingshi: If he wants to change, he should stop the administrative-led teaching evaluation and take social evaluation and peer evaluation as the basis.

The Ministry of Education should reduce the number of experts enrolled in schools and insist on monitoring the normal data such as employment rate, teacher-student ratio, specialty setting and teaching syllabus, which is a good way to ensure the quality of higher education. It's like going to see if the ecology of a forest is good. It's best not to go in and stand outside and watch. If you go in, it may destroy its ecology. At present, the major setting and running direction of China University are seriously converging! This is a problem that the Ministry of Education should make great efforts to evaluate and solve.

Southern Weekend: But some people think that it is impossible without strict evaluation, especially after the expansion of enrollment has reduced the teaching quality of colleges and universities.

Zhu Qingshi: I don't agree with that. To play a good role, evaluation must have a foundation. Only when this foundation is reached can evaluation promote you. Like our school, when it comes to evaluation, we use the original ecological method. This evaluation has played a very good role, and our school is also very happy that experts have found problems and improved them. However, if the same standards are used to require a school with no foundation at all, they may be forced to make fakes.

Take the marathon as an example, and set a time to pass the race. If it is for a marathon runner, it may improve his performance. If it is used on people who have no foundation, they can't run hard within the specified time, but they can't afford to lose. What can we do? Only fake, doping, or falling on the road!

Southern Weekend: Your metaphor is vivid. ...

Zhu Qingshi: I think the Ministry of Education is too slow to respond to the problems found in this evaluation. There are so many problems, why not stop them quickly? Our error correction mechanism is very insensitive. Once there are so many problems in any healthy place, we should find them quickly and correct them immediately.

What should be summed up now is that the original intention is good, but this indicator only applies to a few schools and a few types of schools. Perhaps the Chinese University of Science and Technology is suitable for such indicators, and schools like Peking University, Tsinghua and Fudan University also have such a foundation.

For schools with far different conditions or completely different types, stop such evaluation as soon as possible, otherwise these schools will be destroyed. This kind of destruction is not physical destruction, but refers to the destruction of academic morality, causing some long-term serious injuries. Also, these schools were quickly pushed into a bubble.