From 20 14, full-time professional masters officially ended the history of "self-financing" and were included in the national postgraduate funding and scholarship mechanism together with academic masters. What impact does this change have on professional degree education? Under the background of deepening the reform of postgraduate education, as the focus, difficulty and breakthrough point of the next stage of reform, how should professional masters achieve the goals of "first-class level, outstanding characteristics" and "cultivating high-level applied talents"?

"Equal treatment" has finally become a reality.

"The cancellation of the' dual track system' this time has achieved' equal treatment' in the true sense, which is definitely a good thing for the development of full-time professional masters." Speaking of the changes in the enrollment of 20 14 professional masters, the heads of postgraduate work in many universities expressed the same view.

In recent years, in order to meet the demand of economic and social development for high-level applied talents, the state has begun to vigorously develop professional degrees. Since enrolling full-time professional degree graduates in 2009, the state has mainly used the annual increment of the enrollment plan for professional degree graduates to compress the degree plan of not less than 5% in the stock and increase the professional degree plan. It is estimated that by 20 15, the ratio of full-time professional masters to academic masters will reach 1 1.

According to the source of funds, the original postgraduate enrollment in China is divided into three categories: national plan, self-financing and entrusted training, and full-time professional degree graduates have always been among the "self-financing". Accordingly, some schools allocate free academic masters and self-funded professional masters according to the test results. Therefore, "at one's own expense", "low score" and "no scholarship" seem to be the labels of "inferior" professional masters.

This year, the three ministries and commissions have successively issued policies such as improving the investment mechanism of postgraduate education, canceling the "dual track system" of state planning, self-financing and entrusted training, and dividing it into "oriented" and "non-oriented" according to employment methods. All students pay tuition and enjoy scholarships.

In fact, professional masters have been developing continuously in recent years and are increasingly recognized by candidates and employers. Ministry of Education's Report on Comprehensive Reform and Acceptance of Professional Degree Postgraduate Education shows that the first choice admission rate of all professional degrees has been improved to varying degrees. Incorporating professional masters into the national postgraduate funding and scholarship mechanism will undoubtedly eliminate the most important identity barrier between professional masters and academic masters, and truly achieve "equality."

Connecting with vocational qualification certification into a new direction

The realization of "equal treatment" also poses a new challenge to graduate education-what is the difference between professional master and academic master? "If there are no characteristics, there is no need to set up a professional degree separately." Du Zhanyuan, Vice Minister of Education, came straight to the point at the recent conference on promoting the reform of the training mode for professional degree graduates.

"Taking the occupation demand as the guidance, focusing on the cultivation of practical ability and combining production with learning as the way" is considered as the outlet for full-time professional degree graduates. The direction is clear, but how to embody professional ability in curriculum and practice teaching? Practical ability is a prominent feature of high-level applied talents. In order to solve the problem of students' internship in enterprises, some provinces have established enterprise graduate workstations with the help of the government and the investment of enterprises.

The connection between professional degree and professional qualification certification is regarded as a new direction that conforms to the personnel training specifications of industrial enterprises. At present, the master of engineering has been connected with professional qualifications such as project management, logistics and equipment supervision. He Kebin, director of the Education Steering Committee for Engineering Master's Degree, said: "On the one hand, the connection with vocational qualification certification increases students' employment competitiveness, on the other hand, it also reacts on the school, making the talent training mode better correspond to the post. "

Reform needs both motivation and traction.

Although more and more professional degrees recognize the "shortcut" of vocational qualification certification, it is not easy to get through this road.

Some industries have not yet established a clear professional qualification certification system. For example, coach is one of the goals of professional degree training for master of physical education, but there is no uniform requirement for the qualification of coach. He Kebin said that his steering committee for master of engineering education had contacted several industry associations, hoping to discuss the standards of personnel training, but found that these associations paid little attention to personnel training, and most of them only stayed at the level of industry intranet.

The existing vocational qualification certification, because its examination and certification power is not in the education department, needs the cooperation between departments to realize the docking with professional degrees. "In this regard, it is very difficult to rely on only one university or one region. Need a higher level of support and institutional guarantee. " He Kebin said.

In He Kebin's view, there is another "teacher contribution evaluation mechanism" which obviously needs to be changed. In recent ten years, the trend of evaluating teachers in colleges and universities in China has been cultural, and the engineering background of teachers has not been taken seriously, so the phenomenon of' scientists training engineers' has appeared. It is suggested that through the reform of evaluation mechanism, teachers' enthusiasm for cultivating professional masters can be better mobilized. "

At present, the state and education departments have introduced a number of measures, which constitute a strong driving force for the development of professional degrees. In the future, it is more important to create traction, such as strengthening the responsibility of enterprises to accept student internships through tax incentives, so that the talent market can give a stronger signal to the enrollment and training. If there is only driving force without traction, then the push will encounter resistance.