Analysis on the legality of implementing the last elimination system of graduation thesis: Article 8 of the Regulations on Academic Degrees in People's Republic of China (PRC) stipulates that undergraduate graduates of institutions of higher learning with excellent grades shall be awarded bachelor's degrees; Postgraduates in institutions of higher learning and scientific research, or persons with the same academic ability as postgraduates, pass the course examination and thesis defense for master's (doctoral) degree and reach the required academic level, and are awarded master's (doctoral) degrees. One of the requirements for awarding degrees to graduates is "those who have reached the required academic level", which is a vague provision with unclear meaning: whether the scope of "excellent grades" refers only to students' professional courses or also includes graduation thesis is unknown; It is not clear whether the "regulations" in "those who have reached the prescribed academic level" refer to the regulations of the education administrative department or the self-discipline regulations of schools. At present, "Higher Education Law" and other educational laws and regulations have no specific provisions on "the last elimination system", which is the need of legal generality and stability. Faced with the absence of law, we can only draw the conclusion of relevant issues according to the relevant provisions of the Higher Education Law and the legislative spirit: according to the Higher Education Law, colleges and universities enjoy the corresponding autonomy in running schools. Faced with the ambiguous meaning of Article 8 of the Regulations on Academic Degrees in People's Republic of China (PRC), colleges and universities can formulate specific standards for issuing diplomas and degree certificates within the scope of their autonomy and according to their own actual conditions. Implementing the elimination system of graduation thesis is the embodiment of the corresponding autonomy of colleges and universities, which is in line with the legislative spirit of the higher education law.
The basis of implementing the last elimination system-establishing a scientific quantitative evaluation system for graduation thesis. The premise of implementing the last elimination system is that the school must organize experts to establish a very scientific and reasonable quantitative evaluation system for graduation thesis, so as to accurately evaluate the students' thesis level, make the eliminated people convinced and accept the elimination results, so that the last elimination system can be easily implemented. At present, some schools have actively explored the establishment of quantitative evaluation system for graduation thesis. For example, the requirements for thesis quality in the graduation design (thesis) defense and comprehensive scoring table of Xi University of Technology are: clear organization and rigorous structure; Fluent in writing and language; The method is correct and the analysis and demonstration are sufficient. However, the quality of graduation thesis is difficult to evaluate. For example, the graduation design (thesis) defense and comprehensive scoring form of Xi University of Technology require that the answers to questions have theoretical basis, the basic concepts are clear, and the answers to main questions are accurate and in-depth. The required score is 30 points. However, if the teacher asks A a few difficult questions and B some less difficult questions, the students' scores will be unfair, and the whole grading process will be greatly influenced by the teacher's personal likes and dislikes, which will aggravate the unfairness of the grading results. In order to avoid the influence of subjective factors such as teachers' likes and dislikes, some schools employ off-campus experts to implement an anonymous graduation thesis evaluation system. However, due to the heavy workload, it is difficult for anonymous assessment system to cover all students, and in fact it is difficult to implement. For example, the answer to the main question is accurate. For science and engineering, due to the restriction of natural laws, the answers can generally be divided into correct ones. For liberal arts, the answer to a question can be different because of different research methods, so it is difficult to define whether the answer to the main question is accurate or not. Therefore, we regret to see that it is difficult to achieve absolute justice in the implementation of the last elimination system. What we do is to make the system run as fairly as possible. In order to ensure fairness to the greatest extent, we should be cautious when implementing the last elimination system. In a university, we can first adopt the last elimination system in some departments, sum up experience in time, and then promote the last elimination system in the whole school after the system is mature.
Fair guarantee of the last elimination system: procedural justice The last elimination system belongs to university punishment in nature. University punishment is a non-profit burden that universities unilaterally decide to give to students based on the needs of education, teaching or maintaining discipline. It is equivalent to administrative punishment in legal nature, which directly affects the legal status and rights of students, so it must follow the requirements of due process in administrative law. The last elimination system of graduation thesis in Chinese universities should reflect the legitimacy of the procedure. At present, there is no provision on the elimination system of graduation thesis in laws and regulations, but we can learn from the provisions on administrative punishment and administrative punishment in administrative law to improve the system, thus fully embodying the requirements of the principle of administrative procedure legitimacy. We assume that the process of final elimination of graduation thesis can be divided into the following parts: decision-making procedure: the organization that decides which student's thesis is finally eliminated should be the department defense Committee, which is composed of experts with senior titles in this discipline, so as to ensure that the main body evaluating the thesis level has a considerable professional level. When the national defense commission decides to eliminate candidates, it can vote by difference. For example, if the last n students are to be eliminated, the object available for elimination should be the worst n×( 1+20%). When the final eliminated candidate is elected by voting from the above-mentioned personnel, his mentor should withdraw and should not enjoy the right to vote. Informing procedure: When the student's department informs that the student may be eliminated from the bottom, it should fully explain the reasons and basis for the decision. For students' questions and explanations of their own papers, the defense committee should listen and answer patiently and fully, give students full and open opportunities to defend themselves, and ensure students' right to know and defend oneself. After the student department makes a decision on the last eliminated candidate, it shall inform the interested parties in writing, and inform the other party of the consequences of the last eliminated candidate when serving the elimination decision, and inform them that if they refuse to accept the decision, they have the right to apply to the academic Committee of the school for reconsideration. Relief procedure: If students are not satisfied with the decision to be eliminated last, they should have the right to apply for reconsideration to the academic committee of the school. In colleges and universities, academic committees should be responsible for accepting such complaints, and stipulate the scope and time limit for handling student complaints. According to the principle of peer review, the evaluation of highly professional affairs should be evaluated by peer experts, because only the evaluation of peer experts is the most professional and authoritative. Therefore, academic degree evaluation committee, who is composed of multidisciplinary experts, can only make a procedural review of the decisions of the departments' defense committees, but not a substantive review, so as to prevent the situation of "laymen judging experts".