[photopress:mba_too_many_doctoral_degrees.jpg,full,alignright]China sees more doctoral degree holders being created annually than the United States.The Ministry of Education has decided this is too much and something has to be done to curb rapid expansion of doctoral programs at universities,
According to the Shanghai-based Evening News, Yang Yuliang, who heads the office of the State Council Academic Degrees Committee, said China produced about 50,000 doctors in 2006. This is a similar figure to that of the United States.
According to the statistics the national expenditure on research and development was roughly one ninth of the U.S. federal R&D spending in the same year.
Taking the base of 50,000 in 2006 and the average annual growth rate of PhD candidates’ admission of 26.7% from 1999 to 2003, probably more than 60,000 people obtained their highest academic degrees from Chinese universities, which made the country the biggest producer of PhDs in the world.
Unlike the U.S. where most doctoral degree holders go to higher learning and research institutions in China more than half of graduating doctors go into government.
With irrefutable logic Yang Yuliang said that due to the fact that tuitions and living expenses of doctoral candidates are mostly covered by the tax money it is a waste to produce so many doctors for non-academic organizations.
Yang said the ministry is going to keep the doctoral program admission growth rate under 2% each year while setting aside more resources for professional graduate training, such as masters of business administration, law and education.
Source: China View