University admonished for 'inappropriate' practices

The education authority of Hunan province has instructed Shaoyang University to correct the inappropriate talent introduction practices of 23 doctoral graduates after the institution's "brain gain" talent campaign triggered heated debate online.

According to a release by the province's department of education on Sunday, an investigation team was sent to the university and Peng Xilin, the university's Party secretary, was removed from his post for this "imprecise and unscientific" talent introduction campaign.

On July 7, Shaoyang University announced on its official website that it will introduce 23 doctoral graduates, who had all majored in philosophy and received their doctorates from Adamson University in the Philippines.

Twenty-two out of the 23 candidates were teachers already working at Shaoyang University before starting their doctoral studies in the Philippines.

According to the announcement, the university will give each of the 23 doctoral graduates an allowance of 844,000 yuan ($125,000) to help them start their research and cover their rent, which amounted to more than 18 million yuan in total.

The announcement soon caused controversy on social media. Netizens and industry insiders speculated that the talent introduction campaign was a preparation for the university's application to qualify for granting master's degrees in 2023.

According to a standard by the Department of Degree Management and Postgraduate Education of the Ministry of Education in 2020, a university applying for granting master's degrees should have an eight-year history of granting the bachelor's degree, and have at least 25 percent of its teachers with doctoral degrees and 80 percent with master's degrees.

Shaoyang University has currently suspended the page with its teachers' education background on its official website.

It's not the first time that the university has sent its teachers for doctorate degree study at overseas universities that it cooperates with. For example, the university released a notice in June 2019 that it would send 20 teachers overseas for doctoral study. The applicants should be aged below 27 years old at the time (in 2019) and who already have master's degrees in education, information technology or business management.

Xiong Bingqi, director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, said in an interview with Xinhuanghe, a new media outlet of Jinan Daily, that it's inadvisable to introduce doctorate graduates who have taken "crash courses", while domestic universities should change their views on overemphasizing teachers' education backgrounds.

He said that while teachers' education background matters, their teaching ability and academic research ability are also important. He added that it's key for the nation to reform the management and evaluation system of higher education to help tackle these problems.