Amidst the dilemma of Chinese university students facing “graduation equals unemployment,” the news of Sichuan University considering a one-time “cut” of 31 majors has sparked heated discussions. Netizens lament the fate of these once popular majors now facing revocation, with some attributing it to changes in the job market and criticizing the school for seeking quick gains.
On July 12, multiple mainland Chinese media outlets reported that Sichuan University’s Academic Affairs Office disclosed the adjustment of majors for the year 2024. Following the declaration by colleges, expert assessments, reviews by the School Academic Instruction Committee, and approval by the School Affairs Council, the university plans to propose one new major, prepare for five majors, and revoke 31 majors for the year 2024.
The majors slated for revocation include: Musicology, Performing Arts, Animation, Insurance, Radio and Television Studies, Information Management and Information Systems, Public Administration, E-commerce, Applied Physics, Nuclear Physics, Biotechnology, Materials Physics, Materials Chemistry, Metallurgical Engineering, Non-metallic Materials Engineering, Electronic Science and Technology, Electronic Information Science and Technology, Security Management, Industrial Design, Network Engineering, Architecture Environment and Energy Application Engineering, Environmental Science, Urban and Rural Planning, Engineering Cost, Landscape Architecture, Hydraulic and Hydroelectric Engineering, Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering, Textile Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering, Safety Engineering, Information Security.
It is reported that Sichuan University covers disciplines in Arts, Science, Engineering, Medicine, Economics, Management, Law, History, Philosophy, Agriculture, Education, and Art among 12 categories, with 37 discipline-oriented colleges (departments) and institutes such as Overseas Education College. Among the majors to be revoked, majors such as Security Management, Nuclear Physics, Applied Physics, Information Security, Musicology, and Network Engineering had previously stopped enrollment.
Additionally, majors like Drama and Film Literature, Nuclear Chemical Engineering and Nuclear Fuel Engineering, and Costume Design and Engineering were revoked due to not enrolling students for several years.
The newly proposed major by Sichuan University is Biomass Technology and Engineering. There are also five majors in the preparatory stage: Classical Chinese Studies, Intelligent Information Engineering, Intelligent Construction, Intelligent Engineering and Creative Design, and Medical Devices and Equipment Engineering.
Sichuan University’s rare move to revoke 31 undergraduate majors has left many netizens nostalgic:
“How many of these majors were established during their popular times?”
“Among the revoked majors, many were once popular majors.”
“The majors being revoked are also the ones not recruited for civil service exams.”
“Sichuan University should have axed Journalism.”
“No more Civil Engineering?”
“What majors are left in the Materials Science College? Polymers and Material Formation?”
“When will English be revoked?”
“A list of the hottest majors for job prospects.”
“Over a decade ago, more than half of them were popular majors, now they are being revoked outright.”
“Wasn’t Biotechnology considered a rising industry in the 21st century? Why revoke it?”
Regarding the preparatory majors prefixed with “Intelligent,” netizens commented: “Intelligent Construction is essentially Civil Engineering, Intelligent Engineering and Creative Design is an enhancement of Architecture with language programming.”
Some believe that this is a display of the utilitarian nature of universities, not delving into basic academic research but instead expending resources to cater to market demands, competing with vocational institutions. “For what reason? Seeking quick gains?”
According to a post by the self-media “Education and Study Notes,” the revocation of these majors falls into several categories: some are professions completely eliminated by the market, with graduates unable to find jobs, such as E-commerce, Public Administration, Urban and Rural Planning, and Radio and Television Studies, these majors are effectively in a state of natural extinction. Some of the revocations in engineering majors are due to professional adjustments and mergers, like the Nuclear Physics major, which Sichuan University has now restructured into Nuclear Engineering and Nuclear Technology.
With Sichuan University planning to revoke a large number of majors, it comes at a time when Chinese university students are facing employment challenges during the peak graduation season.
Official data indicates that by 2024, the number of graduates from Chinese universities reached a record high of 11.79 million. According to a report on the employment prospects of university graduates for 2024 released in May by the Zhaopin Recruitment Platform, as of mid-April, only 48% of graduates had received informal employment notifications, indicating a worse situation compared to the previous year.
Voice of America quoted a teacher from a university in Guangzhou on July 4, revealing that the employment rate of graduates from their college was around 45% by the end of June, and she did not directly see the data for the entire school, “but it should be at the same level.”
Japanese political commentator Li Yiming previously told Epoch Times that the Chinese Communist Party’s education system has been unreasonable for decades, especially around the year 2000, during the tenure of then CCP leader Jiang Zemin, the Minister of Education Chen Zhili pushed for the industrialization of education. “Many universities expanded massively, schools began to upgrade, secondary vocational schools became universities, junior colleges became undergraduate institutions. As a result, many technical professions were not being cultivated.”
He analyzed that China does not have enough high-tech enterprises to absorb those with higher education, and the lower-tier technical industries lack sufficient skilled workers. Hence, technical colleges are more likely to secure employment than general universities due to this reason. In Germany, high school students are directed into either technical schools or general universities, roughly in equal proportions.
Li Yiming believes that the employment difficulties for young people are inevitable due to the problems within the Chinese Communist education system, compounded by economic decline, a downturn in real estate, and the departure of foreign companies.
The unemployment rate among Chinese youth aged 16 to 24, including students, has been rising significantly since last year, reaching a record high of 21.3% in June, significantly higher than similar indicators in major Western countries. In July last year, Beijing University professor Zhang Dandan’s statistics showed that the actual youth unemployment rate in China reached a staggering 46.5%.
To conceal the soaring unemployment rates, the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics announced the suspension of youth unemployment rate data in mid-August 2023. By mid-January 2024, the Bureau reissued the unemployment rate data for young people excluding students, which stood at only 14.9%, criticized by the public as an attempt to cover up the truth.