New plan to speed up HE alignment with national priorities

China has unveiled a new plan for 2025 to 2027 that goes further and faster in aligning higher education with national economic and strategic priorities. Its issue by the Central Education Work Leading Group – the Communist Party of China’s top body for education policy – signals that its rollout is considered a priority at the highest political level.

But accelerating measures to ensure the university system serves national plans and employment needs has also met with criticism among academics.

They warn that an overemphasis on immediate employment outcomes risks narrowing universities’ broader educational mission.

Students are also concerned about uncertainty because implementation of the plans means that programmes tend to be cancelled or restructured at short notice.

The Ministry of Education has already said its 2023 reform target requiring 20% of university majors to be overhauled by the end of this year was successfully met ahead of schedule.

Universities added 3,715 new undergraduate programmes, while 6,638 were cancelled or suspended, according to Luan Zongtao, deputy director of the Department of Degree Management and Postgraduate Education at the ministry, speaking to the media on 28 August.

By comparison, a decade ago in 2015, only 2,342 programmes were “adjusted”, according to official figures.

Vice-minister of Education Wu Yan acknowledged at a recent press conference that the “intensity of the adjustment is unprecedented”.

Forecasting platform

A noteworthy development in the new plan made public on 28 August is the creation of an artificial intelligence-powered big data platform to track talent supply and demand with “precision”, according to the official announcement.

The forecasting platform will analyse workforce demand nationally in key sectors, flag misalignments with university programmes, and provide early warnings on university degree majors that fall short of industry needs.

In its announcement at the end of August the government said the platform is already being piloted at several universities.

Zhang Duanhong, deputy director of the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai’s Tongji University, said it signaled a “more dynamic mechanism” to adjust higher education alignment to national goals.

To put it more bluntly, future decisions about which disciplines and new majors universities will establish will rely not only on expert judgment but also on real-time data analysis,” Zhang told local Shanghai media.

The system would also build on the existing Red-Yellow Card system implemented recently to hold universities directly accountable for subpar employment of their graduates. Under the new rules, programmes with graduate employment rates below 50% for two consecutive years will receive a yellow card warning, while those that fail to improve will be issued a red card, risking suspension or closure.

In June, Beijing also introduced an “extraordinary mechanism” to fast-track approval of majors deemed strategically important. Recent approvals centred on STEM fields, with majors such as low-altitude technology, and engineering granted priority approval.

This means they can leapfrog the centralised application system, which normally begins at least one year in advance of programmes being launched for enrolment. According to a Ministry of Education notice on 14 August, 120 universities have applied under the fast-track system to offer low-altitude technology and engineering programmes in 2026.

The government has hinted at even shorter approval periods under the new plan with a stated aim to further shorten the process to “innovate” the annual catalogue of approved undergraduate majors over the next three years.

Debate about ‘unbalanced’ change

But the rapid pace of restructuring under the plan has also sparked debate within China’s higher education community, including about whether the all-out drive towards science and technology and the high number of engineering degrees being brought in, while humanities and arts courses are culled, has gone too far at the expense of some traditional disciplines.

In April, drastic plans to halve the intake of humanities students at one of China’s most prestigious institutions, Fudan University, divided opinions among scholars.

Professor Joshua Ka-ho Mok, provost and vice-president (academic and research) at Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, acknowledged criticism that the system could become unbalanced in the long term as “more emphasis is being placed on practical and applied needs with employment considerations”.

“But I am sure the Chinese government has realised the impact of this shift and some universities with a strong humanities orientation are also supported to keep up their tradition,” Mok said.

After the release of the latest plan, many people also expressed concern that intensified closure, suspension, and transfer of majors could shut students out of their chosen fields.

Que Mingkun, executive director of the National High-End Think Tank Centre at Zhejiang University’s School of Education, was quoted by Shanghai’s official Wenhui Bao newspaper as saying: “In the face of rapid external changes, universities must maintain their composure, neither rushing to add new majors nor blindly closing down traditional, long-established majors without considering the university's specific circumstances.”

Jiabin Zhu, associate professor in the School of Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, told University World News, over-emphasising employment outcomes should be avoided as it can “undermine the development of talent needed for long-term technological innovation”.

“This critical issue should be approached holistically – by aligning with macro-level factors such as national strategy, industrial restructuring, and regional economic development,” said Zhu.

“[It should be] supported by middle-level [organisational level] elements including institutional discipline development and faculty capacity building, and take into account the ‘micro-level’ considerations, particularly students’ individual growth needs and the fundamental principles of talent cultivation,” she noted.

Criticism from students

Students turned to social media to express their growing anxiety over the uncertainty caused by the speedy overhaul, with many programmes having been cancelled, merged or restructured at short notice.

For example, the speed at which AI courses are being expanded has led to criticisms of low quality courses. Some students complained of faculty shortages and incomplete curricula for many of the new programmes.

Zhang suggested better career guidance for students, noting if the government’s new forecasting centre “can be connected to university career development centres, helping students understand industry trends, job opportunities and risks in real time, it will alleviate the uncertainty students experience as they adjust their majors”.