Recently, the attention of social media was once again drawn to Huang Deng, a teacher at a second-tier university. In her works "My Second-Tier Students" and "Home Visits," she focuses on the stories and growth dilemmas of the majority of "ordinary students," resonating with many.
Xu Qiang, the President of Chengdu University of Technology, came across Huang Deng's speech on social media, where she mentioned her students exhibiting "silence and obedience after being disciplined," and their growth showing "an increasingly serious trend towards homogenization"... Xu Qiang reflected on the current pain points in talent cultivation in higher education.
China's higher education system ranks first in the world in terms of scale, but expansion in scale does not equate to improvement in quality. Many students in ordinary universities face the devaluation of degrees and employment pressure while also confronting the urgent demand from society for top talent and innovative elites.
How can ordinary university students avoid becoming mere "tools" catering to job positions, and leave more room for advancement to "top-tier" for more students? Recently, Xu Qiang was interviewed by a reporter from "China Science Daily."
Enterprise and market perceptions should reach universities
"China Science Daily": How do you understand the concept of "top talent"?
Xu Qiang: When we talk about cultivating top talent, we must avoid falling into a misconception that cultivating top talent is exclusive to top research-oriented universities. Talent cultivation follows different tracks, each capable of producing top-notch talent.
Talent tracks can roughly be divided into research-oriented, application-oriented, technical skills-oriented, and other types, corresponding to top scientists at the forefront of international science and technology, strategic scientists; talents who can bridge theory and practice to effectively solve practical problems in the economic battlefield and meet major national needs; and skilled craftsmen at the forefront of production. Currently, ordinary universities mainly focus on the intermediate type of top talent.
However, there exists a talent "hierarchy" in societal perceptions, where research-oriented talent is often seen as top-tier, application-oriented as second-tier, and technical skills-oriented as third-tier. This understanding is biased and can affect policy-making and resource allocation.
It is worth noting that talent cultivation must be based on mutual selection, especially emphasizing students' interests, preferences, and strengths. In other words, this track should be actively chosen by students. However, current vocational education often streams students too early and uses grades as a one-size-fits-all criterion, which does not align with the natural growth trajectory of talent and may lead to some students choosing the wrong track.
"China Science Daily": What requirements do you think "top talent" should meet?
Xu Qiang: Years ago, when I was the Dean of the School of Environmental and Civil Engineering at Chengdu University of Technology, I conducted some market research. I wanted to know, starting from the demand side, what kind of talent is most competitive and favored by enterprises and the market.
Many might assume that enterprises would choose students with rich professional knowledge and outstanding professional skills and abilities. However, their answers were surprisingly consistent - compared to such "specialists," they value individuals who possess professional skills as well as a broad knowledge structure, capable of integrating knowledge from multiple disciplines such as science, engineering, humanities, and management, while also having self-learning abilities, critical thinking, communication and collaboration skills, and especially the ability to adapt flexibly to change.
This not only surprised me but also deeply moved me. In the context where universities tend to emphasize the cultivation of specialized talents, enterprises and the market have long targeted versatile, comprehensive talents, hoping that young people in their careers possess the ability to continuously unleash potential and value, rather than being mere "tools" for immediate use.
The reason behind this is their belief that the market and industries are changing rapidly, with new positions and formats emerging constantly. The specialized knowledge students learn in school is only a limited foundation, far from sufficient to meet the future needs of adapting to market and industrial development. In fact, such requirements also align with individuals' needs for self-growth.
In a sense, enterprises and the market's perception of "top talent" is ahead of universities.
Our talent cultivation is too "narrow"
"China Science Daily": To align with the demand for top talent, where do the shortcomings of current university talents lie, and what are the reasons behind them?
Xu Qiang: Our talent cultivation is too "narrow."
China's higher education has long been under the system of "professional education," where the concept of "profession-first" has permeated all aspects of talent cultivation. The highly specialized talent cultivation model overlooks the development of students' comprehensive abilities and humanistic qualities. Students may be competitive in the short term, but lack sustainability and struggle to meet future development requirements.
I have always believed that science and engineering colleges, in particular, need to strengthen general education to promote the integration of arts and sciences. Students who are overly utilitarian and lack humanistic education will not mature and cannot become engineering science experts or masters. However, compared to top comprehensive universities, science and engineering colleges, influenced by the traditional strong professional education mindset, often have insufficient understanding of general education. They mainly focus on elective general education courses in teaching methods, with significant gaps in course content, teaching quality, and high-quality general education. In some universities, general education courses have become "easy courses" in the eyes of students.
Furthermore, compared to the goal of becoming top talent, current university students notably lack innovation capabilities.
Based on my teaching experience over the years, from undergraduates to postgraduates, students are rarely willing to ask questions, and when they do, they are not good questions. Asking questions is the best catalyst for inspiring innovative ideas, and behind questioning lies critical thinking. A creative individual will frequently question the status quo, breaking free from the limitations of conventional thinking. However, students enter university with a test-oriented mindset, accustomed to being fed knowledge rather than actively learning. They lack the courage to question authority and the curiosity to delve deep into subjects, resulting in silent classrooms at the university. University education needs to completely reformat students' past learning methods and mindset, which poses a significant challenge for talent development in universities.
"China Science News": What experiences does Chengdu University of Technology have to share in cultivating first-class applied talents?
Xu Qiang: One prominent advantage of our students is their strong engineering literacy, enabling them to solve practical engineering problems more effectively. This is attributed to the practical teaching system established by the school.
As one of the important undergraduate talent cultivation bases in geosciences in China, Chengdu University of Technology's disciplines of "Geology" and "Geological Resources and Geological Engineering" are distinctive and advantageous, with practical teaching being the best method for geosciences education.
To achieve this, we have established a new model of geoscience practical education called "multi-school co-construction, multi-party sharing, and multi-dimensional integration," realizing a four-year continuous progression of geoscience talent practical skills development. The school has gradually extended the first-class geoscience talent practical education model to the whole university, constructing a practical training system focusing on three levels (cognition-training-practice), three platforms (basic experiments-comprehensive training-innovative practice), and three abilities (cognition-hands-on-innovation), helping students enhance their professional "hard skills" centered on practical abilities. The social feedback on the effectiveness of this approach has been positive.
Specifically, we have gathered inter-school practical teaching resources, especially integrating digital information technology, to build a platform for multi-school co-construction of practical education, facilitating the joint construction and sharing of high-quality practical teaching resources and addressing issues of resource singularity, scarcity, regional disparities, and lack of integration.
Teachers have limited energy for "self-revolution."
"China Science News": "Integration of industry and education, fusion of science and education" is an important way to cultivate first-class talents. What difficulties and challenges do universities face in this practice?
Xu Qiang: Firstly, there are differences in the goals and methods of talent cultivation between universities and enterprises—enterprises prioritize practicality and efficiency, while universities focus more on theoretical education and laying foundations. These ideological differences increase the cost of reaching consensus during the cooperation process.
Secondly, there are challenges in terms of funding and sharing. Integration of industry and education, fusion of science and education require substantial financial support, but both enterprises and universities often lack sufficient funding. Some small enterprises face more prominent financial issues, leading to lower enthusiasm and initiative in participating in industry-education integration. Additionally, during the integration process, enterprises are concerned about the leakage of technical secrets, while universities worry about intellectual property protection issues, significantly limiting the effective integration of resources between both parties.
Lastly, there are misalignments in teacher team building and evaluation systems. University teachers commonly lack practical experience and capabilities, making it challenging for many teachers to independently and effectively guide students in participating in industry-education integration projects. The current teacher assessment and evaluation systems often focus on explicit academic achievements, lacking a sound scientific evaluation and incentive mechanism for teachers' implicit contributions and effectiveness in industry-education integration, resulting in low enthusiasm among teachers to participate in such initiatives.
"China Science News": In cultivating first-class talents, students have some common demands, such as having too many theoretical courses in universities and a disconnect between professional course arrangements and society. How do you view this?
Xu Qiang: Disciplinary majors are crucial carriers for talent cultivation. Nowadays, with the emergence of new technologies, industries, formats, and models, many of our majors indeed struggle to keep pace with societal development and require optimization and adjustment.
In this regard, firstly, it is essential to establish a long-term mechanism for professional early warning, exit, and dynamic adjustment, focusing on building distinctive advantageous majors, upgrading traditional majors, phasing out majors that do not meet societal needs, and aligning the school's major structure and students' knowledge structure with societal employment structures. Secondly, promoting interdisciplinary integration through the "four news" and micro-specialties to address the cyclical and lagging issues in professional talent cultivation.
In optimizing the curriculum system, it is crucial to construct a modularized professional curriculum system guided by student learning outcomes, integrating undergraduate and postgraduate education with projects as the chain, incorporating engineering ethics education, history of science and technology education into teaching, and regularly adjusting course settings and content to adapt to the rapid development of new technologies and industries.
It is worth mentioning that in the future, we must emphasize empowering students with digital intelligence and innovating teaching methods using information technology.
"China Science News": Cultivating first-class talents relies on a high-level teacher team. In your opinion, what abilities do teachers urgently need to enhance?
Xu Qiang: Cultivating first-class talents particularly requires reversing the current situation of students' lack of innovative consciousness and abilities, with the most direct approach being through a "classroom revolution." The key to its success lies in whether teachers can lead the way in completing a "self-revolution" first.
In my experience, one significant reason why educational and teaching reforms are challenging is that the educational concepts, teaching models and methods, and teaching levels of the teacher community are deeply influenced by path dependence. The traditional teacher-centered "transmissive" teaching method fails to stimulate students' learning enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity, yet it remains the most familiar and "comfortable" method for teachers. Truly implementing the teaching concept and model of "student-centered" education into practice requires significant effort.
The most crucial aspect of the "student-centered" education and teaching model is to cultivate students' ability for self-directed learning, enabling them to raise questions, actively explore the knowledge and skills needed to solve these questions, engage in discussions with peers, integrate team knowledge and collaborate to create solutions. This necessitates teachers continuously learning and mastering more advanced teaching methods, such as project-based teaching, situational teaching, case-based teaching, blended teaching, and flipped classrooms, introducing problems, task-driven approaches, and providing students with more space for inspiration and discussion. When we point out the lack of students' innovative awareness and abilities, we need to reflect on whether teachers themselves have sufficient innovative and critical thinking. When we hope students possess interdisciplinary skills and engineering practical abilities, we need to reflect on whether teachers have overcome their professional thinking inertia, possess interdisciplinary knowledge structures and teaching abilities, and have the practical skills to solve real-world problems to better guide students' practical operations and project practices.
The imprint of traditional education is deeply ingrained in generations of teachers. Their continuous learning, growth, and breakthroughs will bring positive guidance to students. However, it must be said that the current assessment system in universities places significant pressure on teachers. Apart from completing daily teaching tasks, teachers find it challenging to have the extra energy to contemplate how to engage in "self-revolution" and "classroom revolution."
