Postgraduate tutoring has become a “hard demand”
From the “double first-class” colleges and universities in Beijing to the key colleges and universities in the southwest, and finally to the “double non”, “I have been taking the test for 3 consecutive years, and it feels more difficult every year”, Song Yi, a candidate who has experienced “three wars”, told Banyue Tan reporter, although my target colleges are downgraded year by year, every year I feel more difficult than the previous year to prepare for the exam.
While the number of applicants has risen, it has also pushed up the re-examination scores for many majors. Taking the major of journalism and communication as an example, the national score for the postgraduate entrance examination (Area A) reached a record 367 points, 12 points higher than last year. The re-examination line for new majors in many colleges and universities has exceeded 400 points, and the overall registration ratio is as high as 14:1. In addition, the scores of economics, literature, management, law and other majors have all increased by more than 10 points.
The number of postgraduate entrance examinations has grown rapidly, and the enrollment ratio has increased year by year. In 2022, the number of graduate students enrolled in the country will be around 1.1 million, which means that about 3/4 of the 4.57 million candidates will fail the list. “Going ashore” has become the biggest wish of many candidates.
More and more people join the postgraduate entrance examination army, and some people catch new market signals. “As long as you work hard, you can make money.” A person in charge of a postgraduate entrance examination institution believes that the current postgraduate entrance examination training market is large and the demand is small, and institutions of different sizes can find consumer groups. “Compared with subject tutoring, the services of postgraduate entrance examination training are no different, and the characteristics of industrialization are already very obvious.” The person in charge said.
Postgraduate students taking online classes
According to the “China Postgraduate Postgraduate Training Industry White Paper 2021”, the market size of China’s postgraduate postgraduate training market has exceeded 11 billion yuan, with an annual growth rate of more than 30%. A number of market institutions predict that the market size of the postgraduate entrance examination industry may exceed 20 billion yuan in 2024.
For some candidates, postgraduate training is indeed a “hard demand”. According to statistics from market institutions, about 22% of candidates spent more than 10,000 yuan on postgraduate entrance examination training. A candidate told Banyuetan reporter that the training fee of tens of thousands has become his biggest living expense, “but as long as you can ‘go ashore’, the price is worth it.” It is very important for the postgraduate entrance examination institution, and I was confused when I was just preparing for the test.
Some institutions have a “virtual handle”
“There are too many people who take the postgraduate entrance examination, and they dare not refuse to apply for the postgraduate entrance examination.” A college student said that the “theater effect” is common among the postgraduate entrance examination groups. Although the number of admissions has not changed much, the number of people participating in the postgraduate entrance examination training will only increase. The more, the “anxiety transmission” is formed.
The market is “savagely growing”, and there is information asymmetry between candidates and postgraduate entrance examination institutions. This can help candidates fill in information blind spots, and on the other hand, it also leaves blind spots for some “virtual” problems.
The Ministry of Education’s “National Postgraduate Admissions Management Regulations” points out that it is strictly forbidden for internal personnel of the admissions unit to hold or participate in the examination and admissions counseling activities. For this reason, colleges and universities generally do not allow teachers and students to participate in postgraduate tutoring. An institution teacher said that most teachers in training institutions use pseudonyms and rarely disclose personal information.
“From teaching teachers to teaching assistants, almost all of them are part-time, and the flow is very large.” A teacher from a training institution in Beijing revealed that he had no experience in postgraduate entrance examinations, but he also taught professional courses in the institution. Compared with teaching teachers, other positions are more casual. A person in charge of a postgraduate entrance examination agency told Banyuetan reporters that most of the people responsible for grading homework were temporarily pulled from the student group, and there was almost no threshold when recruiting. “The requirements are very low, and the correction is quick and easy.”
“Competition between institutions is also very fierce now. In order to compete for students, they even report their own problems to each other.” A person in charge of a postgraduate entrance examination institution told Banyuetan reporters that some institutions will collect and sort out the private information of graduate tutors in order to attract candidates.
From professional experience to personality characteristics, the tutor “data” compiled by some institutions will be sold to candidates after a unified summary. A postgraduate tutor said: “In the interview stage, many candidates are very familiar with the interview teacher although they have not met the teacher.”
Banyuetan reporter learned that some institutions claimed to have a “human relationship network” within the school. A candidate reported that teachers from some institutions said that “the teachers of the school’s admissions office are also in the live broadcast room” during the live broadcast, which made her feel that this institution is “very reliable”. Several of the interviewees said that some institutions, under the guise of “good relationships with schools,” don’t actually provide useful information.
Emphasize both quality and quality, and innovate the enrollment mechanism
Some college teachers believe that the “pipeline” teaching of postgraduate entrance examination institutions has had a certain impact on the selection of students in colleges and universities. Some college teachers said that when correcting the examination papers for the postgraduate entrance examination, they often encountered templated and routine answers.
“Under the all-round ‘armed’ of training institutions, candidates’ scores in the written test are getting higher and higher, but after recruiting, they find that their professional quality has not improved much.” A college teacher believes that the phenomenon of postgraduate examinations is becoming more and more serious.
In this regard, many well-known colleges and universities have also begun to actively promote the reform of the examination syllabus, for example, adding more flexible subjects such as “theme writing” and “humanities foundation” in the examination. In addition, education departments in Guangdong and Beijing are also promoting the reform of the enrollment system, such as improving the “application-assessment” selection mechanism and expanding the proportion of direct doctoral students.
Respondents pointed out that with the continuous upsurge of postgraduate entrance examination, while expanding the scale of enrollment, it is necessary to pay attention to both quantity and quality, reduce unreasonable competition forms, and focus on the cultivation of professional quality of postgraduates from the admissions gate.
“Under the thinking of ‘people without me’ and ‘people with me’, many candidates are afraid of falling behind and have to join this excessive competition.” Huang Hongzhen, a professor at Hunan University of Science and Technology, believes that the postgraduate entrance examination training market urgently needs effective supervision Normative, further, to cultivate high-quality talents, we should be wary of excessive industrialization of postgraduate entrance examinations, and do more “addition” in academic education and “subtraction” in the competition for exams.
Ban Yue Tan Reporter: Xiong Jiayi Xie Ying | Editor: Sun Wenhao
Editor in charge: Guo Yanhui
Proofreading: Qin Daixin
