New plan to boost ‘elite’ engineering education in China

As part of its strong focus on developing a highly skilled science, technology and engineering workforce to support the country’s plans to transition to high-end manufacturing and technology, China’s Ministry of Education this month unveiled new plans to strengthen and accelerate the reform of engineering education and cultivate more ‘elite’ talent, particularly in shortage fields such as semiconductors and other strategic areas.

The Ministry said it would establish specialist national graduate colleges for ‘elite’ engineers at more than half of all institutions offering engineering masters and doctoral degrees by 2030, piloting new accreditation standards and releasing a set of national standards later this year for ‘elite’ engineering training.

The new national graduate colleges for elite engineers would be promoted overseas, while the Ministry will also seek international recognition for its new ‘elite’ training standards.

The new benchmarks aim to support international cooperation and fill a gap in global engineering accreditation systems, the Ministry said.

Professor Zhao Weisheng, vice-president of Beihang University and secretary general of the Chinese Union for Training Excellent Engineers, a representative body of the elite engineer programme, pointed to existing frameworks like the Washington Accord (focused on undergraduate equivalency) and the EUR-ACE system, covering bachelor and masters levels in Europe.

“Engineering education certification that focuses on master's and doctoral training is still missing,” he said.

The Ministry said it will continue to bring in leading international engineering experts to help develop its graduate engineering education system and promote more regular exchanges between Chinese and foreign faculty and students.

Continuation of pilot elite engineering scheme

The expansion marks the next phase of reforms under the government’s ‘elite’ engineer education and training programme launched in 2022.

Under a pilot scheme, 40 such colleges were established at leading universities, along with four innovation institutes in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong province’s Dongguan and Foshan, which are both manufacturing hubs.

A hallmark of the programme is close partnerships between state-owned enterprises and academia, with joint recruitment and training of students, as well as shared projects.

According to the Ministry, this will equip students to contribute to industrial innovation, particularly in areas where technological bottlenecks persist.

The Ministry has also introduced a new evaluation system for graduate engineering degrees, broadening student assessment criteria to include patents, practical reports, and innovative accomplishments, instead of focusing exclusively on academic papers.

This shift also aligns with China’s recently enacted Degree Act, which allows students pursuing professional degrees to fulfil graduation requirements through practical outcomes. Scholars noted this could also open up new opportunities for international joint degree programmes and research collaboration.

Three years into its initial rollout, the ‘elite’ engineer training programme is already showing results, according to Hao Tongliang, deputy head of the Ministry’s Department of Degree Management and Postgraduate Education, speaking at a press conference last week.

As the first cohort of 2,100 masters students graduate this month, most are expected to take up roles in critical industries such as defence, military and high-end manufacturing – highlighting the programme’s alignment with national development priorities, Hao said.

“Engineering education is the strategic high ground of higher education reform,” he noted.

According to Hao, the next step is to scale the model across all 67 professional degree categories in engineering. “We are building a system that promotes the integration of education, technology, and talent,” he said, noting closer alignment with industry needs.

The pilot graduate engineering programme would be expanded to the undergraduate level, he said.

Cutbacks in traditional engineering programmes

Particularly at the undergraduate level, many traditional engineering programmes are being cut as universities invest more resources in emerging disciplines such as artificial intelligence and robotics.

Around a third of China’s five to six million strong engineering workforce is in mechanical engineering for lower-end industrial processes, while the demand for high-end engineers for AI, robotics, and chip manufacture with advanced degrees is high and increasing.

According to data from the Ministry of Education, between 2018 and 2022 engineering accounted for 30.95%, or almost a third, of all programmes cancelled – an indication that many of these are not aligned to industry workforce needs.

Student demand for some traditional engineering majors is also declining. Civil engineering, for example, has allegedly seen an uptick in student transfer applications to other majors amid weakening industry demand from China’s sluggish housing market.

Universities are expected to have adjusted 20% of all majors and disciplines by the end of 2025 to be more in line with employment prospects in the country.

Jiabin Zhu, an associate professor in the School of Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, called for a more balanced and holistic approach to the restructuring efforts.

“An overemphasis on short-term employment outcomes in higher education should be avoided, as it can undermine the development of talent needed for long-term technological innovation,” she told University World News.