At the first Sichuan University Outstanding Teaching Award presentation meeting, Academician Xie Heping, president of Sichuan University, revealed that Sichuan University is brewing a new regulation: only teachers who have obtained both "teacher qualification certificate" and "teaching ability training certificate" can go to the podium, doctoral students cannot directly become teachers after graduation, they need to be full-time postdoctoral first, and only after certain academic achievements can they teach students. (Chinanews.com, April 1, 2015)
The author very much agrees with President Xie's view that the podium is a holy place and should become a kind of honor, not everyone can give lectures on the stage, which should become a kind of practice and system.
The biggest knot of Qian Xuesen, the father of Chinese missiles, was China's educational cause in his later years. He asked many times on different occasions: why can't our school always produce outstanding talents? This is called Qian Xuesen's question.
Over the years, the talents we have trained have failed to win the Nobel Prize in science, although middle school students often win the Olympic Prize in the world. There are many reasons for the backwardness of talent training, including the problems of system and mechanism, the defects and deficiencies of basic education, and the problems of university education and teaching. Reflecting calmly, the problems in teaching and educating people in our universities are really worrying.
The biggest problem in universities is to attach importance to scientific research rather than teaching, which has become the consensus and appeal of the educational circles in recent years. The energy and mind of many university professors are not in teaching. What are the professors' thoughts? Some are busy with topics, some are busy with papers, some are busy with lectures, some are busy with various academic conferences, and some are busy with visits and exchanges abroad. In short, I was so busy that I didn't have time for class, so I left the task of class to the TA and my students. I just kept a name. The author once asked a friend of a university professor, since you are interested in scientific research, why don't you leave the university and go to a special scientific research institution? His answer made me think deeply: the special subject research department does not have so much money, and there are no students to help me. To reveal the secret, it turns out that professors are pursuing their own scientific research achievements and the amount of money.
The reason why professors choose this reflects that there is something wrong with the evaluation mechanism of our university. Papers and topics are easy to quantify and account for the absolute proportion of the assessment, while teaching work is not easy to quantify and the proportion of assessment in general colleges and universities is less than 20%. The choice of university teachers follows the system and guidance, what do we have to criticize? Professors are also ordinary people who need to support their families. It is the temptation of economic interests and fame that makes them choose to attach importance to scientific research. In this context, we are no longer surprised that some professors are busy going out to earn money.
In many colleges and universities in the UK, students' mentors may be big names in a certain field. Hawking said that he came to Cambridge to do a doctorate in astronomy because Cambridge had Fred, the most famous astronomer of the time. Hoyle . If we look at our (Cambridge) education from the perspective of doing business, we actually lose money on every student we recruit, but we don't care about this, because what we really pursue is education itself. So said Borisevich, president of Cambridge University. (international Herald) on the contrary, can we give priority to protecting teaching funding, so that famous professors who have made achievements in teaching can benefit from it, so that people on the podium can receive high salaries or high awards with honor, instead of just ensuring scientific research funding at present? There is nothing wrong with attaching importance to scientific research, but we should coordinate the relationship with teaching. The practice of foreign colleges and universities can give us inspiration.
Are university teachers not qualified to teach? does the president of the university not care about teaching? The answer is so clear, but we have not done it at present, and we are far from doing it well. Fundamentally, there are some drawbacks in the national university education policy and the management, evaluation and assessment system of university teachers, and there is an urgent need for top-level reconsideration and design and effective implementation.
Under the background that domestic universities generally attach importance to scientific research rather than teaching, it is an initiative for Sichuan University to use social sponsorship funds to take the lead in rewarding outstanding teaching achievements, and it is also brewing to introduce new rules for teachers who will be on the podium in the future, which embodies a kind of wisdom and reflects Sichuan University's foresight in cultivating talents. To this end, we should like it.
It should be the direction of university reform to let first-class professors and qualified doctors voluntarily and actively take the stage with honor. Doctoral students can not directly become teachers after graduation, they need to go through the strict training of lecturing qualifications and the accumulation of academic accomplishment, and only after reaching a certain level can they go to the university podium and then become teachers. Giving the podium as an honor to those who know how to do it is not only a responsibility to the students, but also a responsibility for the national education plan and the training of outstanding talents.
Author: Taishan Yihe
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