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Some educators believe the majors offered at higher education institutions should be based on social demands and graduate’s care

admin2021-08-06  29
问题     Some educators believe the majors offered at higher education institutions should be based on social demands and graduate’s career prospect. However, others believe that a prospective employment rate is not the only measure by which to judge a degree’s worth. For example, despite the difficulty of finding a job in many undergraduate programs, many programs, like philosophy and history, are still necessary in larger society. The following are two excerpts of opinions concerning this issue.
    Write an article of NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should:
    1. summarize briefly the opinions and then
    2. express your opinion towards the main determinant of college major setting.
Excerpt 1
            Market Needs First
    When planning to offer a new major, universities must first have sufficient educational resources, including qualified teaching staff and classroom equipment and space, to name but a few. Lately, quite a few universities have added as many as 10 new majors to their ranks in just one year. Observers can’t help worrying whether or not these schools are operating beyond their capabilities.
    Without a normal "recruitment system" for majors, outdated majors continue to recruit students. Similarly, when currently popular majors become obsolete in several years’ time, students pursuing these degrees will find themselves in extremely difficult conditions in terms of job hunting.
    In most developed countries, colleges have to take market needs into account, and they are also under strict management by education authorities, which provide information on employment prospects and thus guide the programs on offer. Sometimes companies cooperate with universities in terms of student recruitment and internship or job opportunities. On occasion, students are even allowed to submit suggestions for majors or coursework.
    In China, universities tend to have the final say on degrees and their curricula, and this detachment from market needs has inevitably resulted in high unemployment rates in specific areas.
Excerpt 2
            Wide-Ranging Education
    When college graduates are faced with the ever-growing pressures of employment, it’s necessary to adjust how undergraduate degree programs are designed in order to make job-hunting easier for students. However, this does not mean that universities are right to rush in the opposite direction, suddenly offering several new majors that enjoy high employment rates.
    Low employment prospects among college graduates can be attributed to two things: expanding student recruitment efforts over the last decade and structural problems in the labor market. Even with the majors that are most saleable in the job hunt, employment rates will not always necessarily be ideal. Labor surpluses exist everywhere, most especially in cases of increasing numbers of students flocking to oversubscribed programs that promise better chances of employment. No matter how favorable a degree is in the labor market, when so many people are competing for jobs, any major can come to carry a major risk of unemployment.
    It’s improper for universities to expand recruitment by offering dead-end degrees and misleading students about employment prospects. However, it’s also improper to judge a degree track simply by its expected employment rate. Actually, many majors and training programs in universities silently contribute to social progress despite their graduates not enjoying promising career paths. If schools suddenly stopped recruiting students for these degrees just because employment prospects are low, the damage done to society in the long term would be immeasurable.
选项
答案 Education-Oriented or Employment-Oriented? Against the background of low employment rate of university graduates in China, there have been discussions on whether universities majors should be based on employment. Some believe that a "recruitment system" for majors should be established, allowing setting up new majors that are demanded by the market. Others believe that low employment rate is not only caused by majors offered by universities but more by the expanding student recruitment and the structural problem of the job market. They believe that employment should not be a major consideration for major setting. I agree with the latter and believe that universities should be education-oriented instead of employment-oriented. Employment rate should not be a decisive element when evaluating a major. Firstly, the aim of universities is more than nurturing qualified employees for companies. Universities cultivate people to think independently and make contribution to the world. Majors such as history, logic and philosophy, despite their low employment rate, play a key role in advancing the society. As mentioned in the second excerpt, structural problems of the job market and high enrollment rate of universities in the past years are the causes for low employment rate of graduates, I believe we should establish more vocational schools to meet the demand of the market instead of changing the majors in universities. By making further distinction of employment-oriented vocational schools and education-oriented universities, we will have more targeted training/education to students, thus achieving desirable results. Thirdly, changing majors based on employment is not sustainable. As employment trends vary all the time, universities will have to spend a lot of efforts in investigating, evaluating and recruiting new academic staff... And this runs to the contrary to the effort of cultivating smart people who enters the universities with transferrable skills so they can be useful in every industry when they work in the future. In conclusion, the setting up of majors in universities should not be solely based on employment and more vocational schools should be established to solve the low employment rate problem.
解析     材料围绕当前大学生就业率低的问题。对“大学专业设置是否应考虑就业率”给出正反两种观点。
    选段一表示赞同，认为应遵循市场需求(Market Needs First)。当学生的专业跟不上市场的步伐(obsolete)，他们找工作会十分困难。大多数发达国家的大学都会考虑市场需求(take market needs into account)，教育部门也会进行严格的监管(strict management)，并提供就业前景信息；而中国的课程设置往往由高校决定，这种和市场脱节的做法难免会导致低就业率(inevitably resulted in high unemployment rates)。故应建立专业的“招聘机制”(recruitment system)，及时淘汰过时的专业。
    选段二则反对以就业率为标准开设专业，原因有二，一是高校扩招(expanding student recruitment)，二是劳动力市场的结构性问题(structural problems in the labor market)。实际上很多其他专业也默默地为社会进步(social progress)做贡献，仅由就业率来评估专业是不恰当的(improper)，长期以往将会对社会造成不可估量的危害(the damage done to society…would be immeasurable．)。
    开篇：引出大学专业设置这一话题，并总结材料中对此的正反观点。
    主体：提出个人看法——大学应该以教育为重，而非就业。并阐述理由和提出解决方案。
    结尾：总结全文，重申大学专业设置不应重点考虑就业。
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