The National Science Council is concerned that the supply of doctoral degree holders exceeds demand, with more than 3,700 doctoral students graduating every year. The Ministry of Education also says the number of doctoral graduates is too high, in particular in universities’ electrical and electronics engineering departments. This is a big warning to the many research-oriented universities that have expanded their doctoral programs greatly in recent years.
Where do all these doctoral graduates go after graduation? Data from October last year show that the council had employed 2,345 postdoctoral researchers for its projects. In other words, there is a serious gap between the number of trained and the number of employed doctoral degree holders. Research-oriented universities have trained too many doctoral graduates in similar fields and a high percentage of them have problems finding suitable employment — becoming “stray doctors.”
Not only is the “stray doctor” problem a sign of wasted educational resources, it also causes a crowding-out effect in the council’s research budget. The annual cost of employing 2,345 postdoctoral researchers is calculated at almost NT$2 billion (US$66 million), which accounts for nearly 10 percent of the total budget for all of the council’s regular research projects.
Those suffering most from the budget crowding-out effect are relatively inexperienced university teachers. This is a serious consequence, since they are the future researchers with the most potential for the nation. Reducing the number of postdoctoral researchers by even one would allow the council to support one more research project or provide assistant subsidies to 10 graduate students.
A high-quality university is expected to take its social responsibilities seriously, just like when a good company that produces large volumes of a slow-selling product must take a serious look at the reason the product is selling slowly, and propose an effective plan to resolve the problem. Universities are not supposed to overemphasize the publication of articles in Science Citation Index (SCI) journals for the sake of their global rankings while ignoring the fact that nurturing talent is an even more important social responsibility, which is reflected in another kind of “SCI” — the Social Contributions Index.
From the pragmatic perspective of an engineer, the fundamental way to resolve the stray doctor problem and turn the crisis into an opportunity is to build a mechanism for diversified career development for doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers. To do this, we should motivate more industrial cooperation and participation in the higher education systems to bring the number of trained and employed doctoral degree holders into harmony.
Two approaches may be applied to achieve this goal: The first is encouraging postdoctoral researchers in academia to participate in projects sponsored by industry, with extra subsidies as an incentive. The second is encouraging academic laboratories to work even more closely with industry, with industry providing the financing for projects and postdoctoral researchers implementing the projects, turning these laboratorites into initial research and development (R&D) bases for industry.
However, this is not enough. The number of doctoral graduates should also be decreased. A market-driven mechanism should be introduced and the educational environment and academic value system should be improved so that universities avoid training too many doctoral degree holders that do not fulfill industry’s needs. The ministry’s university assessment index should pay greater attention to the employment status of doctoral students, employer satisfaction and their contributions and devotions to the community. At the same time, the ministry could relax restrictions on graduate students’ tuition to allow universities to raise fees to reflect costs, while encouraging the academic and industrial circles to cooperate to provide student subsidies that would relieve students’ financial burden.
Moreover, by planning for internships for doctoral students in industry to develop their practical skills and work ethic and shape an entrepreneur-centric culture that focuses on innovation and practical ability, we can broaden employment channels for doctoral graduates and connect industrial innovation with R&D talent. To be specific, this could be combined with engineering accreditation to push universities toward gradually strengthening practical training to constantly improve the situation.
Initially, the ministry would budget for a “medium-term master plan” to subsidize teacher salaries, student insurance and course fees, but in the long run this should be financed by industry. The government could cooperate by amending the rule in allocating the quotas of alternative R&D military service. When reviewing such applications, it could make the number of full-paid interns that an enterprise hires a key index, so as to encourage enterprises to offer opportunities for interns.
Wu Ruey-beei is a professor of electrical engineering at National Taiwan University.
Translated By Eddy Chang
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