Recently, a century-old university in the Seoul area of South Korea decided that from next year, it will no longer admit students majoring in French and German, and the two majors will officially enter the cancellation process. This incident has aroused great concern in South Korean society.
Many schools have stopped recruiting foreign language majors
According to the report, in recent years, Korean universities have shown a trend of canceling language majors or merging with other majors, South Korean University of Foreign Chinese has interrupted the enrollment of new students in 13 majors such as English and Japanese on local campuses since last year, Pusan University has stopped recruiting German education and French education from this year, and a university in Seoul has merged the Department of Chinese and Japanese into the Department of Foreign Languages for Aviation and Tourism. According to the data, the number of language majors at four-year universities across the country has fallen by one-fifth in five years, and the number of students enrolled in language majors has also fallen by 18 percent over the same period.
In addition, West Givertonia University in the United States recently planned to abolish all foreign language departments, including undergraduate and graduate schools. It is understood that from the beginning of the new semester, undergraduate students will no longer be able to study Spanish, French, German, Russian and Chinese, and graduate students will no longer be able to pursue degrees in linguistics and English as a second language.
"Data shows that student interest in language programs is very low and declining, and this trend is not unique to West Virginia University," the university's website said. ”
Many schools in China have suspended enrollment and withdrawn foreign language majors
The withdrawal of foreign language majors is not only happening overseas, but also the announcement on the proposed revocation of six undergraduate majors such as "English" issued by the University of Science and Technology of China has also attracted widespread attention.
The relevant personnel of the Academic Affairs Office of the University of Science and Technology of China said that the withdrawal of English and other majors is based on the school's consideration of objective facts and discipline optimization, and the English major of USTC has long been out of enrollment, and the training of bachelor of arts is also inconsistent with the school's talent training positioning.
In addition to the University of Science and Technology of China, Henan University, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and many other "double first-class" universities have also suspended or withdrawn foreign language majors in recent years.
According to the "2022-2023 Academic Year Undergraduate Teaching Quality Report" of Henan University, in the 2022-2023 academic year, the university formulated a professional evaluation index system and a major optimization and adjustment work plan, and took the initiative to suspend the enrollment of 12 majors, including French majors.
According to the 2023 undergraduate major setting released by Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, the enrollment of English majors has been suspended. According to the 2022 list of majors of Southwest Jiaotong University, the school's business English major has been suspended that year.
According to the 2018-2022 Ministry of Education Announcement of the "Filing and Approval Results of Undergraduate Majors in Ordinary Colleges and Universities", at least 101 undergraduate colleges and universities have withdrawn foreign language majors in the past five years. Among them, the foreign language major with the largest number of cancellations was Japanese, which was abolished by 26 institutions, followed by English major (20). In addition, Korean language (10), business English (8), and translation (7) majors were also withdrawn.
Enrollment and employment status of foreign language majors
With the changes in the international situation, education policies, and the iterative upgrading of artificial intelligence, foreign language majors are facing many challenges. Professor Peng Qinglong of Shanghai Jiao Tong University once mentioned in a report that human society is facing great changes unseen in a century, and foreign language disciplines and majors are facing internal and external difficulties. Judging from the data of various aspects, the enrollment and employment status of foreign Chinese language and literature majors in recent years does not have great advantages.
Judging from the enrollment situation, many foreign Chinese language and literature majors have been cold in the voluntary application process. According to media reports, there will be 116 vacancies for foreign Chinese language and literature majors in Shaanxi Province in 2023, an increase of 78 from last year.
Max Research has compiled the list of 21 provinces and cities for the first batch of college entrance examination undergraduate volunteers in 2023, and sorted out more than 900 majors offered by "double first-class" colleges and universities that have entered the recruitment process. According to the data, in addition to the tourism management major, English (26 times), and the Japanese major also participated in the solicitation more times (23 times) in the "double first-class" universities.
Judging from the public data of the Sunshine College Entrance Examination Network, the employment satisfaction scores of many foreign Chinese language and literature majors such as English (3.6), Japanese (3.6), Russian (3.8), German (3.3), Korean (3.7), and French (3.6) are not high, generally lower than 4 points.
According to the data of the "2023 China Undergraduate Employment Report", the monthly income of the 2022 class of undergraduate students majoring in foreign Chinese literature and literature is 5,547 yuan half a year after graduation, which is lower than the national average of 5,990 yuan. From the perspective of the medium and long-term career development of graduates, the monthly income of the 2019 undergraduate students majoring in foreign Chinese and literature is 8,052 yuan three years after graduation, which is lower than the national average (9,074 yuan), and the monthly income increase is 51%.
From the perspective of the mid-term career development of graduates, the monthly income of foreign Chinese language and literature majors is not only lower than the national average, but also lower than the average level of literature majors.
Specifically, under the category of literature disciplines, half a year after graduation, the monthly income of the 2022 foreign Chinese literature majors is slightly higher than the average of literature majors (2022 class: 5,509 yuan). However, from the perspective of the employment situation in the medium term, the monthly income of the 2019 foreign Chinese literature majors is 8,052 yuan three years after graduation, which is lower than the average level of literature majors (8,061 yuan). The monthly income increase is also relatively low, 3 percentage points lower than the average level of literature majors and 16 percentage points lower than the national average.
In the face of the crisis of foreign language majors, it is reported that some colleges and universities have begun to try to combine foreign languages with emerging fields such as computer science and data analysis, and launch new interdisciplinary majors to meet the needs of the era of globalization and digitalization. The foreign language community has also put forward the "foreign language +" compound talent training method, for example, Beijing Second Foreign Language Chinese College has established a "multilingual compound language, interprofessional compound" talent training mechanism that combines general and professional skills, and the undergraduate major fully realizes the basic interprofessional training of "foreign language + major", students can take three professional courses during their undergraduate studies, realize the systematic learning of at least two majors, and the compound benefit rate of multiple languages reaches 100%. In the new era, opportunities and challenges coexist in the development of foreign language disciplines, and with the construction of new liberal arts in more colleges and universities, it is believed that foreign language majors will usher in better development prospects in the future.
Source: Max Research is compiled from CCTV Finance, Sunshine College Entrance Examination Network, Shanghai Education Press, Max Research, etc