Guangxi to build undergraduate professional benchmarks

A total of 152 majors in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region have been identified as undergraduate college characteristic specialties and experimental training bases (centers) construction projects. Guangxi plans to build a number of undergraduate professional benchmarks within the next three years.

In recent years, Guangxi undergraduate education has achieved rapid development. At present, there are 36 undergraduate colleges in Guangxi (including eight universities and nine independent colleges).

In 2017, there were 456,800 undergraduate students, an increase of 33,900, or 8 percent, over the previous year; adult undergraduate student numbers reached 10.56 million, an increase of 0.19 million (1.8 percent) over the previous year. The gross enrollment rate of higher education reached 35.9 percent.

Guangxi undergraduate colleges received a total of 4.43 billion yuan ($643.91 million) from central funds, and the autonomous region fund itself invested a total of 8.26 billion yuan over the past three years.

The autonomous region selected 34 Guangxi first-class discipline construction projects and 25 Guangxi first-class disciplines (cultivation) construction projects. In the past three years, 254 new undergraduate majors were added, 40 were abolished, and a number of specialties to fill the gaps, as well as majors that are closely integrated with major development strategies such as artificial intelligence, were added, establishing a professional dynamic adjustment mechanism.

Through the continuous and in-depth promotion of education and teaching reform, a group of outstanding teachers of philosophy and sociology in Guangxi undergraduate universities were selected as "model demonstration classes".

Eight universities, including Guangxi University, were selected for the Ministry of Education of China's outstanding talent training program, and 24 undergraduate colleges established the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute. Six universities, including Guangxi University, Guangxi Normal University and Guilin University of Electronic Technology, were approved as national model schools for deepening innovation and entrepreneurship in education reform.