Recently, the column of the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China-- Foreland Report, published an article named Xiamen University deepened its reform of postgraduate education pattern through “three connections and three integration”. （http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/s6192/s133/s193/201609/t20160914_281144.html）The report introduced a series of reforms we have made in talent training patterns, education systems and so on which focus on improving the quality of postgraduate education.

Following is the whole passage:

Focusing on the principle of improving the quality of postgraduate education, XMU has made a series of reform in talent training patterns, education systems and so on to significantly improve education quality.

Connecting the training of postgraduates and doctoral students: formulating training programs based on standards of first-level principles. Following the principle of resource sharing, we have formulated postgraduate training programs based on standards of first-level principles, except for a few interdisciplinary or linguistic subjects and arts. Changing the practice of completely separating the training of postgraduates and doctoral students so that the latter can apply for exemption if they have studied those courses during postgraduate. Breaking down the closed state among different colleges and different principles caused by department ownership to achieve sharing of high quality resources and principle integration. The number of training programs in the whole university has decreased 81%, while the number of those formulated on first-level standards has increased from 21 to 51. Now, we have 48 programs which have connected training of postgraduates and doctoral students and 17 colleges in which doctoral students share all courses with postgraduates. Earlier, only three colleges have achieved this.

Connecting school systems of postgraduates and doctoral students: being strict with the mid-term examination system of doctoral students. We should implement a flexible school system and lengthen the duration of academic doctoral students from 3 years to 4 years. By gradually improving the application examination system of doctoral recruitment and advocating the system of MBA-DBA, we will improve the quality of doctoral candidates from different channels. Postgraduates are allowed to apply for master-doctor continuous study so we can form different patterns like 1+4, 2+4, 3+4. Doctoral students of year 2014 are the first to implement the new training program, following the principle of “implementing while experimenting, improving while reforming”, they should take mid-term examinations and be redistributed or weeded out if they are not qualified. Thus, we can be strict with process management of postgraduate education.

Connecting domestic and international education: fastening the internationalization of postgraduate education. In order to strengthen cooperation and exchanges with top class universities, XMU has signed agreements on jointly training doctoral students with high-level universities like McGill University, University of Cincinnati, University of Delaware, University of Southampton and Macquarie University to encourage students to apply for state funded overseas study. We have established foundations for doctoral students to visit high-level foreign universities and attend high-level international conferences. We have established international summer school, taking opportunity of the third semester to invite nearly 100 foreign experts and scholars to give lectures every year.

Integrating training process and scientific research: establishing corresponding fund system for doctoral training and scientific research. We should highlight the research part of postgraduate training and link up the allocation of doctoral candidates with supervisors’ research projects so that more students will be allocated to supervisors with more research projects, and guide them into researches relating to important national needs and economic construction. We should change the practice of one-to-one workshop and introduce supervisor group into Science and Engineering. At the same time, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and School of Public Health are exploring rotation system in laboratory to break barriers among different supervisors. Students are encouraged to conduct research in different laboratories and study with different supervisors to experience different research exercises throughout their training process.

Integrating course teaching and scientific research training: optimizing course teaching system of postgraduates. We have stopped the practice of catering courses to different people and decreased credit of courses. Instead, we have increased credit of academic report, mid-term examination, internship and practice and pre-defense which can reflect scientific research training. We have increased the proportion of elective courses and changed the practice of focusing on classroom teaching to ensure students more time and more room for scientific research. We have standardized course management. Based on quality standards of first-level principles, we have established access mechanism and competition mechanism for opening courses, all newly opened courses must be assessed and audited by the committee of first-level principles instruction. After the reform, the total number of postgraduate courses has halved to near 1900 from near 4000, and the proportion of compulsory courses has decreased to 25% from 44%.

Integrating in-class learning with after-class innovation and entrepreneurship: encouraging postgraduates to conduct original scientific research. We have set up field research fund and other kinds of scientific innovation funds to encourage students to explore the society and conduct original scientific research. We encourage them to carry out innovation and entrepreneurship. What’s more, we have successfully held many academic competitions, such as Cross-Strait Interpreting Contest, the “KMPG Cup”--invitational tournament of ten best management case study. We have organized many national competitions like National Postgraduate Mathematical Modeling Contest, Future Aircraft Contest, Electronic Design Contest, Mobile Terminal and Smart City. We have also funded more than 100 postgraduate teams to conduct internship and practice across the country.