A classroom in the graduate school of the
Chinese Academy of
Sciences which can hold over 300 people was filled to capacity
almost every day during the week-long holiday starting on May 1 as
applicants prepared for the Master of Software Engineering entrance
examination that was held in early June. The first group of
"home-made" Masters of Software Engineering may emerge from among
them in two or three years.
"Actually, the busy scene started in mid-April with an enrollment
counseling conference," said Hu Zhiqiang, vice president of the
graduate school of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "Although a
Master of Software Engineering is known as the "golden crown" of
the software industry, the number of people registering was still
far beyond our expectations."
A
Master of Software Engineering is a new degree in engineering that
started at the end of 2001 with the approval of the Academic Degree
Office of the State Council. Fifty-one universities and institutes
including the graduate schools of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
and Peking
University were among the first batch of schools qualified to
enroll students. All these schools have been flooded with
inquiries; the number of people registered at Peking University
topped 1,000.
In
recent years, insiders have been discussing what has held back the
development of the software industry in China. According to Hu
Zhiqiang, the problem is a lack of qualified personnel and a lack
of organization in the field.
"Compared with the software power of India, China has a very
serious shortage of software professionals. While we have several
thousand software enterprises in China, they employ only about
250,000 people. Enterprises with over 1,000 employees are rare.
However, enterprises with over 1000 people can be seen everywhere
in India," Hu said.
The problem is also related to the personnel structure surrounding
the software field. According to Hu Zhiqiang, every software
enterprise needs three types of skilled personnel: senior software
executives accomplished in both technology and management; system
analysts and designers, also called software engineers; and
proficient programers, or software "blue collar" workers.
A
reasonable organization of these three categories should take a
pyramid shape, but in China the shape is more like that of an olive
- with a lack of senior managers and basic programers. The
imbalance has hindered the development of software industry in
China.
According to a spokesperson of the preparatory office of the
Software Institute of Peking University, the course of study for
the Master of Software Engineering is different from that offered
at most colleges in computers and software. The curriculum will
follow an international model of software education in training
senior software engineers. Courses will stress practical education
and technical ability aimed at fulfilling the demands of software
enterprises as well as fostering senior, practical, complex and
international senior software talents and managers. People who hold
the Software Engineering Master's Degree should be capable of
designing and developing software as well as organizing and
managing projects and have good command of foreign languages and
the ability to face international competition.
How to forge the "golden crown" of the software industry? Every
school has worked out its own plan.
Peking University offers multilevel, multi-direction and
multi-field course offerings. Students can choose different
research fields and directions according to their interests and
specialties as long as they finish the basic courses related to
their major. The school will tailor a study system to fit student
needs. On graduating, some students will be proficient in software
design, some good at software testing and quality control, and
others in software program management. Enterprises can choose among
them according to business needs.
Advocating "personalized management," the Chinese Academy of
Sciences carries out a study plan under the banner: "Focused on
students, directed by the needs of enterprises." Using advanced
textbooks from abroad, the Chinese Academy of Sciences frequently
invites senior technicians from major companies including Microsoft
and Motorola to discuss curricular development.
Different schools also have proposed training programs geared to
their own specialties. Peking University will incorporate the
social sciences and frontier technologies in their training. The
Appreciation of Chinese Culture and Arts will be included in the
required curriculum, and senior professors from the Chinese,
History and Philosophy Departments of Peking University will be
invited to give lessons. This approach to help improve students'
accomplishments in the humanities is based on the supposition that
a software talent lacking in understanding of humanities will have
difficulty in satisfying the future needs of more and more
humanized software products.
The advantage of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is that it has
gathered teachers from many different backgrounds. One-third of the
faculty includes experts from IT-related research institutes of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences; another one-third includes technical
supervisors from Microsoft, SUN and major domestic software
enterprises; and the remaining one-third includes experts from
large overseas IT businesses and research institutions and
professors of well-known universities abroad who will give classes
in English.
According to some experts, the emergence of software engineering
education in China indicates the software education in China is
following the international practice. About 10,000 Masters of
Software Engineering will graduate in two or three years to help
ease the shortage of senior software executives in China.
(中國青年報 [China Youth
Daily], translated by Wang Qian for china.org.cn, June 5, 2002)