Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Education Studies: Experience and Innovation (ICESEI 2022)

The Moral Education Responsibility of the Tutor in Graduate Student Employment
Downloads:
505
Full-Text Views:
38
Citations (Scopus):
0
Citations (Crossref):
0
Cite This Article

1. INTRODUCTION

Since 2003, China's graduate enrollment scale has begun to gradually expand, and the number of graduate graduates is also increasing year by year, and the resulting pressure of graduate student employment is also attracting more and more attention. From the employment quality report of college graduates in recent years, we can find that the employment rate of graduate students in many regions and universities is not better to that of undergraduate students. A unilateral comparison of the employment rate of undergraduate and graduate students may not be convincing. It is well known that the enrollment rate is included in the employment rate, with hundreds of thousands of undergraduate graduates going to graduate school every year. However, the employment pressure has indeed affected the normal study and life of graduate students, and even some graduate students with employment difficulties have produced a pessimistic and weariness negative escape psychology, which has caused the concerns of schools and families. The difficulty of employment of graduate students does not completely mean that there is really a “talent surplus” phenomenon in Chinese graduate students training, but the positioning of graduate students has also appeared great problems. In terms of time and money investment cost, graduate students invest more than undergraduates. In terms of the knowledge and skills obtained, graduate students have mastered more and more refined knowledge and skills than in the undergraduate stage, so their employment expectation is naturally higher than that of undergraduate graduates. However, graduate students have lived in school for a long time and are immersed in study and scientific research. Many people lack social practical experience, making it difficult to accurately understand the industry dynamics and employment demand, and pursue high salary, good region and professional matching, which is easy to cause blind and inaccurate job positioning. At present, many colleges and universities attribute the employment of undergraduate and graduate students to one institution for management, the lack of different management and guidance for the two, ignoring the particularity of graduate employment. There is the problem of weak guidance of graduate employment. In terms of employment guidance courses, many college undergraduates offer compulsory courses with career planning and employment guidance, while graduate students lack similar compulsory courses.

2. TUTOR IN GRADUATE EMPLOYMENT

Graduate employment is the focus of employment work in colleges and universities, and the key element to test the quality of graduate training. As the first responsible person of graduate training, the tutor not only has an unshirkable guiding responsibility in graduate study and scientific research, but also plays an important guiding role in the employment of graduate students. The tutor in graduate employment work can be reflected in the following aspects.

2.1. Care About the Employment Situation of Graduate Students, and Pay Attention to the Employment Situation and Employment Policies

In the whole process of cultivating graduate students, the tutors are used to focus on the cultivation of graduate students' independent study and scientific research ability, rather than the cultivation of job-hunting ability. At the time of graduation, the tutor is generally concerned about whether the student can graduate successfully, rather than smooth employment. Therefore, many tutors naturally ignore the attention to the employment situation of their major. In fact, as a qualified mentor, we should not only care about our graduate students in our academic studies and scientific research, but also care about them in our employment and help them find employment smoothly. The first premise is that the tutor himself should understand the employment situation of the industry, understand the common needs of the employers in the industry and the relevant employment policies of the state, in order to be targeted and focused to guide the employment of graduate students. the tutors can get the latest information about graduate employment and related policies through various ways, such as newspapers, magazines, websites, peer units and previous employment graduates.

2.2. Guide Graduate Students to Make Good Career Plans and Help Them Grow

Although at present, the school and college level are consciously providing employment guidance to graduates to improve the job-hunting ability of graduate students. However, their employment guidance often focuses on commonness because of the large number of people, so it is difficult to achieve targeted individual guidance. However, the number of students guided by the tutor is limited, and there are more contact opportunities with graduate students. They are also familiar with the personality characteristics, career expectations and personal ability of graduate students, which is conducive to the tutor to “tailor” and adjust their career plans according to the characteristics of graduate students. On 18 January 2018, the Ministry of Education issued the Opinions on Fully Implementing the Duties of Graduate Tutors for Moral Education [1], hereinafter referred to as the Opinions, which proposed to “strengthen the basic quality requirements of graduate supervisors and clarify the responsibilities of graduate supervisors for moral education” [1], and so on. The Opinions point out that tutors should guide graduate students to “correctly understand the responsibility and historical mission of the times, correctly understand the lofty aspirations and down-to-earth; establish a correct world outlook, outlook on life, values, and firmly strive for the lofty ideal of communism and the common ideal of socialism with Chinese characteristics” [1]. We should “combine individual development and progress with the development needs of the country and the nation, and contribute wisdom and strength to national prosperity and national rejuvenation” [1]. Tutors have the responsibility to guide graduate students to combine their personal career selection with the national development, the responsibility of The Times and the historical mission, and to pay attention to the change of graduate students' career selection concept. Only by setting up a correct outlook on life and values, combining the ideal of career selection with the national needs and social development, and taking the initiative to invest in the industries and regions needed by the country, can postgraduates realize employment more easily, and better realize their personal value while realizing employment.

2.3. Cultivate the Academic and Practical Innovation Ability of Graduate Students

On 9 June 2014, at the 17th Congress of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the 12th Conference of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, chairman Xi Jinping said: “We should put human resources development in the top priority of scientific and technological innovation, reform personnel training, introduction, use mechanism, efforts to create a group of world level scientists, science and technology talents, engineers and high level innovation team, pay attention to cultivate innovative talents and young scientific and technological talents” [2]. Graduate students are the reserve force of the national innovation force, and also an indispensable part of the realistic innovation force. The improvement of graduate innovation ability is related to the improvement of the competitiveness of the whole nation, so the cultivation of graduate innovation ability is the core of graduate education.

The direction of graduate school mainly includes further study and employment, whether further study or employment, with pioneering and innovative talents will be welcomed without exception. The tutors should pay attention to cultivating graduate academic innovation ability and practical innovation ability. In terms of academic innovation, “create a harmonious academic environment, cultivate graduate innovation consciousness and innovation ability, stimulate graduate innovation potential; guide graduate students to track academic frontier, face academic problems, broaden academic vision, and carry out innovative work in academic research” [1]. In terms of practical innovation, “graduate students should cultivate their ability to propose, analyze and solve problems, strengthen the combination of theory and practice; support and guide graduate students to transform and apply scientific research achievements, promote the close combination of industry, university, research and application, and enhance their innovation and entrepreneurship ability” [1]. These requirements will undoubtedly further promote the improvement of graduate students ‘innovation and entrepreneurship ability, and correspondingly promote the improvement of graduate students’ employability. Tutors and schools should actively explore effective ways to improve graduate students' academic innovation and practical innovation, in order to lay a good foundation for graduate students to achieve smooth employment and entrepreneurship.

2.4. Pay Attention to the Employment Psychology of Graduate Students and Relieve Them of Employment Pressure

The pressure during graduate school is not only from graduation, economic pressure, but more importantly, from the pressure of employment. Many graduate students have been worried about their future employment problems since they enter the school. Too much employment pressure will not only affect the normal study and scientific research work of graduate students in school, but also affect the breadth and depth of graduate students' study. Statistics show that “86.5% of graduate students shorten their study time because of employment pressure” [3]. The reason for reducing their study time is not only seeking jobs around graduation, but also doing part-time jobs to accumulate employment experience in school. Under the influence of employment pressure, graduate students will also choose to learn multiple courses other than professional courses to improve their job-hunting skills, including spending more time attending various training courses to obtain relevant vocational qualification certificates, which is bound to affect the study of graduate students' professional courses in school. According to the survey, 24.0% of graduate students are only in the understanding stage, 55.5% of graduate students are in the memory stage, and only 20.5% of graduate students are in the application stage [3]. Graduation year is the main stage for graduate students to write papers, and also the peak period for graduate job hunting. In order to solve the survival problem of graduates after graduation, graduates are buried in resume writing and revision, running in different cities, engaged in all kinds of recruitment examinations and interviews, most of the intention to prepare the paper, will naturally affect the quality of the paper. Some graduate students will even affect the normal graduation due to the opening of the thesis or the failure of the defense, which will also lead to the tension of the relationship with the tutor, which virtually brings great pressure to the psychological pressure of the graduate students. In addition, disciplinary differences, personality differences and personal expectations will also bring different employment anxiety to the employment of different graduate students, even causing psychological diseases in serious cases, and even embark on the extreme road of pessimism.

The “Opinions” ask tutors to pay attention to graduate humanistic care, to “pay attention to graduate employment pressure, guide graduate students career planning, care about graduate life and physical and mental health, improve graduate students dare to face difficult setbacks of good psychological quality” [1]. As the first responsible person for graduate student training, the tutor has more daily contact with graduate students. Graduate students generally trust and respect their tutors, and usually will to tell their anxiety and pressure to them. Therefore, it is easier for tutors to observe the psychological state of graduate students than others. The tutor should give full play to this advantage, take care of the graduate employment forwardly, ease their pressure, encourage graduate students to overcome anxiety, pressure into motivation, challenges into opportunities, improve in the face of all kinds of difficulties and challenges of psychological quality.

3. THE WAY TO PROMOTE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF TUTORS IN GRADUATE EMPLOYMENT

3.1. Improve the Tutor Assessment Mechanism, and Increase the Quality Assessment of Graduate Employment

At present, the assessment mechanism of tutors in many universities often focuses on the assessment of academic ability of tutors, especially the scientific research achievements, research projects and research funds, which are quantifiable assessment indicators, but the responsibilities of the tutors that is difficult to quantify. A complete tutor assessment system should include all aspects of graduate student training quality, and especially should focus on the ultimate goal of mentoring graduate students – graduate employment quality assessment, it is also the important embodiment of tutor responsibilities. The relevant administrative departments of the university should incorporate the responsibility of cultivating moral education into the tutor assessment system, improve the assessment indicators of graduate employment quality, and formulate a scientific, fair and open assessment system.

3.2. Pay Attention to Tutor Training, and Guide Tutors to Pay Attention to Graduate Employment

Before serving as a tutor, many tutors had no experience in guiding graduate students, and the graduate administration department is difficult to include the employment conditions when formulating the tutor selection conditions. Therefore, when many new tutors train the first graduate students, they basically have no work experience in guiding graduate students' employment, so they had to “cross the river by feeling the stones” and study while guiding. Some mentors with heavy scientific research tasks are not even willing to spend energy to pay attention to the employment situation and relevant policies, which inevitably makes deviations and mistakes in the process of guiding graduate students' employment. Therefore, in the tutor training, the interpretation of graduate employment work and employment policy should be treated as a required course, and the tutor is required to pass the training and assessment to recruit students. At the same time, the university should also regularly carry out lectures and policy interpretation on the graduate student employment guidance among the tutors, to help them to effectively guide the employment of graduate students.

3.3. Establish a Teacher-Student Exchange System to Understand the Graduate Employment Psychology

At present, most tutors regularly meet with graduate students, but the communication content is mainly about academic and scientific research, rarely involving employment issues except during the graduation stage. Schools should establish a system of regular communication between teachers and students on graduate employment guidance. The first and second grade graduate students require tutors to help them with career planning according to their personal characteristics. In the last grade, they should take the initiative to understand the psychology and mentality of graduate employment hunting, and actively relieve the employment pressure of graduate students. Graduate students with employment difficulties should be focused on and communicate often. If graduate students are found to have excessive pressure, emotional abnormalities and other phenomena, we should report to the college quickly, and provide necessary psychological counseling and interference measures to prevent graduate students from having psychological problems.

3.4. Establish an Employment Incentive Mechanism to Promote Employment of Graduate Students

“Incentive mechanism is the process of maximizing employees' commitment to the organization and work through specific methods and management systems” [4]. Incentive mechanism includes both material incentive and spiritual incentive. Incentive mechanisms are also needed to promote graduate employment. after graduation, the college should hold the employment summary meeting in time, and give appropriate rewards to the graduate supervisors with good employment quality and high student satisfaction. Encourage tutors to pay attention to graduate employment, and give full play to their own advantages to promote graduate employment.

4. CONCLUSION

In graduate education, the tutor is the key force of graduate training and the main instructor of graduate employment. Tutors should devote great attention to the role of moral education in the employment of graduate students, which plays an active role in promoting the employment of graduate students.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Sichuan Academic Degree and Graduate Education Society Key topic: “Research on Graduate Education Quality Assurance System” (2020ZD06).

Chinese Library Classification No.: G643.

Document identification: A.

REFERENCES

Opinions of the Ministry of Education on Fully Implementing the Duties of Graduate Tutors for Moral Education [EB/OL], 18 January 2018. http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A22/s7065/201802/t20180209_327164.html
Xi Jinping. Speech at the 17th Academician Conference of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the 12th Academician Conference of the Chinese Academy of Engineering [EB/OL], 9 June 2014. http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2014-06/09/content_2697437.htm?isappinstalled=1
Yanyan, Li Zhiguang, Zhang Xiangpei. Research on the Impact of Employment Stress on Postgraduate Study and Scientific Research [J]. Graduate Education Research, 2013(3): 57.
Baidu Encyclopedia. Incentive Mechanism [EB/OL], 29 January 2018. https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%BF%80%E5%8A%B1%E6%9C%BA%E5%88%B6/4150497?fr=aladdin

Cite This Article

ris
TY  - CONF
AU  - Liang Cheng
AU  - Xiaohua He
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/03/14
TI  - The Moral Education Responsibility of the Tutor in Graduate Student Employment
BT  - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Education Studies: Experience and Innovation (ICESEI 2022)
PB  - Athena Publishing
SP  - 189
EP  - 193
SN  - 2949-8937
UR  - https://doi.org/10.55060/s.atssh.230306.030
DO  - https://doi.org/10.55060/s.atssh.230306.030
ID  - Cheng2023
ER  -
enw
bib