China
Are liberal arts on the decline?
  ·  2025-01-24  ·   Source: NO.5 JANUARY 30, 2025
LI SHIGONG

Some universities in China and around the world are making adjustments to the ways in which they deliver liberal arts subjects, with some subjects being suspended or canceled altogether. These changes have sparked a lot of discussion in China with some questioning the value of these subjects and others saying their cancellation is leading to a global decline in the liberal arts.

Tong Dezhi (Huanqiu.com): Universities have the right and the responsibility to ensure their courses best equip their students to maximize their opportunities in the job market. The adjustment of liberal arts education did not suddenly begin in 2024, but has been ongoing for a number of years. Over this time, enrollment in liberal arts subjects has continued to decline. Education resources tend to be concentrated into science and engineering subjects that bring better employment prospects, and this tendency is becoming increasingly clear, driven by government policies and market demand.

Liberal arts disciplines exist to make life and society better. In this sense, the more developed society is, the more liberal arts are needed. What human development requires is the kind of liberal arts that keep pace with the times. Today, what we need is the kind of humanities and social sciences that can adapt to modern society, which is advancing in science and technology and continues to innovate through interdisciplinary research. Liberal arts must embrace the Internet, big data, artificial intelligence and other new technologies. For this reason, the adjustment of liberal arts disciplines in universities is inevitable.

Wang Jun (ThePaper.cn): In modern university education, the humanities are increasingly taking on the role of providing general education. Future-oriented humanities education should not, and cannot, promise a clear path from specialization to a specific career as natural sciences might. Instead, it should focus on offering a liberal arts education that equips future scientists, technicians and professionals with humanistic qualities. This education doesn't provide specific job skills, but aims to cultivate world citizens with critical thinking, cross-cultural empathy and the ability to construct meaning independently.

Liberal arts should have the ability to provide effective "public goods" for society. They are not material or technological goods, but concepts, discourses and theories. Today, liberal arts should be able and willing to face up to the problems of the times and provide intellectual resources to the public.

Compared with the speed of sci-tech advancement in the agricultural and traditional industrial eras, today's new technologies are advancing at an exponentially faster rate. Disciplines of liberal arts like philosophy and ethics should therefore pay close attention to the progress of science, and develop a set of appropriate values and ethical norms. The liberal arts are also obligated to interpret the latest sci-tech progress in plain language that can be understood and discussed among well-educated citizens. 

While there is some truth to claims about the decline of the humanities globally, these claims are often exaggerated for sensationalism. In recent years, the humanities in Chinese universities have not experienced a wave of closures. In December 2024, Sun Yat-sen University held a high-profile conference on supporting liberal arts development, following the establishment of the Fudan Art Institute at Fudan University several weeks earlier. In July 2022, Zhejiang Province passed a provincial legislation on the promotion of philosophy and social sciences, providing a framework to ensure institutional support and funding for these programs. Support from these prestigious universities and the economically developed province underlines the importance of liberal arts education and research, even though the public's stereotyped impression persists. BR

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson 

Comments to yanwei@cicgamericas.com 

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