Unqualified colleges must be shut down

The last day of February, I was driving past the gate of the "Langfang University City" in Hebei province when my car was stopped by hordes of students, back from their vacation, crossing the street in front of the "city".

The spectacular scene instantaneously reminded me of a colossal statistical figure I read from the media a few weeks ago - 6.31 million students will graduate from universities and colleges this year to join China's army of job seekers. I can't help but worry about their outlooks on employment, given the well-known fact that nowadays a college graduate holds a slimmer chance of landing a job than a rural migrant worker.

Such a hefty assemblage of graduates is the result of a strategy education authorities adopted 11 years ago to enlarge college enrollment. That strategy has been controversial ever since. Critics said it was too ambitious for China's educational resources. Many people have attributed the grim situation of employment in recent years to the adoption of the policy.