What is qualification level?
"Qualification level" refers to the academic experience people gain in their scientific and cultural studies or skill trainings at educational institutions. Students attain corresponding qualification levels depending on the levels of the school or training they have attended. Higher education qualification certificates (abbreviated as HEQC in the following), are state recognized evidences of their holders having received higher education.
China’s HEQC system has been in force since 1950 in line with the Tentative Regulations on the Conferment of Certificates upon Graduates by Higher Education Institutions, promulgated in June that year by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. In China’s national education system today, HEQCs are conferred on graduates of the following four levels of programs: non-degree undergraduate program, undergraduate program, master’s program and doctoral program; in terms of categories. There are three types of HEQCs: regular higher education certificate, adult higher education certificate and self-taught examination certificates. In terms of program length, non-degree undergraduate program is two or three years; undergraduate program is four years (or five years for medical majors); master’s program is 2.5 or three years; doctoral program is three to five years.
HEQCs are conferred by colleges and universities, adult colleges and private colleges, which are approved and recorded by the state education authority. HEQCs for self-taught examination are jointly conferred by the Self-taught Examination Committee and their associate institutions.
Until 1993, HEQCs had been printed by conferring institutions themselves. Those for adult education (from 1993) and regular higher education (from 1994) were printed by the Ministry of Education. In 2000, the Ministry started to set up the online registration system for regular HEQCs, no longer printing them for nationwide use. Then individual institutions printed and conferred them and were obliged to report their conferment to the national educational administrative authorities for the purpose of electronic registration and online inquiry. In 2001, the online registration system for all HEQCs was put in place across China.
What are academic degrees?
Since 1981, China has adopted the academic degree system as well as HEQC system. Academic degrees are academic titles a person gains when he or she meet the educational and academic standards. China’s academic degree system consists of bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and doctor’s degree.
The connections and differences between qualification certificates and academic degrees
Generally speaking, when a college or university student or a postgraduate graduates, they are conferred upon degree certificate as well as graduation certificate. However, the non-degree undergraduate program, as its name suggests, only confers graduation certificates without degree certificate. Academic degree certificates are different from qualification certificates. You can apply for degree certificate. Degree certificate holders do not necessarily have qualification certificates. Qualification certificate holders are not necessarily qualified for a degree certificate. As far as their content is concerned, the degree certificate and qualification certificate are very much the same.