Reflections on How to Improve Educational Quality of the JM Graduate Students

摘要

Currently, China's national enrollment policies are showing an increasing preference for professional degrees. This has inevitably led to expansion of the enrollment scale of Juris Master (JM) graduate students. Nevertheless, the current JM educational quality in China has been worrying. Based on a thorough reflection on the educational process of JM, the author points out the status and existing problems of JM education. Meanwhile, the educational status of top-notch legal talents in three countries, such as the United States, Germany and Japan, is studied. On that basis, several suggestions are proposed for improvement of JM educational quality in China. It is hoped that this research can help bring up more top-notch and hands-on legal talents for the country and society. Juris Master (JM) education, after being launched in China in 1995, has been developing for more than two decades, succeeding in bringing up a large batch of outstanding legal talents. China's original intention of offering JM education in colleges and universities was to respond to the increasingly extensive scope of judicial activities, the increasingly complex legal issues, and an increasingly higher requirement of legal talents. Therefore, at that time, China was faced with the imperative to develop a large batch of top-notch and hands-on legal talents. Before 2009, China's law education was made up of Master of Laws programs and Juris Master programs, the latter of which referred to graduate students not studying Law during the undergraduate period. Things have been changed after 2009. According to the notice of the Ministry of Education of the PRC, Law is introduced as a new academic program, which brings up students majoring in Law in both undergraduate and graduate period. "JM" programs mentioned In this paper incorporates not only the traditional Juris Master programs for students not majoring in Law during the undergraduate period, but also the later-developed Juris Master programs for students majoring in Law in both undergraduate and graduate period.