ANALYSIS OF GIS HIGHER EDUCATION IN CHINA

The first GIS Bachelor’s Program arose in China in 1980s. After more than 30 years of exploration and practice, it is now in the period of full-scale development. The paper collects the data of the number and spatial distribution of colleges and universities with GIS specialty in China. After that it makes comparative analysis of GIS curriculum of three typical universities. Then on the base of data of enrolment and employment in Wuhan University, it discusses the classification of enrolments and graduates and emphasis on the industrial and regional distribution of the graduates. Through the above investigation and analysis, the paper finally draws the conclusion on the features and problems in China’s GIS higher education.


INSTUCTION
With the advent of the Canadian Land Information System in 1960s, GIS theory, methodology and applications have constructed and developed rapidly in North America.It was introduced into China in 1980s.With the first GIS Bachelor's degree program appeared in Wuhan Technical University of Surveying and Mapping in 1988 and the first GIS Master's degree program in Wuhan in 1993, the GIS higher education has drawn the curtain.Accompanied by the developing of GIS technology and the increasing demand of the society, the Ministry of Education added two second-level subjects "Cartography and Geographic Information Systems" and "Cartography and Geographic Information Engineering" , which are subordinate to the first-level subjects "geography" and "surveying and mapping " respectively, to the specialty catalogue for postgraduates in 1997.After that the specialty of Geographic Information System (GIS) was officially added into specialty catalogue for undergraduates in 1998.It means that a complete GIS higher education system, including undergraduates, postgraduates, doctoral students, post-doctors and international students, has been formed in the end of last century, which has laid a solid foundation for the prosperity in the new century (Bian Fuling, 2004).The "Geographic Information System" was officially renamed "Geographic Information Science" in the documents of "Undergraduate catalogue" and "The regulations of setting specialty catalogue for undergraduates" (Teach High [2012] No. 9) released by the Ministry of Education in 2012.Since 2013, all colleges and universities began to enrol with the new specialty name.
The GIS education in Wuhan University, which evolved from surveying and mapping specialty in former Wuhan Technical University of Surveying and Mapping, reflects the process of GIS education in China on the whole.The paper, based on analysing GIS education in Wuhan University, and combined with relevant circumstances of other colleges and universities, try to discuss the present GIS higher education in China in aspects of specialty distribution, curriculum, enrolment and employment, and make analysis on the issues of GIS teaching and talents training on the basis of that.

Distribution of GIS Colleges and Universities
A large number of colleges and universities have established GIS specialty since 1990s.According to statistics, GIS degree program was offered in 37 colleges and universities in 2000, and the number increased to 93 in 2003(Qin Qiming, 2011).According to the latest statistics (2013 enrolment plan) on the website of the Ministry of Education, there are 161 colleges and universities with GIS specialty(excluding military academy and the universities in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), which covers the most provinces of the country.Figures 1, 2 and 3 show the number of GIS colleges and universities in the provinces and cities at different education levels respectively.The second is the uneven distribution due to the historical and economic factors.As GIS education in China has different origins, the stronger the geography, surveying and mapping or computer subjects are, the better the universities with GIS specialty developed.It now formed three teaching centres: Wuhan, Nanjing and Beijing.Besides, the areas with flourishing economy and high degree of information, such as East and North, for the stronger teaching conditions and better teachers, are superior to the weaker areas.

The Features of GIS Curriculum and Talents Training
The GIS core courses are generally divided into four modules: geography, surveying & mapping and remote sensing, computer and GIS courses (Bian Fuling, 2007).The paper make a comparison between the universities with different supported subjects which are selected from the three teaching centres in China, as shown in Table 1 and Table 2, where the data comes mainly from the latest teaching materials and the official websites of the universities.The supported subjects in Wuhan University and Nanjing University represent respectively the two traditional academic systems in GIS fieldsurveying & mapping and geography, and the supported subject in China University of Geosciences (Beijing) represents the new technology joining the fieldcomputer.According to the above four knowledge modules, we count the course numbers and the proportion of every module in the whole, in the following Table 3.The data tells us that the key module is different with different supported subject, teaching system and science research direction.For instance, the number and percentage of courses of mapping and remote sensing in Wuhan University is higher than other two universities.Nanjing University put its emphasis on geography.And there are much more Computer courses in China University of Geosciences (Beijing).
Wuhan University represents the GIS universities with surveying and mapping background.The surveying and mapping specialty, which was the earliest established in the former Wuhan Technical University of Surveying and Mapping, is the strongest in China.Based on the cartography origin, the core courses put stress on surveying, mapping and remote sensing, emphasizing the ability of data acquisition and processing.It pays more attention to students' practical ability training through the practical courses, corresponding to the theoretical courses of the same name, and also through the large credit hours of computer practice of many class studies.So the GIS specialty is an engineering-oriented science in our university.
Nanjing University represents the GIS universities with geography background.It is one of China's earliest university established the Department of Geography.Owing to its geography advantage, the core courses of GIS put geography in the first place, which take GIS as a tool to understand and analyze the natural and human phenomena and space-time evolvement rules, emphasizing on the knowledge of man-land relationship.As a result, the students learn more theoretical courses and less practical courses.
China University of Geosciences (Beijing) represents the GIS universities with computer science and technology background.The Information Engineering College, which the GIS specialty belongs to, grew out of the Department of Computer Application.So the core courses stress on computer and GIS software applications.Students are required to have higher computer capability and learn a lot of practical courses on software development and applications.
Overall, our GIS curriculum has the following characteristics: The first is the subject integration.No matter what the background is, the GIS core courses are related to geography, surveying and mapping, computer and GIS courses, which form the theoretical and technical foundation of GIS education, and select GIS professional courses as the key module.Second, there is on unified core course system but various according to their heritage.The third is the international trends.With the development of international exchanges and cooperation, the joint training program is increasing.Through the learning from foreign advanced achievements, our GIS curriculum has make progress gradually.

Investigation on Enrolment and Employment of GIS Specialty in Wuhan University
The paper collects the data of enrolments and graduates of GIS specialty, in the stage of undergraduates, postgraduates and doctoral students, of Wuhan University in recent ten years, as shown in Table 4 and 5. Then it focuses on discussing the graduates with Bachelor's Degree in terms of classification of graduates, the industrial distribution and spatial distribution of the employers in their graduated year.Data in Table 4 and Table 5 shows that the enrolments for undergraduates and academic postgraduates have a decreasing trend but the professional postgraduates increasing rapidly, and doctoral students is stable.The ratio of the undergraduates, postgraduates and doctoral students is roughly 3:1:0.4.There are three main factors explaining the decreasing: First, GIS is not a popular major in China now.It is emerging and a large number of people know little about it.So the first choice rate in college entrance examination of students is not high (Tang Guoan, 2013).The second factor is the competition of similar majors.Because GIS is a comprehensive discipline related to earth sciences, mapping, remote sensing, computers, mathematics, management, etc., the curriculum often overlap or cross its predecessor's which would confuse students and make them choosing other similar majors.The third is related to the national enrolment policy.In recent years, Wuhan University undergraduate enrolments continued to shrink, in addition, the first choice rate of college entrance examination, the employment rate and other factors also affect the enrolments.

The Number of Enrolments and Graduates of GIS Specialty
From the number of graduates, we see a slightly decrease in undergraduates and academic postgraduates.The number of Ph.D. graduates began to increase from 2006 and keep stable after that.Since 2009, the nation increased supportive strength by policy, through the methods of full-time training with double certificates, increasing the rate of enrolments and decreasing the length of schooling.The professional postgraduates become more and more popular for the above advantages.From here we see that the decreasing of the number of graduates is influenced by the decreasing of enrolments in the level of undergraduate.The decreasing of academic postgraduates is caused by the increasing of professional postgraduates.The number of Ph.D. graduates is stable because students are more independent and rational with deeper learning and more complete life planning when choosing the Doctoral Degree Program.

The Classification of Graduates
As shown in Figure 4, we see that the graduates' selection between study and work has changed a lot.First, the proportion of going on study as postgraduates increased with the increasing demand of high-level talents.It grew 16.78% from 2004 to 2013.Second, the proportion of studying abroad increased 11.41% in ten years.Third, the unemployment rate fell 9.45% in the decade owing to the job market expansion and high quality of our GIS graduates.

CONCLUSION
Through the above analysis, the advantages of our current GIS education are the large scale colleges and universities, diversified developing forms and reasonable design of curriculum.But there are also many problems on the other hand, such as the uneven distribution, the unbalance between the teaching content and market demands and so on.This requires us to make better plans in accordance with the professional orientation and training objectives, and constantly revise the curriculum, enhance the teaching power, strengthen international cooperation and exchanges, trying to cultivate the talents of high qualities who meet the new age's needs and intense competition.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Distribution of Universities with Bachelor's Degree Program

Figure
Figure 2. Distribution of Universities with Master's Degree Program

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Distribution of Universities with Doctoral Degree Program

Table 1 .
Summary of GIS Specialty in Wuhan University, Nanjing University and China University of Geosciences (Beijing)

Table 2 .
GIS Core Courses in Wuhan University, Nanjing University and China University of Geosciences (Beijing)

Table 3 .
Structure of GIS Core Course in Wuhan University, Nanjing University and China University of Geosciences (Beijing)

Table 4 .
2004-2013 the Number of GIS Enrollments in Wuhan