Education Rule of Law
WANG Xiaoqiang
Compared to not confering degrees, the decision of delaying degree confering in universities can alleviate degree disputes between universities and students. However, in practice, the system of delaying degree confering tends to be ineffective, lacking a self-sustaining logic. The main reasons for this include unclear conditions for its application, reliance on not confering degrees, and difficulties in externalizing it through judicial rulings. In addition, the work of degree management at universities is highly homogeneous and flattening. Through typological observation of publicly available judicial cases, situations in which the award of the degree is postponed due to factors such as unsatisfactory academic performance, failure in the dissertation defense, academic fraud, disciplinary sanctions, undecided major degrees, and unpaid tuition fees are often overlooked, resulting in the deviation from legal regulations. In order to reconcile the right to academic autonomy of universities with the right of students to obtain a degree, it is necessary to enshrine the mandatory delaying degree granting and its procedural obligations within the framework of legal reservation, while subjecting them to an appropriate review through a funnel-shaped judgment rule based on the principle of proportionality. It is also necessary to expand the scope of delaying degree confering, clarifying its substantive and procedural elements, and to establish a mechanism for coordinating it with the conferral of the degree in advance.
