A PPT from the Southeast University Medical School circulating online shows that out of 236 freshmen enrolled, only 133 remain, a dropout rate of 43.6%. In Medical Imaging, 6 out of 21 remain, and in the 5+3 integrated clinical program, 39 out of 86 students transferred out. Some students claim that in their freshman year, the class size dropped from over 30 to 14.
On November 5, The Paper reported that universities including Jiangnan University, Heilongjiang University, Wenzhou University, and Northeast Forestry University have introduced AI classroom patrol systems to monitor attendance rates and student engagement (head-up rates). Jiangnan University's system covers 462 classrooms, has analyzed over 120,000 class hours, and automatically sends alerts for abnormal classroom situations, while Southern Medical University uses AI to grade classes.
Recently, Rao Yi, a professor at Peking University, publicly named and criticized the editor-in-chief of the international journal Cancer Cell, a person surnamed Mao, for taking money to help publish papers, charging 2 million for a single article. Rao Yi questioned him by email; the other party denied it and demanded that the remarks be retracted, but Rao Yi refused. Netizens dug up information suggesting the person is Mao Yuntao.
On October 14, a university teacher posted on a social platform, saying that what he teaches students is knowledge that is years behind, mocking himself as "a product of the previous industrial revolution teaching knowledge from the era of industrial Cthulhu," and feeling powerless for his students. The post received 857,000 likes and 157,000 reposts.
On October 11, according to domestic media reports, a member of the parent committee at Siji School in Jinwan District, Zhuhai, proposed in a group chat that parents take turns going to the school to supervise students' midday rest, claiming the move was intended to allow teachers to rest better.
On October 7, Rao Yi discussed Japanese scientists winning Nobel Prizes on the WeChat public account "Rao Yi on Science," criticizing academic misconduct in China, saying that many institutions engage in cover-ups and use public power to defend fraudsters, wasting state funds and betraying their responsibility to the people.
On September 30, Chengdu University announced that the monograph and two English-language papers of Zeng of the College of Music and Dance constituted academic misconduct. She was removed from her post as Party secretary of the college, her senior professional and technical position qualification was revoked, her eligibility to apply for research projects and apply for professional title evaluations was suspended for 36 months, and the case was entered into the database of serious breaches of research integrity. The university's stationed discipline inspection and supervision group has filed a case for investigation. According to China Newsweek, the person involved is Zeng Qin.
On September 29, the Beijing Institute of Technology announced that faculty member Pei Yi had seriously violated professional conduct standards for teachers, revoking his qualification as a graduate supervisor and terminating his employment. Pei Yi had previously sparked controversy over remarks made in class discussing feminism and noting that all members of the Politburo Standing Committee are male.
On September 29, 2026, The Beijing News learned from Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University that Wang Gang, a professor and doctoral supervisor at the College of Plant Protection, has officially left his post. The Human Resources Office confirmed that his departure is directly related to the retraction of a Nature paper, and the university is negotiating with him over the return of talent subsidies and other payments.
A 2024 paper by Wang Ertao's team published in Nature: the corresponding author acknowledged issues such as data anomalies and image duplication and applied for retraction; the team said it had reported the matter to its institution and launched an investigation, and the authors said that repeated experiments support the main conclusions.
A netizen shared a video of two elderly people fighting over cardboard boxes, sparking sighs in the comments section about social involution. Some netizens pointed out that given the involution and food safety issues in China, many people might not even live long enough to reach the age of fighting over cardboard boxes.
Ministry of Education spokesperson and Vice Minister Wang Guangyan announced that China has built the world's largest and highest-quality education system, with 270 million people having received higher education.
Academic fraud-exposing blogger Geng Tongxue released a video pointing out that a rice immunity research paper, with Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University professor Wang Gang as co-first author, has problems including duplicated data, anomalous values, and repeated images; the corresponding author is Chinese Academy of Sciences researcher Wang Ertao.
On September 14, academic anti-fraud blogger "Geng Tongxue" published a video publicly questioning two first-authored papers by Zhang Yaohua, a researcher at Peking University Third Hospital and recipient of the Overseas Outstanding Youth grant, pointing out multiple data anomalies, fixed constant conversions, and image duplications.
On September 14, Student Geng stated in a questioning video that there are 4 duplicated images across different plates in two first-author papers by Zhang Yaohua.