Recently, Guilin Information Technology College announced the revocation of the School of Foreign Trade and Foreign Languages, integrating its teaching functions into the newly established School of General Education, with relevant faculty members being incorporated into the management of the School of Business. This news has sparked widespread attention in the higher education sector in mainland China, once again bringing the recent trend of adjustments to foreign language departments in universities into the spotlight.
According to the notice issued by the university, the School of Foreign Trade and Foreign Languages, the School of Sports and Health, and the Center for Quality and Moral Education will be abolished. Building on the existing teaching and research departments, the university will coordinate the teaching functions of public English, public physical education, and general education courses to form the School of General Education.
The notice also specifies that faculty members from the original School of Foreign Trade and Foreign Languages will be integrated into the management of the School of Business as a whole, while teachers responsible for teaching public courses will be grouped under the newly established School of General Education.
Guilin Information Technology College is not an isolated case. In recent years, many universities have undertaken reorganization, consolidation, or renaming of their foreign language departments.
In May 2025, Xinyu College established the School of Humanities by merging the original School of Literature and Media and the School of Foreign Languages, offering undergraduate programs in Chinese language and literature, English, business English, internet and new media, broadcasting and hosting arts, among other disciplines. In January 2025, Jingdezhen Ceramic University renamed its School of Foreign Languages to the School of Cultural Communication, subsequently integrating resources from the International College to create the International School of Cultural Communication. Hunan University of Technology merged the School of Literature and Journalism and the School of Foreign Languages to establish the School of Language, Culture, and Media.
According to incomplete statistics, between 2025 and 2026, at least 10 universities have adjusted their foreign language departments through revocation, consolidation, or renaming. Including elite universities, many institutions have ceased enrollment or abolished undergraduate foreign language majors. In 2023, the University of Science and Technology of China announced the intention to revoke the undergraduate English major, becoming the first “985 Project” university to eliminate an English major. The undergraduate program offerings at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics in 2025 show that 12 majors including English have stopped enrollment; East China Normal University has ceased enrollment for 24 majors including German and translation.
Behind this wave of adjustments lies a significant impact from the rapid development of artificial intelligence.
An article in “First Financial” on May 30 pointed out that Ding Changfa, an associate professor in the Department of Economics at Xiamen University, believes that with the rapid advancement of AI technology, the impact on foreign language majors is particularly pronounced. The continuous improvement in machine translation capabilities greatly reduces the barriers to cross-lingual communication, weakening the competitive advantage of the traditional “listening, speaking, reading, writing, translating” training model that foreign language majors have long relied on.
The China Higher Education Data Research Institute also analyzed that in the era of AI, global language-related majors are facing unprecedented transformation pressures.
At the same time, the warnings from the job market cannot be ignored. The “2023 China Undergraduate Employment Report” from the China Higher Education Data Research Institute shows that the employment rate of 2023 graduates with undergraduate degrees in foreign languages was 84.5%, 1.9 percentage points below the national average; and six months after graduation, their average monthly income was 5695 yuan, also below the national average for undergraduate graduates. In warning lists for undergraduate majors released in Gansu, Sichuan, Henan, and other regions, English majors have been repeatedly identified as oversupplied.
In addition to AI and employment pressures, the imbalance between supply and demand brought about by the long-term expansion of foreign language majors is gradually becoming evident. Data shows that in 2013, 70 universities in China added majors in business English, and 46 universities introduced translation majors. By 2025, national media statistics indicate that out of 1308 undergraduate institutions across the country, 984 now offer English majors, ranking first among all undergraduate majors. After years of rapid expansion, foreign language majors are facing the practical pressure of adjusting the talent supply and demand structure.
However, the downsizing and reorganization of foreign language departments do not mean that foreign language education itself is disappearing. On the contrary, many universities are attempting to deeply integrate foreign language capabilities with disciplines such as business, communication, and international exchange to cultivate versatile talents with cross-disciplinary competencies.
Some netizens have pointed out that the adjustment of foreign language majors at universities does not imply that students will no longer learn foreign languages, but rather that language proficiency is being integrated into other professional training systems to make language learning more aligned with practical application needs. From this perspective, foreign language education is not coming to an end but is seeking a new positioning and value in the context of artificial intelligence and industrial transformation.