Development and Reform of Higher Education in China

Hong Zhen Zhu, Shiyan Lou

• Publisher: Chandos Publishing
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781843346395
• eBook ISBN: 9781780633596
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Études supérieures

The Chinese higher education sector is an area subject to increasing attention from an international perspective. Written by authors centrally located within the education system in China, Development and Reform of Higher Education in China highlights not only the development of different aspects of higher education, but also the reform of the education system and its role in the educational and social development of the country. This book analyses recently collected data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China and the work of leading scholars in the field of higher education. It highlights the marketization of state-owned institutions and the increasing importance of the internationalization of higher education – two important features of education in a modern and global context. - Rich statistical data - Sound theoretical foundation - Provides a comprehensive and comparative study of national data sources and leading scholars

1

Introduction to higher education in China

Abstract:

Higher education in China has undergone a long history and the establishment of the modern education system can date back to the late Qing Dynasty. From then on, Chinese higher education undertook a gradual and steady development. However, its booming and acceleration did not come until after 1978 when the reform and opening-up policy was adopted. Since then Chinese higher education has been progressing dramatically in various aspects including an expansion of institutes and enrollment, and change from elite education to mass education. In order to keep pace with and satisfy the needs of the rapid social and economic development, a comprehensive reform of the higher education system has been carried out, the higher education market has emerged and developed tremendously, and the pace of internationalization of higher education has been accelerated.

Key words

higher education

China

development

reform

Chinese higher education can be traced back to the Shang Dynasty (approximately 1600 BC–1046 BC), but there is no consensus among the scholars about the exact origin. In addition to Guozixue (the Institution of the Sons of the Emperor, established in AD 276, and known as Guozisi or Guozijian in the later dynasties), there were mainly two types of higher learning in Ancient China: one was Daxue (established in the Western Zhou Dynasty, 1046–771 BC), Taixue (initially founded in 124 BC) or other similar institutions controlled by the upper ruling class, and the other was private academe, Shuyuan, the most well-known practitioner of which was Confucius. The common purpose of the two types of higher learning was to educate elites to serve the ruling class.

The two Opium Wars (1840–1842 and 1856–1860) prompted the Qing Dynasty to initiate a wide range of social reforms, during which many modern colleges sprung up, mainly offering such courses as foreign languages, natural sciences and practical technologies to serve the purpose of learning from the West. The establishment of Sino-Western College (1895, the predecessor of Tianjin University), Nanyang College (1896, the predecessor of Shanghai Jiaotong University) and the Imperial University (1898, the predecessor of Peking University) has been generally acknowledged as the birth of the modern higher education institutes (HEIs) and modern university system. HEIs in modern China mainly comprised public universities, provincial colleges of higher education, provincial specialized colleges, private institutions and missionary institutions. Although modern China witnessed a tough time of frequent wars, progresses in higher education were still made, and in 1949, there were 205 HEIs throughout the country, including 49 universities, 28 technological institutions, 61 private institutions, and 21 missionary institutions.¹

The development of higher education has followed a tortuous path since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Public and private HEIs in Old China were taken over and private institutions were transferred into public ones. The Soviet higher education system was copied and Chinese higher education progressed steadily. In 1955, a centralized management system was established, and all of the 227 universities were owned and directly administered by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and other central commissions and ministries. In 1963, China established a two-tier administration system in which the HEIs are administered by the central government and provinces/autonomous regions/municipalities.

During this period, college graduates were distributed according to the plan of the government, and government was the sole source of funds. In 1965, there were 434 colleges and universities, 34 of which were administered directly by the MOE, 149 by other central commissions and ministries, and 251 by provinces, autonomous regions or municipalities. Great progress in higher education was made. But unfortunately, Chinese higher education was completely destroyed during the period of the ‘Cultural Revolution’ (1966–1976), and the cessation of normal enrollment lasted up to six years for most HEIs.² Until 1980, higher education had been developing in accordance with the planning and administration of the government, and the categories and majors of higher education had been uniform. The fragmented management system resulted in duplication and inefficiency, which constrained the development of Chinese higher education.

With the setting off of the policy of reform and opening-up to the outside world in 1978, the focus of China was shifted to economic development. On the one hand, these policies brought unprecedented opportunities for higher education. Deng Xiaoping, advocate of reform and opening up, said, ‘Science and technology are primary productive forces.’ Science and technology, which in turn depend on talents trained by higher education, plays an extremely important role in economic development. The competition in today’s knowledge economy is ultimately a competition of talents. So, the Chinese government has always been attaching much importance to the reform and development of higher education in the past three decades.

On the other hand, economic reform and social transformation presented a great challenge to the development of higher education. ‘Education should open out towards the world, towards the future and towards modernization’³ and higher education should ‘better serve the socialist construction.’⁴ Therefore, teaching quality should be paid special attention to and higher education must provide the talents needed by the rapidly reforming and developing economy and society.

Higher education in China has been developed dramatically since 1978, with the rapid expansion of HEIs and the great increase in the number of students. The development of Chinese education lay not only in the expansion of scale, but more importantly, in the ongoing and allround reform of the system, including the speeding up of internationalization and the occurrence of marketization. Higher education in China has made unprecedented achievements, of course accompanied by some new problems. The rapid development of higher education is the result of reform and opening up, and in turn promotes the implementation of this policy and the rapid development of economy and society.

With the establishment of China’s reform and opening-up policy, China’s higher education entered an era of rapid development and comprehensive reform. Since 1978, the government has formulated a series of policies and adopted a series of measures, which fundamentally changed the path of higher education and led to the present landscape of Chinese higher education. So far, the development of higher education has gone through three major phases: recovery during 1978–1985, steady development during 1985–1998, and leap-forward since 1999.

First phase (1978–1985): the recovery and reconstruction of higher education

In 1977, the Unified National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) was formally resumed, in which more than 5.7 million people participated, and a total number of 273,000 students were enrolled. In September 1979, the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee approved the report on the re-issuance of the 1963 ‘Decision on Strengthening the Higher Education System of Unified Leadership and Decentralized Management.’ This Decision established a system that prioritized the unified leadership of the central government in the planning and administration of higher education, and mandated separate administration of HEIs at two levels: the central and the local. Although the management system of higher education was still highly centralized at this period, this system made it possible for the local government to actively participate in the running and management of higher education, and laid a good foundation for the further expansion of the administrative rights of the local government.

In 1980, China began to reform the conventional financial system, and funds for higher education began to be provided respectively by the central and local governments according to the affiliation of HEIs. Most graduates were distributed by the central commissions, ministries or the provinces, autonomous regions, or municipalities according to the affiliation of HEIs, too, except for a small percentage distributed by the central government. With the reform and opening up, China’s relations with other countries were improved. In the favorable domestic and international environment, international exchanges and cooperation in higher education entered a new stage of overall recovery and development. A working conference on higher education was held in 1983 to grant more autonomy to HEIs, so that on the basis of the completion of the national plan, HEIs would have some autonomy in enrollment, teaching, expenditure, teacher recruitment, international exchanges and so on.

To make up for the shortage of talent caused by the ‘Cultural Revolution’ and meet the needs of social development, the government was very supportive of the existing universities and colleges to restore enrollment and the establishment of new HEIs. So competent local authorities of HEIs and different ministries began enthusiastically to expand the HEIs, and the development of higher education was rapid. From 1978 to 1985, the number of HEIs increased from 598 to 1,016, i.e. by 69.9 percent within 7 years. The number of students and teaching staff increased correspondingly: students from 856,322 to 1,703,115,⁵ which was 98.9 percent, and full-time teachers from about 206,000 to about 344,000. Yet, the gross enrollment rate just increased from 1.56 percent in 1978 to 3.68 percent in 1989, which meant that the opportunities for young people to receive higher education were still slim.

Second phase (1985–1998): the stable development of higher education

In the 1980s, with the deepening of the reforms of Chinese social and economic systems and the expansion of higher education, the defects of the highly centralized higher education system became increasingly prominent. In 1985, the ‘Decision on the Reform of the Education System’ was formally issued by the CPC Central Committee. In this document, several key policies of great significance regarding Chinese higher education reform were made, in which reform of the admission and enrollment system, reform of the college graduates’ employment system, and greater institutional autonomy were included. This was a historic educational policy and an opening of the reform of Chinese education in the new era. With the establishment of China’s market economy in the 1990s, marketization of higher education speeded up and the funding sources diversified. Since HEIs started self-financing in the mid-1980s, a new funding system was gradually established with national public funds as the main source, and tuition fees, income from school-run industry, social donations and fund raising as supplements. With the further improvement of the international environment, international exchange and cooperation of Chinese education entered a new stage of normative development.

In 1993,...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• List of figures and tables
• List of abbreviations
• About the authors
• Chapter 1: Introduction to higher education in China
• Chapter 2: Higher education system and its evolution
• Chapter 3: Structure of higher education
• Chapter 4: Marketization of higher education
• Chapter 5: Internationalization of higher education
• Chapter 6: Conclusion and prospects
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index