Metamorphosis of Higher Education in China
1 Metamorphosis of Higher Education in China
HISTORY OF CHINA'S HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM
BASIC STRUCTURES AND LEGISLATION
POST-SECONDARY VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
DEVELOPING FIRST-RATE UNIVERSITIES AND KEY ACADEMIC FIELDS
With a history that can be traced back 5,000 years, China is one of the oldest civilizations in the world. It was already running schools some 3,000 years ago, and had gone on to establish an education system with distinctive characteristics. However, modern higher education was not implemented until a little more than a century ago. Since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 and, in particular, after the adoption of the policy of reform and opening up to the outside world towards the end of 1978, higher education in China has continued to be a driving force behind the country's modernization efforts. It has produced millions of professionals of a high caliber, shaped a teaching and schooling system that adapts to the country's needs, and blazed a new trail for development the Chinese way. A robust spurt in recent years has placed China's higher education system among the best in the world in terms of scale. However, compared with developed countries, China's modern higher education is still in its developing stages. To develop, it must draw on the experience of the rest of the world, through international cooperation and exchange. The government is implementing strategies to rejuvenate the country through science and education and to help it prosper by cultivating educated individuals. Specifically, the government is working to build a number of world-class universities and to transform most of the existing universities across the country into excellent institutes of education. The government has also stepped up its efforts to produce a large contingent of engineers and technicians with the skills needed for various trades and professions. Moreover, it has accelerated its efforts to modernize higher education in China.
HISTORY OF CHINA'S HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM
Higher education in imperial China
China has given the world four great inventions: gunpowder, the compass, paper, and movable type. With a higher education system that dates back a few millennia, China joins the world's other major civilizations as a cradle of higher education.
China's education system took shape during the Zhou Dynasty (1046–256 BC). Consisting of government-run colleges and primary schools, and private schools, it went through an uninterrupted course of development despite numerous ups and downs during the intervening years. The colleges gradually evolved variously into the National University, the Directorate of Education, and schools teaching such specialties as calligraphy and law. Private schools in China are also deeply rooted in the Chinese tradition of education. During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770–256 BC), one eminent thinker after another established schools. None of them, however, made a greater contribution to education than Confucius, who during his lifetime had taught more than 3,000 disciples, sorted through ancient archives, and raised comprehensive theories on politics, philosophy, ethics, and education. His teachings, known collectively as Confucianism, charted the course for the development of Chinese culture and ideology. Confucianism continues to have a profound influence on China and the rest of the world today.
Higher education in imperial China was geared towards a government system for producing senior scholars and grooming civil servants. The imperial civil examination system, which was founded in 587, or the seventh year of the Kaihuang reign of the Sui Dynasty (581–618), lasted for more than 1,300 years, until its demise in 1905. This examination system had a major impact on China's way of cultivating and selecting useful members of society and it provided salutary lessons for civil-servant testing systems in Western countries.
Along with the evolvement of schools, academies figured prominently in China's classical higher education system. The Song Dynasty (960–1279) was known for its four major academies: Yuelu Studio, Bailudong Studio, Songyang Studio, and Yingtianfu Studio. (The Yuelu Studio today is a Hunan University school for the cultivation of doctoral students.) In these studios, attention was paid to integrating teaching and research, teachers and students treated each other as equals in academic pursuits, the atmosphere was dynamic, and the approaches to teaching and learning were flexible. The academies made major contributions to the prosperity and development of China's academic world.
Education in imperial China was predicated on Confucianism, which attaches major importance to moral education and maintains that the fundamental purpose of education is to inculcate people with moral integrity and enhance People's sense of benevolence and magnanimity and spiritual well-being. Confucianism was thus at the core of the curricula and syllabi of all schools, in particular institutions of higher education. The Four Books, the Five Classics, and the Thirteen Classics, which are canonical works based on Confucius' teachings, were compulsory courses, although Buddhism and Taoism were also taught. Research in medical science, astronomy, geography, mathematics, law, war, agronomy, chemistry, and other disciplines of learning made some headway in government-run education institutions at both central and local levels, but education in science and technology as a whole was weak and often neglected, for it always took second place to education in Confucian values.
During the period between the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties, Western natural sciences found their way into China. They enlightened quite a few men of insight, and gave rise to a trend of thought in China's theoretical and educational circles that advocated fostering “real learning” to serve society and very much enriched classical higher education in China.
Rise of modern and contemporary higher education
Modern higher education emerged gradually in China with the arrival of Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century and the rise of the Westernization Movement of the 1860s. Both modern and contemporary higher education followed the same course of growth from learning and assimilating the Western experience to blazing a new trail for independent development.
After the Opium War of 1840–1842 China was humiliated repeatedly at the hands of foreign colonialists and was gradually reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. Domestic unrest and the menace of foreign invaders had a sobering effect on the minds of the Chinese people. In an attempt to deliver China from accumulated poverty and debility and to build up a powerful country, some highly placed bureaucrats and scholar-officials advocated learning Western military technology, launching modern industry and new-style schools, dispatching students to study abroad, translating Western learning into Chinese, and developing national industry. They set up new-style schools that taught foreign languages, war, science and technology, and industry, thus ushering in an age of modern education in China.
The first government-run modern college was set up during the Reformist Movement of 1898. In July that year, Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) endorsed the establishment of the Metropolitan University of the Capital City (the predecessor of Peking University), and had Liang Qichao (1873-1929) draft the constitution for it. The Metropolitan University was the government's flagship institution of higher education and served as the supreme administrative department over education throughout the country. It also sowed the seed for China's contemporary higher education.
China's modern higher education system was based on the Schooling System of 1902 and the Schooling System of 1904. The former, enacted in August 1902, was none other than the Emperor Mandated School Constitution drafted by Minister of Government-Run Education Zhang Baixi (1847–1907) by inheriting the country's ancient school system and incorporating the Japanese experience. However, the Schooling System of 1902 never took off the ground. The Schooling System of 1904, made official by the Qing government in January 1904, refers to the School Constitution with His Majesty's Endorsement. Drafted by Zhang Baixi, Zhang Zhidong (1837–1909), and others, it was the first piece of modern education legislation promulgated nationwide that laid the groundwork for the country's modern higher education system.
After he was appointed Peking University president in 1916, Cai Yuanpei (1868–1940) effectively transformed the university according to the Western concept of a modern university. Following the principle of “freedom of thought and making the most of both Chinese and foreign things,” Cai founded a complete higher education system by drawing on the education systems and university curricula of Western countries. Under his leadership, Peking University set the norms for college administration, faculty development, teaching and research, and the curriculum. These norms had a profound impact on modern education and social transformation at that time, and for many years after that.
In 1921, with the impact of the New Culture Movement at home and progressive notions of education from abroad, the nongovernmental All-China Federation of Education Associations introduced a new schooling system patterned after the American “6-3-3-4” scheme. It also abolished preparatory schools in both universities and polytechnic colleges, and introduced a schooling system that entailed four to six years of university education and three to four years of polytechnic college education. This schooling system, which was officially established in the Bill on Reform of the Schooling System in 1922, provided the basic higher education framework that lasted into the early years of the People's Republic.
After the Kuomintang seized power in 1927, universities across the land were basically modeled after British and American ones. The University Organizational Law and the Technical School Organizational Law promulgated in 1929 by the Ministry of Education of the Nanjing-based Kuomintang government set the task for universities to pursue advanced academic studies and cultivate specialized professionals. It also expanded the list of seven disciplines of study (arts, the sciences, law, commerce, medical science, agronomy, and industry) by adding pedagogy, and changed “faculties” into “colleges” and “specialties” into “departments” in universities. Thus began the division of higher education into three levels—junior college, undergraduate college, and graduate school. This exists to this day.
As higher education advanced along a modern track, it suffered a serious setback during the Japanese invasion of China. After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937 and the eruption of a national resistance movement, many universities in north, east, and central China were forced to move to the southwest to persist in education. In Kunming in Yunnan Province, Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Nankai University created the Southwest Associated University, which emerged as the Resistance's flagship institution of higher education, where both faculty and students defied all odds and continued teaching and schooling with a determination to salvage the nation. However, the losses that war and turmoil inflicted on higher education during that period were catastrophic.
The universities created by the Communists in revolutionary base areas and liberated areas emerged as a staunch force in higher education development during the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937–1945) and the War of Liberation (1946–1949). Representing the future of higher education in this country, these schools of higher learning followed the principle of combining education with revolution, linking theory with practice, and paying equal attention to study and application. They produced a large pool of talent, which made due contribution to winning the war and gaining liberation.
Private schools of higher learning figured prominently in modern higher education. China Public School and Fudan Public School were two outstanding examples of such schools. Apart from government-run and private institutions of higher education, there were also a considerable number of church universities run by foreign missionaries. These universities changed the Chinese landscape of teaching and schooling insofar as they impacted the concept of education, curriculum, teaching methodology, and school organization and administration.
By 1947, China had 207 universities. These included 107 government institutions, seventy-nine private ones, and twenty-one church colleges. The size of the student body was about 150,000.
Higher education in contemporary China
The founding of the People's Republic in 1949 marked a turning point in the development of higher education in China. The Common Program of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, adopted on October 1, 1949, set the principle that education in New China be national, scientifically based, and for the people. In December that year, the central government convened the First National Work Conference on Education to discuss how to revamp the old system and develop a new education system. In line with the Common Program, the conference called for “assimilating the achievements of the old type of education and drawing upon the experience of the Soviet Union to develop education under the new democracy and on the basis of experience gained in old liberated areas,” and clarified the principle that “education should serve national construction and workers and peasants.”
The First National Conference on Higher Education, held by the Ministry of Education in June 1950, discussed this principle and the tasks of higher education, and set more guidelines for New China's higher education system. In July that year, the Administrative Council (the predecessor of the State Council) endorsed the documents submitted by the conference, including the Provisional Procedures for Institutions of Higher Education, the Provisional Regulations Governing Private Universities, and the Decisions on the Curricular Reform of Institutions of Higher Education. In August of the same year, the Administrative Council issued the Decisions on Reform of the Schooling System. These documents signaled the advent of a new higher education system. The Decisions on the Curricular Reform of Institutions of Higher Education set the period of schooling for the various levels of education: three to five years for regular universities, two to three years for technical schools, and one to two years for junior college programs offered by regular universities to senior secondary school graduates and their equivalent. The Decisions called on universities to open graduate schools to enroll college graduates and those with the same level of education for at least two years of studies, and to cooperate with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other research institutes in cultivating college teachers and researchers. This document played a major role in reforming and developing China's higher education.
In 1952, the Ministry of Education began nationwide regrouping and consolidation of comprehensive universities that focused on training teachers and technical personnel, and developing colleges along specialized lines. At that time, 190,000 students were attending 211 institutions of higher education throughout the country, including forty-nine universities, ninety-one colleges, and seventy-one polytechnic institutes. By 1957, the country had 229 institutions of higher education, including seventeen multi-disciplinary universities, forty-four industrial colleges, fifty-eight normal universities, thirty-seven medical colleges, thirty-one institutes of agronomy and forestry, eight institutes of languages, five colleges of finance and economics, five colleges of political science and law, six sports institutes, seventeen art colleges, and one special-purpose college. Thus six years of regrouping and consolidation efforts paid off. Developing colleges along specialized lines was the primary purpose of consolidating the industrial institutes and normal colleges. In 1965, on the eve of the “cultural revolution” (1966–1976), China had 434 schools of higher learning and a student body totalling 680,000.
The “cultural revolution” plunged the country into chaos. During that traumatic decade, the education system was scuttled, universities stopped enrolling students for many years, and order in teaching and schooling was interrupted. Consequently, a whole generation of people lost their higher education opportunities, and the gap between China and the developed countries was widened once again.
The adoption in 1978 of the policy of reform and opening up to the outside world started a new phase in the development of higher education in China. After the turmoil of the “cultural revolution” was over and the wrongs set to right in the field of education, universities began admitting students once again; higher education had started to come back into its own. In the past two decades and more, particularly since the 1990s, the government has given priority to the development of education, and implemented the strategy to rejuvenate the nation through science and education and the strategy to make the nation strong by cultivating talent. China's higher education system has finally entered a new era of fast, healthy, and sustained development, and deep and on-going reform.
First, with its scale increasing rapidly and its structure better adapted to socio-economic needs, a distinctive higher education
system offering all manner of schooling opportunities has come to stay. In 1999, to improve the entire country's level of education, hasten the cultivation of a large contingent of high-caliber professionals, and meet the People's desire for higher education, the central government decided to further increase university enrollment. This major policy decision catalyzed an expansion never before experienced in regular college education, and ushered in a new stage of burgeoning development of higher education as a whole. In 2004, the country's university attendance rate (i.e., percentage of total college-age population who attends a university) reached 19%, up by 9.2 percentage points from the 1998 figure of 9.8% (Figure 1.1). This indicates that China has measured up to the international standard for the “popular” stage of higher education. Other branches of higher education are booming as well, such as adult higher education, higher education self-study examinations, private colleges, radio and television universities, and online colleges as a form of modern distance education.
Second, there has been a marked improvement in teaching quality and efficiency. While expanding higher education and accelerating its development and popularity, the Ministry of Education attaches paramount importance to raising the quality of teaching. It calls on universities to take tangible steps to improve their students' overall moral and educational standards, while meeting the demand of socioeconomic development for high-caliber professionals. While speeding up the growth of higher education, the ministry insists on coordinated development in scale, structure, quality, and efficiency. Through a series of reform steps, the ministry has been able to expand higher education resources in good time by fully tapping the potential of various fields, and markedly increase the efficiency of the education system. The result is that universities throughout the country have remarkably improved their quality of teaching, level of academic pursuits, and competence of faculty.
Third, breakthroughs have been made in higher education reform and development, the major indications of which are as follows. First, changes have taken place in the administrative system, and allocation of education resources has been optimized. A total of about 900 schools have been regrouped and consolidated: 597 of them have been realigned to form 267 universities, the number of universities directly affiliated with State Council departments has been cut from 367 to 111, and most of the other universities have been relegated to provincial administration and joint development by local and central authorities. The State Council has also given provincial governments the approval to set up post-secondary colleges and technical schools, and the authority to make their own plans for enrolling students for junior college education. This step indicates that provincial governments' responsibility, power, and interests in higher education development in their respective regions have expanded. It has also resulted in a new system being established where higher education is run at central and provincial levels, with provincial governments in the main. Second, the reform of the internal administrative systems of universities has been deepening. Following the principle of “shifting the mechanisms, optimizing the structure, enhancing vitality, and raising efficiency,” institutions of higher education have, on the basis of revamping their internal governance, improved their work efficiency and changed their function by streamlining their administrative bodies and downsizing their non-teaching staff. Third, reforms in fee collection and graduate employment mechanisms are going smoothly. While mechanisms are being set up for collecting appropriate fees from college students so that education costs can be shared among all parties involved under the socialist market economic system, ancillary measures such as personal college education accounts, student loans, grants-in-aid, part-time work programs, and per-diem allowances are being offered to make higher education affordable to students from low-income families. Lastly, the outsourcing of on-campus logistics services has been a success. Virtually, all the institutions of higher education throughout the country have contracted out their logistics and service functions.
In the fifty-five years since the founding of the People's Republic, higher education has not only supplied national economic development needs with large numbers of capable professionals but also come up with a wealth of research results and discoveries in science and technology, and the humanities. It has also provided a good variety of social services for the socialist modernization drive. Moreover, it is developing faster and better, its basic systems are being ameliorated along with relevant legislation work, and its form and structure are maturing. This distinctive Chinese higher education system has grown to become a major driving force behind the country's development.
BASIC STRUCTURES AND LEGISLATION
The government's 1951 Decisions on Reform of the Schooling System laid the cornerstone for New China's basic system for higher education. In the years that followed, particularly since the 1990s, this system has been constantly improved. Major progress has been registered in related legislation work as well. The Higher Education Law enacted in 1998 further consolidates this basic system (Figure 1.2) and symbolizes the growing maturity of education-related legislation.
Basic system and structure
According to the Higher Education Law, China's higher education consists mainly of special course (or junior college) education, regular course (or undergraduate) education, and graduate education, and
includes education for academic qualifications and education for non-academic qualifications. Taking the form of full-time and part-time programs, it can also be delivered through radio, television, and correspondence, and by other long-distance means. Higher education for academic qualifications is conducted mainly by schools of higher learning while the other institutions of higher education may undertake non-academic qualification programs. With the approval of the Ministry of Education, research institutes may also provide graduate education. Schools of higher learning and other institutions of higher education may offer continuing education in response to social needs.
Undergraduate and graduate, post-secondary vocational, and special education produces quality specialists and workers of various levels. Each plays a vital role in the national education system. The basic structure of institutions of higher education throughout the country in 2004 is shown in Figure 1.3.
The higher education structure described in this section refers to the makeup of levels, fields, and forms of education, and geographical distribution of schools.
Academic degrees at different levels
The Regulations on Academic Degrees issued in February 1980 and its provisional procedures ratified by the State Council in May 1981 prescribe the academic standards for bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees, which form a three-tier academic degree system that is compatible with undergraduate and graduate education. However, the structure of higher education in China generally consists of four levels: post-secondary vocational education (at junior college level), undergraduate education, graduate education for a master's degree, and graduate education for a doctoral degree. This structure is optimized for the purpose of regulating each level of higher education, with emphasis on the college and junior college levels (Figure 1.4). In the early 21st century, this has been done in three steps. First, ensuring steady development in undergraduate education by keeping its portion in the higher education system at the 35–40% level (Figure 1.5), focusing on raising the quality of teaching, restructuring the
curriculum, and transforming training methodology so as to cultivate specialists with multiple talent and practical knowledge and skills. Second, expanding junior college education at large and post-secondary vocational education in particular, which means expending major efforts to develop post-secondary vocational education and to develop, in cost-effective ways, personnel with practical skills. Third, boosting graduate education.
The fields of study
Philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, history, the sciences, engineering, agronomy, healthcare, and management are the eleven fields of study offered in China's current higher education system (Figure 1.6). This composition reflects the situation in scientific and technological development, the division of labor, and the mix of trades and professions in society. It also matches the norm for the training of educated individuals.
Geographical distribution of universities
In the country's transition to a market economic system, provincial governments regulate the geographical distribution of universities, following the guidelines stipulated in the central government's overall policy. The bottom line is that local governments should realign their universities to meet the demands of the local economy with regard to the types of professionals required and the development of local human resources. An impact of central planning, prior to reform and opening up to the outside world, was that schools of higher learning were allocated under a sweeping state ownership and within the framework of a rigid division of work. Most universities were located in central cities and served a planned economy in which all activities were strategically planned on a national scale. In those days, college students were enrolled and jobs assigned to them upon graduation according to a unified national plan. The result was that the geographical distribution of institutions of higher education was so lopsided in every province that it could hardly serve local economic development needs. By the turn of the century, the government started regrouping and consolidating universities nationwide as a major step towards education reform and development.
Major approaches to improve the geographical distribution of universities
First, optimizing the geographical distribution of higher education across provincial boundaries. The government's strategy of developing the western regions in a big way places the emphasis of the optimization effort on stepping up support of central and west China so that local higher education can grow ahead of time. Second, improving the geographical distribution of higher education in line with the actual developmental conditions of cities of different sizes. In large cities, where institutions of higher learning are closely clustered and where there is a glut of look-alike colleges, schools of the same type should be amalgamated; and in medium-sized cities, priority should be given to developing fields of study that have a close bearing on the local socio-economic development. As indicated in Figure 1.7, the readjustment has enabled provinces to achieve balanced higher education development, which means a great deal
for closing the gap between developed and underdeveloped regions and between the east and the west, consolidating the resources available for education, and boosting development in human resources and the pool of competent professionals across the country.
Forms of higher education
Higher education in China is rendered in a variety of forms, including regular college education (post-secondary vocational education included), adult higher education, self-study examinations, distance education, and online education. To intensify reform of the mix of higher education forms and transform China into a learning society and an affluent country, major efforts will be made to develop adult higher education and post-secondary vocational education into the mainstay of a lifelong education system, and to closely integrate community higher education with development of human resources.
The diverse range of formal education opportunities echoes China's actual needs for higher education development. This is a common global trend. This diversity, which calls for a well-coordinated relationship between different educational elements, was optimized through a number of endeavors in the early 21st century: (1) Further streamlining the overall planning to balance and coordinate different forms of higher education; (2) Giving full scope to the pivotal role of regular universities in this diversity so that they can help raise the teaching quality and efficiency of the other forms of higher education; (3) Vigorously advancing modern distance higher education; and (4) Further developing and improving the higher education self-study examinations.
The following statistics may well illustrate the importance of these endeavors: In 2004, a total of 13.335 million attended 1,731 universities and colleges throughout the country, while 4.198 million attended 505 adult universities (Figure 1.8). In 2003, 11.562 million sat for the self-study examinations.
Legislation for higher education
China has basically built a legal system for education based on the Constitution, thanks to twenty or so years of reform and opening-up
efforts. The progress in recent years has been particularly noteworthy. Higher education-related legislation enacted by the National People's Congress (NPC) and its Standing Committee includes the Education Law, the Higher Education Law, the Regulations on Academic Degrees, the Teachers' Law, the Law on Promotion of Privately-Run Education, and the Vocational Education Law. The State Council has also enacted a dozen education administrative regulations, such as the Regulations on Teachers' Qualifications, the Regulations on Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools, and the Regulations on Education for the Disabled. Local governments have also come up with local education rules and regulations. The Education Law promulgated in 1995, however, is the basic law for education that is augmented by other pieces of legislation from different perspectives.
The Higher Education Law, which came into force in 1998, consists of sixty-nine clauses in eight chapters, providing the legal framework for all aspects of higher education. The chapters are: I. General Provisions; II. Basic Systems of Higher Education; III. Establishment of Higher Education Institutions; IV. Organizations and Activities of Higher Education Institutions; V. Teachers and Other Educational Workers of Higher Education Institutions; VI. Students of Higher Education Institutions; VII. Input to Higher Education and Guarantee of Conditions; and VIII. Supplementary Provisions. The Higher Education Law sets the guiding principle, goals, nature, tasks, responsibilities, roles, training targets, and basic principles for higher education in China; defines the levels of academic degrees, the functions of relevant organizations, enrollment standards, duration of schooling, academic standards, academic certificates, and the academic degree system; sets the principles and basic conditions for school governance, the use of names, and the application and ratification procedures for establishing schools; prescribes rules concerning the legal credentials and responsibilities of schools of higher learning, their organizational setup, and staff composition, property management, administrative system, credentials and responsibilities for university presidents, the academic councils of institutions of higher education, the teachers' congress, evaluation of education quality, and the systems governing the accreditation, employment, legal rights, duties, and obligations of teachers; and provides rules of conduct for students and their legal rights, and general principles for tuition and stipends, student organizations, administration over extra-curricular activities, graduation and employment, the financial system for schools of higher learning, standards for expenses, fund raising, equipment, school-run businesses, accounting, and other activities.
Higher education must be run according to the law. It must have the support of government policies and a legislation that has to cover new fields of higher education. For example, development of privately-run higher education center has prompted the NPC Standing Committee to enact the Law on Promotion of Privately-Run Education. Because of the changed circumstances, the Regulations on Academic Degrees has had to give way to a new Academic Degrees Law. To address on-campus incidents of injuries and protect the legal rights of the educated, the Ministry of Education has issued the Procedures for Handling On-Campus Incidents of Injuries. Uneven inter-regional development in higher education also calls for enactment of local higher education laws in line with local and ethnic conditions. Because education is entering a new stage of reform and development, and new situations are occurring in the course of it, the related legal system needs to be updated, and the rule of law further tightened. There is still a long way to go in the building of the education-related legal system.
UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
Undergraduate education is a fundamental part of higher education. Education at and above the undergraduate level is provided at the universities. In 2002, there were 543 universities certified to confer bachelor's degrees. This did not include schools authorized to confer master's and doctoral degrees—they were naturally in a position to issue bachelor's degrees. In 2004, China had 684 universities with 1.137 million on their payrolls—575,000 of them being full-time teachers—and 7.378 million students pursuing undergraduate studies in them.
Basic requirements for undergraduate education
Enrollment qualifications
After passing the college entrance examinations, graduates of senior secondary schools and the equivalent may enroll at colleges for undergraduate studies. Acting on relevant state regulations, colleges may confer, on the basis of academic performance, academic diplomas or other academic certificates on those who have completed their credit education within their term of schooling. Students pursuing non-credit higher education may, upon graduation, obtain appropriate diplomas issued by the colleges they have attended or other higher education authorities. Those who have passed state-mandated higher education self-study examinations will be granted with a commensurate academic diploma or professional certificate.
Term of schooling and qualifying standards for academic degrees
The term of schooling is four years for most undergraduates and five years for those in medical colleges or taking special courses in a few engineering institutes. These students shall obtain a bachelor's degree after they have met all the requirements prescribed in the teaching plan, obtained at least a pass for the courses they have taken and their graduation theses (or graduation design or other fieldwork assignments), mastered the basic theories, knowledge, and skills required of their fields of study, and obtained initial career-launching skills. The bachelor's degree falls into eleven categories—philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, history, the sciences, engineering, agronomy, medical science, and business management. Undergraduate education is designed to systematically instill students with the basic theories, knowledge, and skills of a particular field of study, and to prepare them for their future careers. For those taking credit undergraduate courses as part-time students, the term of schooling is extended appropriately.
Administration over undergraduate education
The quality of teaching is the lifeline for higher education. It is a routine task for schools of higher learning to improve teaching methods by innovative means. Undergraduate education in Chinese universities sets generalized requirements for the depth of specialty studies, but is demanding on the rudiments and stresses the cultivation of comprehensive intellectual acumen and practical ability. It advocates interaction between the liberal arts and the sciences, integration of the sciences and engineering, and mutual infiltration among the arts, the sciences, and engineering so that these fields of study can augment each other and make up for each other's deficiencies in fostering new talent. Higher education in China also values combining theoretical teaching with fieldwork, streamlining education in the arts and sciences and specialized knowledge, integrating teaching and research, carrying out explorative or research types of study, and motivating students in their academic pursuits.
The government's concern for the quality of college education manifests itself mainly by providing overall policy guidance and conditions. The Proposals on Stepping up Undergraduate Teaching in Regular Schools of Higher Learning and Raising the Quality of Cultivating Competent Professionals issued by the Ministry of Education in 2001 sets strict requirements to ensure the quality of college teaching. While shaping relevant policies, the ministry has also launched a series of projects to raise the quality of college teaching. Since its commencement in 1994, the ministry's Plan for Transformation of the Curricula and Syllabi for 21st-Century Higher Education has, through a series of topical studies, yielded initial results in rediscovering the norms governing the development of human resources and in improving the teaching of college students. In 2000, the ministry launched the New-Century Project for Teaching Reform in Schools of Higher Learning, which called for comprehensive research and fieldwork to adapt the forms of higher education, the curriculum, and teaching methodology to the needs of the modernization drive in the new century for innovative and practical professionals of a high order. The research and fieldwork under this project, which served to deepen the teaching reform, included the study of a strategic plan for the cultivation of talent, transformation of undergraduate and graduate teaching in universities, development of resources for modern distance education, the training of middle-aged and young college teachers, and transformation and construction of college laboratories for basic teaching purposes. In 2003, the ministry initiated the Project on Teaching Quality and Teaching Reform in Institutions of Higher Education, which set the quality of teaching at the core of its endeavor to deepen reforms of the mode of higher education, the curricula and syllabi and teaching, improve the instruction on basic courses, develop quality teaching programs, transform laboratories for basic courses, step up construction of the China Academic Library & Information System (CALIS) and a system that enables universities to share their laboratory facilities and quality resources, and tighten up a multi-leveled quality appraisal and control system.
In the past few years, many universities have begun to explore and innovate their teaching methodology. By allowing students to change their major based on their own interests and take both compulsory and optional courses, and by adopting a credit system and flexible teaching agenda, the universities have offered their students more choices and a better environment for development.
GRADUATE EDUCATION
China has developed a sizeable credit-granting graduate education system and operational mechanisms that encompass a broad spectrum of studies and ensure the quality of students to be conferred with graduate degrees. Graduate education in this country is carried out mainly in universities. Research institutes may also offer graduate education with the approval of the Ministry of Education. In 2003, China had 783 institutions (including 506 universities) and 12,704 departments certified to confer master's degrees for sub-fields of study; 342 institutions (including 273 universities) and 1,717 departments authorized to grant doctoral degrees for sub-fields of study and specialties, and 974 institutions empowered to confer PhDs for major fields of study. Figure 1.9 gives some idea of the increase in the numbers of students pursuing master's or doctoral degrees over the past twenty years, with remarkable increases in the number of candidates for master's degrees since 1999.
Classification of master's and doctoral degrees
The Regulations on Academic Degrees that was endorsed in 1980 and came into force on January 1, 1981, is a milestone for graduate education in China. It defines the levels of graduate education and links it with a degree system. These regulations and the provisional
procedures for their implementation provide that classification of academic degrees is relevant to different levels of higher education, and that master's and doctoral degrees can only be offered to those who have completed their graduate education at higher education institutions or research institutes with the authorization of the Academic Degree Committee of the State Council (Figure 1.10).
Master's degrees
College graduates or those with equivalent education may enroll in a university or research institute certified to confer master's degrees upon passing entrance examinations. After studying for two to three years, they can earn a master's degree if they have passed the examinations for all the courses they have taken and succeeded in the oral defense of their theses. The master's degree is testimony that a student has mastered the basic theories and knowledge, and research and work ability in his/her field of study.
Doctoral degrees
Graduate students and the equivalent may enroll in a university or research institute empowered to confer doctoral degrees upon passing qualifying examinations. After studying for three to four years, these students are entitled to a doctoral degree if they have passed the required examinations for the courses they have taken and successfully defended their theses in an oral debate. The doctoral degree indicates that the student has solidly mastered a wide range of basic theories and systematic knowledge in his/her field of study, has acquired the ability to engage in research work on his/her own, or has already distinguished himself/herself in innovative science work. In certain designated fields of study, qualified undergraduates are allowed to go on directly to pursue a doctoral degree.
Technical degrees
In 1990, to diversify and improve training and speed up the cultivation of high-level specialists with multi-disciplinary applied technology, who are in great demand, the Academic Degree Committee of the
State Council installed technical degrees in thirteen categories: business management (MBA), architecture (bachelor's and master's degrees), law (master's degree), education (master's degree), engineering (master's degree), clinical medicine (doctoral and master's degrees), public health (master's degree), stomatology (doctoral and master's degrees), public administration (MPA), agricultural promotion (master's degree), veterinary medicine (doctoral and master's degrees), war (master's degree), and accounting (master's degree). The addition of technical degrees has given more substance to the country's academic degree and graduate education systems, and has provided a new avenue for bringing forth highly skilled technical professionals.
In 1985, China began to permit those who had not received graduate education, but had reached high academic or technical levels, to apply for on-the-job graduate education leading to master's or doctoral degrees. In 1998, the Academic Degree Committee of the State Council enacted the Provisions Governing the Conferment of Master's and Doctoral Degrees to the Equivalent of Graduate Students.
Catalog of degree programs and administration of academic degrees
In 1998, the Academic Degree Committee of the State Council issued the Catalog of Disciplines and Specialties of Conferring Doctoral and Master's Degrees and of Postgraduate Training. The catalog lists academic and technical fields at three levels. At the first level are twelve main fields of study where master's degrees are conferred: philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, history, the sciences, engineering, agronomy, medical science, business management, and war. At the second level are sub-fields of study. The third level comprises specialties under each sub-field. The committee has set the benchmarks for master's and doctoral degrees for sub-fields of study. So far, the catalog encompasses eighty-eight sub-fields and 382 specialties.
In compliance with the Regulations on Academic Degrees and relevant state legislation, panels have been established to exercise administration over academic degrees at three levels: (1) the central government; (2) provincial governments and relevant State Council ministries and commissions; and (3) degree-granting institutions.
The Academic Degree Committee of the State Council consists of experts and scholars of national renown and leaders of relevant State Council departments. Top experts and scholars experienced in tutoring doctoral candidates serve on appraisal panels for different academic fields for a term of four years. The major tasks of these panels are to accredit doctoral or master's degree-granting schools or faculties, finalize the catalog of degree-granting fields and specialties, as well as examine and evaluate degree-conferment work and the quality of graduate education. There are 750 incumbent members on the council's seventy appraisal panels.
All the provincial governments have set up academic degree committees to monitor degree-conferment work and the quality of graduate education in their respective provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities. Entrusted by the Academic Degree Committee of the State Council, the provincial committees are entitled to authorize local institutions to grant master's or bachelor's degrees for those fields of study that are designated by the Academic Degree Committee. The relevant ministries and commissions of the State Council also run their own higher education administrative departments to take charge of the administration of the conferment of academic degrees and graduate education for their respective fields. Degree-granting universities and research institutes are required to form their own academic appraisal committees to address degree-related work.
According to the Regulations on Academic Degrees, no organization is allowed to grant academic degrees without ratification by the Academic Degree Committee of the State Council.
Nationwide access to quality graduate education resources
Three steps are being taken to facilitate nationwide access to quality graduate education resources. First, procurement of more and better textbooks. This is being done by organizing renowned university professors and experts to compile textbook series with up-to-date contents and high value for general fields of study, and by bringing in a selected number of textbooks of a good standard from foreign countries. Second, establishing a system in aid of graduate students taking co-registered courses. To pool the quality study and research resources of all graduate schools and to enable universities and specialties to augment each other with their respective strengths, the Ministry of Education will establish this system whereby quotas of graduate students (doctoral candidates in the main) taking co-registered courses are set, and tutors and study and research conditions are provided for these students. Third, opening summer schools for graduate students. During summer holidays, accomplished professors and experts will be invited to teach graduate courses, with emphasis on introducing the latest research results or developmental trends in a particular field of study or on cultivating students' basic research skills. The summer schools will be open to graduate students and young teachers selected from graduate schools throughout the country. These schools will grant credits to students who have finished the summer courses and passed the examinations.
POST-SECONDARY VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
China is a developing country where the number of people in the eighteen to twenty-two college-age group approached 100 million in 2000 and is expected to top 120 million in 2008. Even a developed country with an average five-digit per-capita GDP in US dollars has to make up for shortfalls in regular higher education by providing short-term vocational and community higher education and other forms of post-secondary education. It is thus out of the question for China, whose average per-capita GDP has just reached the US$1,000 mark, to meet its People's demand for diverse higher education opportunities by relying solely on a university education system that is marked by long terms of schooling and a highly academic and research nature. It has to boost post-secondary vocational (and technical) education while continuing to expand university education. Judging from its socioeconomic developmental level, the country needs a large number of people with scientific knowledge and expertise in various fields of endeavor. Such people should be produced mainly through post-secondary vocational education. The consensus among those engaged in post-secondary vocational education is that they should follow the needs of the workplace and lose no time in cultivating a large contingent of skilled engineers and technicians.
Basic requirements of post-secondary vocational education
Qualification for post-secondary vocational and technical education
Senior middle school graduates or the equivalent may, upon passing entrance examinations, enroll in institutions that offer credit or non-credit junior college education. To earn a degree, diploma, or certificate, these junior college students are required to go through roughly the same procedures as undergraduate students.
Duration of schooling and academic benchmarks
The duration of post-secondary vocational and technical education ranges between two and three years. Through this period of time, the students must obtain the essential theories and knowledge as required in a particular field of study and master all the basic skills and expertise. The duration of schooling for those enrolled in part-time credit programs is extended accordingly. A school may, with the approval of the education administrative department, readjust the duration of education according to its own conditions.
Development in post-secondary vocational and technical education
At present, post-secondary vocational and technical education in China is offered in five types of schools: independent vocational and technical colleges and local vocational colleges; independent post-secondary technical schools; independent adult universities; vocational and technical colleges run by regular universities; and adult or continuing education colleges run by regular universities. Postgraduate vocational education has been growing robustly since 1998, and has emerged as a new source of growth in higher education in this country (Figure 1.11).
To dovetail post-secondary vocational education to local economic development and encourage localities to run more such schools, the State Council has decentralized the authority to provincial governments to approve the establishment of these schools, decide their own scale of post-secondary vocational education, and make their own curricular arrangement for it. As a result, at least 100 new post-secondary vocational and technical colleges have been set up every year over the past few years. By September 2004, a total of 1,047 or 60.5% of all the universities in China had set up post-secondary vocational schools, up 58.8% from the 1998 figure. This included 175 post-secondary technical schools and 872 vocational and technical colleges. According to 2004 statistics, approximately 5.96 million were attending vocational and technical colleges, accounting for 44% of all the college students in China, or four times more than in 1998. In 2004, a total of 2.37 million, or 53.1% of all the new college recruits of that year, enrolled in post-secondary vocational education, 4.4 times the 1998 figure of 540,000.
Salient features of post-secondary vocational education
For China, post-secondary vocational education is a pioneering undertaking designed to blaze a new trail in cultivating competent professionals to meet the needs of national economic development and social progress. Since New China shaped a new school system in 1951, vocational and technical education has always been a relatively independent branch in the higher education system, with the sole task of issuing talent with practical expertise—engineers, technicians, and skilled workers. Since the late 1990s, as the demand for these types of professionals keeps growing with social progress and economic restructuring, post-secondary vocational education has attracted the attention of both the government and the public. To list post-secondary vocational education as a key area in education reform and development has been the brainchild of the government as it charts a new road towards industrialization and rises to the opportunities and challenges of a knowledge economy.
Given its differences from academic and research types of education, post-secondary vocational and technical education can thrive only by adapting itself to the demands of society to fill large numbers of jobs with skilled and educated professionals. In other words, it has to develop a job orientation and seek survival and sustained development by providing distinct services for society and the marketplace.
More and more post-secondary vocational and technical colleges are gearing education to industrial needs and providing “customized” training programs for industries and enterprises. They have introduced a credit system whereby their graduates are conferred with both a diploma and a vocational certificate. In an effort to transform the way talent is cultivated, they are stepping up training in work skills to better prepare their students for a career. In this way, they are supplying large numbers of highly skilled personnel for the country's manufacturing industry, software development, modern agriculture, and service industry.
The central government is building pilot teachers' training bases for vocational education and demonstrative software vocational and technical colleges to call the attention of local governments to the reform of post-secondary vocational education and the need to spend more money and grant more preferential policies to help local vocational colleges reform their teaching, step up training in practical skills, ensure the quality of teaching, and meet the needs of the manufacturing and modern service industries for well-educated engineers and technicians. So far, thirty-five demonstrative software vocational and technical colleges are under construction, and each is expected to develop an average student body of 4,000 in three to five years' time and emerge as centers producing “silver-collared workers”—technicians schooled in applied software technology.
Employment-oriented post-secondary vocational education reform
Post-secondary vocational education is designed mainly to produce senior engineers and technicians for the production, construction, management, and service fields. Every city or prefecture in this country is running at least one such college most directly and closely associated with the local socio-economic development and the interests of the local people.
Reform of post-secondary vocational education covers many aspects, but developing a job market orientation is the most important.
In 1999, the central government delegated the power over establishment, curricula, and enrollment of post-secondary vocational and technical colleges to the provincial governments. This brought about a two-level administrative system for post-secondary vocational education: while the central government sets policies and monitors national development, the main planning and administrative responsibilities rest with the provincial governments. This system maximizes the capacity of post-secondary vocational education to serve regional development.
The sources of funding for post-secondary vocational education are being diversified. Private colleges have gained substantial growth, and so far, 208 of them have emerged across the country.
Post-secondary vocational colleges are transforming teaching to give themselves a distinct job orientation and vocational characteristics. They are doing this in five ways. First, stepping up curricular development. So far, the curricula of the country's vocational and technical colleges have basically covered all the industries and trades in the modernization drive. The central government encourages these colleges to offer the workplace “customized” training programs and to make prompt curricular changes to follow local socio-economic development needs. Beginning in 2000, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance have designated sixty-seven universities for construction of demonstrative vocational and technical colleges. More universities will join in the action in the future. Second, compiling more and better textbooks. The Tenth Five-Year Plan (2001–2005) calls for compiling 500 first-class textbooks for post-secondary vocational education, and they are coming off the press in a constant stream. Third, improving the standard of teachers. In 2003, the Ministry of Education launched an initiative to upgrade college teachers' academic degrees and established special avenues for this. Training centers have also been set up in Tianjin, Shanghai, and some other cities to provide short-term training for vocational college teachers to improve their practical skills and turn themselves into specialists who can also teach. Fourth, building more fieldwork bases. The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance are shaping guiding policies and increasing funding to promote construction of these bases and enhance public access to them. Fifth, developing more first-rate technical teaching programs so that in five years' time China will have around 1,000 such programs that cover all the major fields of study and serve as pacesetters for the establishment of new technical teaching programs. In five years' time, the country will also develop large numbers of high-caliber training courses.
Vocational training is being transformed in three ways. First, putting vocational and technical colleges in the service of economic development and social progress and integrating industry's needs with teaching and research. Material and intellectual resources are pooled from all walks of life, and industries and enterprises are joining in the process in which useful members of society are produced. Second, introducing the “double certificate” system, where graduates will be granted not only a diploma, but also at least one professional or technical certificate, so that they will enjoy a competitive edge in the job market and meet the requirements of a government work permit system. Third, launching a plan for cultivating talent in high demand. In 2003, to remedy the massive shortage of well-educated engineers and technicians in modern manufacturing and service
industries, the Ministry of Education and five other ministries and commissions jointly unveiled a project to train such talent, whereby 250 vocational and technical colleges were designated to collaborate with enterprises in this effort. Another plan is being carried out to build pilot projects for developing quality educational resources.
DEVELOPING FIRST-RATE UNIVERSITIES AND KEY ACADEMIC FIELDS
How to make the most of the government's limited financial resources, fire up the enthusiasm of all quarters, guarantee the quality of education, optimize the structure of education so as to give prominence to key fields of study and research, and raise teaching efficiency is a question the government and higher education circles have been striving to answer throughout the process of higher education development. The strategy to tackle the issue is to pay equal and increased attention to developing innovative talent and skilled technicians and engineers, and to the scale, structure, quality, and efficiency of higher education. Since the mid-1990s, China has been exploring ways and means for developing 100 first-class universities and key fields of study, and both Project 211 and Project 985 for higher education have achieved initial results.
Project 211 for developing 100 first-class universities and a number of key fields of study in the 21st century
In 1995, the State Council launched Project 211, which calls for marked improvements in teaching, research, administration, and efficiency in 100 schools of higher learning and in certain key fields of study in the 21st century, so that they can emerge as major dynamos for training highly skilled professionals and tackling major issues concerning economic development and social progress. The project entails three fields of endeavor.
Improving universities' overall conditions
More well-accomplished academic leaders and first-rate teachers must be cultivated, especially among young teachers. Universities must develop a stable and streamlined contingent of quality teachers and school administrators, deepen teaching reform, optimize the curricula, promote students' all-round moral, intellectual, and physical development, and significantly improve the quality of teaching. They must step up the building of the infrastructure for teaching and research, laboratories, and public utilities, and provide necessary living and work conditions to keep outstanding people in their jobs; redouble their efforts in research, strive to industrialize research results, and speed up the transfer of these results into productivity; and transform the school system and deepen their internal administrative restructuring. Universities must also increase international exchange and cooperation, and expand the global influence of Chinese higher education.
Developing key fields of study
This is designed to beef up the ability of universities in China to produce high-caliber scholars and experts in frontier science and technology. A number of university research institutes will be selected to tackle complicated issues in science and technology, make breakthroughs in their respective fields, and exert a major impact on the economy, science and technology, and national defense. To supply the country with a constant stream of core experts in all fields of science and technology, the universities under Project 211 will improve their laboratories, expand their curricula, and develop a cluster of prestigious academic and research programs and centers that are closely connected in their pursuits and enjoy ready access to each other's resources. No effort will be spared to build up a system of key academic fields that augment each other in a sensible division of labor, cover all the major professions and trades in the country's economic and social development, and are a driving force behind academic and technological progress.
Building a higher education public service framework
Major elements of this framework will include the China Education and Research Network (CERNET), the China Academic Library & Information System (CALIS), and a system where universities can access each other's modern laboratory apparatus and equipment. CERNET will connect major universities and the Internet and provide information services for education, science and technology, and other fields of endeavor. With the backing of CERNET, CALIS will develop a central databank and other databanks for various disciplines of learning, connect with other databanks at home and abroad, and operate a number of branch academic library and information systems. Centers that facilitate mutual access to university laboratory apparatus and equipment will be built in cities where schools of higher learning are closely clustered, so as to boost the utility rate of these apparatus and equipment.
Project 211 is the largest key higher education construction program ever undertaken in the history of the People's Republic. The money needed for it is raised jointly by the central government, the ministries and commissions under the State Council, localities, and universities. A State Council panel coordinates ministries and commissions in tackling major policy issues concerning the project. During the Ninth Five-Year Plan Period (1996–2000), the State Planning Commission endorsed ninety-nine schools and two public service systems to be developed under Project 211. It also arranged for 602 projects for the development of key fields of study. In addition, it collected 10.894 billion yuan for these purposes. This includes a special fund of 2.755 billion yuan from the central budget and 7.472 billion yuan arranged by central ministries and local governments for infrastructure construction. Statistics indicate that funds for Project 211 have been put in place, with the total fulfillment rate reaching 103%.
The first phase of Project 211 has achieved its goals and yielded major results and returns. First, by pooling resources and using them only where it matters, China has developed a number of key universities and core fields of study that form the forward position where the country can beef up its comprehensive strength, sharpen its global competitiveness, and effectively bring about an overall improvement in higher education. Second, the relevant universities have been strengthened, their operational conditions have been improved markedly, and they are in a better position to produce high-level creative talent. The universities under Project 211 have acquired more than 3 million square meters of new teaching and research buildings; the money they spent on purchasing laboratory apparatus and equipment during this period nearly equaled the total they had spent for this purpose since the founding of the People's Republic; and their gross value of apparatus and equipment, total number of books in their libraries, and total expenses on research work accounted for 54%, 31%, and 72% respectively of the totals of all schools of higher learning across the country. Third, a number of key fields of study have come to the fore as national bases for innovation of knowledge and technology and for the training of highly skilled professionals. Over 50% of Project 211's special funds have been invested in developing these fields of study, and the 602 development programs undertaken for a total sum of 7 billion yuan during the Ninth Five-Year Plan Period covered virtually all the 416 major key fields of study available in the country's universities. Fourth, a national higher education digital information platform has been built. The eight regional backbone CERNET networks and the mirroring systems for ten major fields of study built under Project 211 offer universities across China ready access to the latest developments in the frontiers of science and technology. Fifth, a standard, well-coordinated, and scientifically proven administrative and operating system has been set up, which has streamlined the management of Project 211 and effectively ensured its smooth progress. In all, what has been accomplished in the first phase of Project 211 has provided a great impetus for higher education development and a solid basis for the emergence of world-class universities and fields of study in this country.
The major tasks for Project 211 during the Tenth Five-Year Plan Period are: (1) to continue building key universities, turning most of them into national leaders in teaching and research, and centers for tackling complicated problems in national and local economic, scientific and technological, and social development; (2) to step up development of key fields of study, redouble curricular restructuring efforts, catalyze growth of new and inter-disciplinary fields of study and bring some of them up to advanced international standards, and build a body of key higher education teaching programs with balanced makeup and geographical distribution; and (3) to accelerate IT development in higher education, increase the service capacities of CERNET, CALIS, and digitalized library resources, and develop mutual access to laboratory apparatus and equipment and other quality resources among universities, so as to furnish a much better environment for the operation of the higher education public service system, build up an information service platform that reaches out to all universities throughout the country, and spur national development in higher education.
Project 985 for developing world-class universities and world-famous research universities
To develop world-class universities and world-famous research universities is a major step towards achieving a quantum leap in higher education development; it is also a major part of the strategy to rejuvenate the country through science and education and the strategy to make the country strong by cultivating talent. In his address to a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of Peking University in May 1998, President Jiang Zemin said, “Modernization of China calls for a number of first-rate universities at the advanced world level.” Acting on the president's instruction, the central government made the decision to provide major support for some universities, and set the goal to develop several world-class universities and fields of study.
Project 985 for developing world-class universities and research universities was set in motion in 1999. Peking University and Tsinghua University were the first to gain major state support under this project. Soon after, they were joined by Fudan University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Nanjing University, Zhejiang University, Xi'an Jiaotong University, University of Science and Technology of China, and Harbin Institute of Technology for joint construction by the Ministry of Education and relevant provincial governments or other State Council ministries or commissions. By way of joint construction, readjustment, cooperation, and consolidation, Project 985 is purported to help the universities involved augment each other with their respective strengths and enhance the comprehensiveness of their academic and research programs. By inter-disciplinary consolidation and by providing key support to quality academic and research programs, these universities have vastly sharpened their competitive edge in undertaking major national research projects and come up with a batch of important research results. For example, the Peking University Center for Human Disease Genomics is applying for a PCT international patent and American and British patents for one of its original research results; it was also the first in the world to discover and verify a fragment of the earth's oldest oceanic crust (dating back 2.5 billion years), thereby dating back the theory of plate tectonics by an additional 500 million years. Tsinghua University has built what is universally recognized as the safest fourth-generation reactor with the highest power-generating efficiency, obtained intellectual property rights over a number of bio-chip technologies, and enabled China to reach advanced world level in this field of research and industrial development. It has also become a world pacesetter in research and development of high-temperature superconducting belt-type wire stock. Nanjing University's creation of the world's first solid-state double-wavelength laser machine is hailed as a record-setting technological achievement. Shanghai Jiaotong University was the first in China to begin mental disease gene drug screening and won worldwide recognition for its research in monogenic disorder.
With the backing of Project 985, the relevant universities lost no time in recruiting top-notch talent from home and abroad, and in improving faculty quality. From 2001, Tsinghua University has hired some prestigious scholars as “chair professors.” Following the policy of bringing in complete teams of experts and allowing them to come and go freely, Fudan University has set up a special fund to recruit outstanding teachers and researchers, and to promote outstanding academic and research programs. These universities have also undertaken measures to advance all-round character education and instill an innovative spirit and ability in students, and their quality of education has improved steadily as a result. A students' innovative research fund set up in Peking University enables talented students to come to the fore as early as the undergraduate level. Tsinghua University promotes a “university student research and training plan” to encourage undergraduates to start study and research along specialized lines at an early date. Since the University of Science and
Technology of China implemented a university student research plan in 1999, more than sixty of its students have published theses in prestigious journals at home and abroad. Quality graduate education has given a great boost to these universities' research abilities.
Insofar as it helps to develop key universities and fields of study and encourages universities to pull themselves up and seek major growth by their bootstraps, Project 985 has been a successful pioneering effort with the most forceful reform measures, most remarkable results, and most valuable experience ever since the recent round of higher education reform began in 1985. Through its first phase of construction, the project has realigned and optimized the academic structures and orientations of some of the country's best universities, and, by improving their infrastructure in no small way, has enabled them to build on their research strength, effectively pool outstanding talent from home and abroad, improve their training of high-level innovative personnel, obtain world-level research results, and gain the experience and lay the foundation for China to develop more world-class universities.
In line with the Ministry of Education's Action Plan for Rejuvenating Education 2003–2007 endorsed by the State Council in March 2004, the ministry has set the tasks for the second phase (2004–2007) of Project 985: consolidating the results achieved and the foundation laid in the first phase for developing world-class universities; actively exploring ways and means to build a modern university system by innovating the higher education administrative system and its operational mechanisms; cultivating new talent and bringing in world-class academic leaders individually or by groups and allowing them to come and go of their own accord, so as to accelerate the development of academic and research fields where China is strong in the world; building national sci-tech innovation platforms and national centers for innovation in humanities and social sciences as part of a national innovation system; and hastening the emergence of world-class academic programs and the optimization of the makeup of these programs.
Developing key academic programs in universities throughout the country
The term “key academic programs” refers to university teaching programs the government has selected for priority development in line with China's socio-economic demand for top-notch professionals, the trend in sci-tech development, and the state's financial capacity. They have a pacesetting part to play in a university's effort to build on its academic programs. The government began a plan to choose key academic programs in 1985, and launched a nationwide drive for this purpose in 1986 and 1987. During 1986–1987, 416 key programs were selected that represented Chinese universities' top academic level in such important fields as the arts, sciences, engineering, agronomy, and medicine. The purpose of the selection was to improve the capacities of universities throughout the country in training professionals of a high order, build up their academic and research strength, close the gap between China and the developed nations in the training of doctoral students, and promote the academic buildup in China's schools of higher education.
Since then, the central government and the leading departments concerned have been backing these key academic and research programs through different conduits. For example, a State Planning Commission plan for construction of key laboratories during 1984–1994, and a key academic program development project launched on a World Bank loan during 1990–1994 by the Ministry of Education in collaboration with departments concerned, improved the teaching and research conditions of most of the selected key academic programs, and increased their ability to cultivate top-notch professionals and engage in high-level research work. Some of these programs were developed into research institutes that enjoyed international renown and played a leading role in their respective fields. What had been achieved in this regard motivated relevant administrative departments and local governments to develop key academic programs in the universities affiliated to them—some local governments even invested in the key programs of centrally affiliated universities, thereby setting a precedent in the joint construction of universities by central and local authorities.
Project 211 also gives great impetus to the development of key university programs, which is actually a major item on its agenda. In 2001, to meet the needs of the modernization drive and carry out the Action Plan for Rejuvenating Education for the 21st Century, the Ministry of Education launched another round of evaluating and selecting state-class key academic programs. The selected programs were to be developed with priority for three specific purposes.
First, to accelerate the development of academic programs, beef up all the universities' teaching and research capacity, and set up centers where high-level professionals can be trained by relying on domestic resources and major problems arising in economic development and social progress can be tackled.
Second, to set a good example and pave the way for the development of university academic programs and adapt these programs better to the modernization drive and development of the economy, society, science and technology, and national defense.
Third, to optimize the allocation of higher education resources and pool the limited financial resources of both central and local authorities to gradually bring about a well-structured system of key academic programs, each with distinct features and advantages, and to consolidate and expand universities' comprehensive ability in training and research.
The guiding principle for selecting key academic programs is to readjust their makeup and optimize their geographical distribution, control the total number and select only the best, publicize the policies, and encourage fair competition. The Ministry of Education's Procedures for Selection of Key Academic Programs in Schools of Higher Learning has set the standards and laid down the rules for the organizational procedures. According to these procedures, the qualifying conditions for a key program are as follows:
First, it should have good development prospects and an important bearing on science and technology and on economic, social, and cultural development, or national defense.
Second, it should have an academic leader who has a certain global influence or is at least publicly recognized in China, and a well-structured team of teachers and researchers.
Third, it should be in the top ranks with regard to the number and quality of doctoral students trained, and have developed influential academic features, achieved a certain amount of high-level research results, and made major contributions to economic development and social progress.
Fourth, it is undertaking at least one research project of major theoretical and practical significance.
Fifth, its teaching and research conditions are at advanced levels in comparison with its domestic counterparts, and it has a strong capacity to support related fields of study and enjoy sophisticated access to information from home and abroad.
Sixth, it should have developed a strong academic atmosphere among its members and be active in both domestic and international academic exchanges.
In January 2002, the Ministry of Education ratified a list of 964 key university academic programs and notified relevant universities of it. These programs cover all the major fields of study and over 95% of the sub-fields. The list also indicates an impressive rise in the number of programs in nascent fields and in fields that must be developed without delay; the inclusion of these programs is in keeping with the call of the day to adapt the coverage, makeup, and geographical distribution of key university academic programs to new socio-economic development needs.
In 2004, the Ministry of Education listed the development of key academic programs in the Action Plan for Rejuvenating Education 2003–2007, and shaped a series of measures to gradually set up a nationwide system of key academic programs that are well distributed geographically and marked for their distinctive strengths.
- Boosting all-round development of institutions of higher education with key academic programs at the core. In this regard, the allocation of higher education resources will be optimized, the pivotal position of key academic and research programs consolidated by developing a batch of national key programs, and full scope given to their exemplary role, so that universities can become centers for training top professionals and tackling major issues concerning economic development and social progress.
- Setting up operational mechanisms to facilitate the development of academic programs, and shaping a system in which key programs at national, regional, and university levels support each other and grow in a progressive fashion. Rules and regulations will be formed concerning the development of key programs in universities.
- Stepping up exploration of methods for evaluating key academic programs, establishing a fair evaluation system that is streamlined, pragmatic, and scientifically based, and formulating procedures that integrate annual routine evaluation with centralized rounds of evaluation, so that evaluation work can drive the development of key academic programs.
- Establishing an investment system for key academic programs, with the funds needed being raised jointly by the state, localities, and universities.
- Urging universities to follow international trends in the development of first-rate academic programs, study their teaching plans, and curricula and teaching reform measures, so as to improve their own teaching and research and to raise their overall levels in light of world trends and national socio-economic development needs.
SPECIAL HIGHER EDUCATION
In China, there are tens of millions of people with one kind of handicap or another. To care for these underprivileged people and provide them with higher education opportunities is not just about giving them a better chance for survival and a better lot; it is part of society's unshirkable obligation to safeguard human rights and promote all-round social progress. After the founding of the People's Republic, especially since the adoption of the policy of reform and opening up to the outside world, the government and higher education administrative departments at all levels have adopted effective policies and measures to advance special higher education and have satisfied the desire of the disabled to continue their education. The successes in this effort are there for all to see.
Special higher education legislation
With the economy, society, and higher education developing steadily, higher education of the disabled has attracted the increasing attention of governments at all levels. During 1982–1998, the National People's Congress, the State Council, and the Ministry of Education enacted a series of laws and provisions to advocate special education.
The Constitution of the People's Republic of China enacted in December 1982 stipulates, “The state and society help make arrangements for the work, livelihood and education of the blind, deaf-mutes, and other handicapped citizens.” It also states that the disabled enjoy the same right to education as their fellow citizens.
In February 1985, the Ministry of Education, the State Planning Commission, the Ministry of Labor and Personnel, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs jointly issued the Circular on Doing a Good Job in Enrolling Handicapped Youth in Colleges and Assigning Jobs upon Their Graduation. This important document concerning special higher education further clarified the rights of handicapped young people to receive higher education and work.
In 1990, China promulgated its first special law on the rights of the disabled, the Law of the People's Republic of China on Security for the Disabled, which lays down specific principles for education of the disabled, the forms of schooling, and the assistance to be extended to them.
The Outline for Educational Reform and Development in China issued in February 1993 stipulates that it is imperative to value and support undertakings for the education of the disabled and that governments at all levels should regard education of the disabled as a component part of education as a whole. In August 1994, the government publicized a special statute on education for the disabled: the Regulations on Education for the Disabled.
The Higher Education Law enacted in 1998 states further provisions concerning the disabled receiving higher education, stating that all citizens enjoy the right to higher education, that institutions of higher education must enroll disabled students who are up to state-mandated enrollment standards, and that they are not allowed to reject these students on account of their handicaps.
The aforementioned laws and regulations have been enforced effectively and have promoted the development of higher education for the disabled.
Development in special higher education
Before liberation in 1949, special education in China was slow in development, and disabled college students were few and far between. In 1948, the country had only forty-two schools for the disabled and deaf-mutes, with a student body of only 2,380, and the best the students were offered was basic special education. Special education has seen rapid development in New China. In 2004, a total of 371,800 disabled students were attending 1,560 elementary special education schools nationwide, not including those receiving secondary and post-secondary special education; and a number of special education colleges and university faculties had been established.
In May 1987, regular universities began to enroll disabled students, and a special education college was established in Changchun University with central government ratification. In 1991, the Tianjin Institute of Technology set up a special education department (the predecessor of the Engineering College for the Deaf), thereby filling the gap in higher education in science and engineering for the disabled. This was followed by the emergence of the Nanjing United Deaf-Mutes University, the Yantai Yongkang Disabled People's University, the International College for the Disabled of the Huanghe Institute of Science and Technology, and the Special Education College of Beijing Union University, which began enrolling disabled students right after they were established. In the meantime, more and more institutions of higher education across the country began to enroll disabled students in their academic programs. The aforementioned special education institutions have opened twenty specialties, including painting; technological design; accounting; computer science; acupuncture, moxibustion, and massage; horticulture and gardening; and mechanical technology design. The disabled studying in special education institutions must meet the same educational standards and fulfill the same durations of schooling as regular college students.
With special education burgeoning, the monotony of special education colleges has given way to diverse forms of education for the disabled. Regular colleges are running special education classes for the disabled or simply putting them in regular classes. The difficulty of accessing higher education faced by the disabled has also been considerably eased, thanks to the introduction of distance education, correspondence education, and higher education self-study examinations. More than 4,700 disabled young people have earned junior college degrees after passing adult higher education or self-study examinations, and 819 of them have won the national “Award for Distinguished Disabled Examinees.” The College of the Disabled of the China Central Radio and TV University is collaborating with the All-China Federation of the Disabled to offer credit courses for these special students. After more than a decade since development began in the 1980s, higher education for the disabled has formed a pattern in which special education colleges are the mainstay and enrollment in regular college classes is the major form of higher education for the disabled. By 1998, regular schools of higher learning throughout the country had admitted 14,475 disabled students. In the Special Education College of Changchun University alone, 1,500 disabled students have seen their dream for college come true, and more than twenty of them have gone on to pursue master's or doctoral degrees in Europe and North America.
Cultivating teachers for special education
Beginning in 1985, the Ministry of Education has set up special education training centers in Beijing Normal University, Wuhan University, and the six normal universities affiliated to the ministry to produce more teachers to meet the growing demand for special education. This important step has set the training of special education teachers on a course of healthy development.
The Nanjing Special Education Normal School, established in 1985 with government investment, was the first of its kind in China. Then, in 1986, the Beijing Normal University enrolled the country's first batch of special education majors. By 2003, special education faculties had been set up in seven normal universities. The Beijing Normal University is also offering master's and doctoral programs in special education.
Most special education college teachers in China are college graduates, some of them holding master's or doctoral degrees. Before they commence work they must receive one year's training in such courses as Braille, sign language, and special education psychology, and pass rigid tests. A small number of them are chosen from among disabled graduates from special education colleges.