Higher Education in China Nowadays, the reform and d

Higher Education in China
    Since the implementation of reform and opening up, the reform and development of higher education have made significant achievements. A higher education system with various forms, which encompasses basically all branches of learning, combines both degree-education and non-degree education and integrates college education, undergraduate education and graduate education, has taken shape. Higher education in China has played an important role in the economic construction, science progress and social development by bringing up large scale of advanced talents and experts for the construction of socialist modernization.
    As we can see from the changes in the past decades, the reform of higher education has proved to be very necessary and fruitful whereas the former system has some ingrained weaknesses. Chinese economic system used to be very highly centralized. To adapt to that, the former higher education system was also centralized, with education provided by the central and local governments respectively and directly under their administration. Consequently, there are many disadvantages involved:firstly, the state undertook too many responsibilities; secondly, the schools lacked the flexibility and autonomy to provide education according to the needs of the society; last but not least, with too many single disciplinary HEIs and professional HEIs, and with the establishment of disciplines over-lapped, the efficiency of some HEIs fell very low which in return hampered the improvement of education quality.
    Therefore, the structural reform of higher education has become a key for other higher education reforms. The overall objectives of higher education reform are to smooth the relationship among government, society and HEIs, setting up and perfecting a new system in which the state is responsible for the overall planning and macro management while the HEIs follow the laws and enjoy the autonomy to provide education according to needs of the society. Generally, the reforms of higher education consist of five parts:reforms of education provision, management, investment, recruitment and job-placement, and the inner-institute management, among which management reform is of most importance and difficulty.
    Fortunately, after several years’ endeavour, the structural reform of higher education has gained heartening achievements. Here, let’s take a look at the detailed improvements in these fields.
    In the field of education provision reform, the old system in which the state undertook the establishment of all HEIs has been broken, and a new system in which the government takes main responsibility with the active participation of society and individuals has been taking shape. The development of HEIs run by social forces is fully encouraged and supported.
    Regarding management system reform, the relationship among universities, government and society has been gradually smoothed out by various ways such as joint establishment, adjustment, cooperation and merger. A two-level education provision system has taken shape in which the central and local government will take different responsibilities to provide education with the former responsible for the overall planning and management. As a result, the overlapping of education was overcome. At the same time, the government streamlines their administration and delegates more power to the HEIs, expanding their autonomy of providing education for the society according to the laws.
    With regard to the financing system, the old system in which the funding of higher education depended on the governments only has been changed and a new system capable of pooling resources from diverse channels with the main responsibilities on government has been gradually established and perfected.
    With regard to the reform of system of recruitment, fees charging and graduates job placing, on the basis that all citizens should enjoy the legally equal right of receiving higher education, which should be consistently stuck to, in the light of local □economic □ development, a new system in which all students should pay reasonable contribution to their own higher education has taken shape. Simultaneously, a scholarship system for excellent student both academically and morally and a loan, stipend and taking part-time job system for students with family economic difficulties has been brought into common practice, ensuring that no students will drop out of school because of economic reasons. After their graduation, the students will mainly select their own jobs under the guidance of the state policy. In addition, the Ministry of Education is undertaking the reform of examination and recruitment of HEIs which will help HEIs to select talents and expand the autonomy of schooling, thus laying the foundation of training creative talents, and also help the secondary schools to implement comprehensive quality oriented education.
    With regard to the reform of internal administration mechanism, the key lies in the personnel system and the allotment system reforms. On the basis of reasonable organization structure delimitation, all the teaching staff carries out the post responsibility system and appointment system and working achievements are emphasized concerning the personal income allotment, which strengthens the encouragement mechanism in allotment and mobilizes the enthusiasm of the teaching.
    To sum up, today we discussed the reform and development of higher education in China. The domains covered are mainly the disadvantages of the former higher education system, the overall objectives of reform, and the detailed achievements of reform in five areas. I hope this will give you some insight into this issue.