Higher education system and its evolution
Abstract:
Since reform and opening up of China in 1978, China’s higher education system has undergone a comprehensive change. As far as ownership is concerned, public and private institutions have gradually emerged and developed to take the place of state-owned universities. The higher education funding system has developed from one solely dependent on government funding to a new one with government funding as the major source but with other sources such as tuition fees, private investment, revenue from school-run industry, social donations, fund raising and education funds as supplements. Through continuous reform and exploration, a relatively mature modern enrollment system has been established, in which the National College Entrance Examination serves as the main approach, assisted by separate examination and recommendation at the same time. The employment system of college graduates has developed from government planning and assignment into market-oriented mutual choices between graduates and employers. As for the HEIs administrative system, self-governance has been expanding, changing the unified state administration. Accordingly a new distinctive degree system, with the three-tier degree system, degree audit system and degree-granting authorization system as the main part, has been set up.
Although economic and social development requires corresponding development of higher education, in China, this system has enormous restraint on it. Without the systematic reform, higher education would not have undergone such great development. The higher education system is a fundamental factor shaping the direction and pace of development of higher education. All in all, the formation of higher education in China today is determined by China’s higher education system, and by the constant adaptation of the higher education system to economic and social development. In the past three decades, China’s higher education system, including the ownership system, funding system, enrollment system, graduate employment system, administrative system and degree system, underwent comprehensive reform.
The ownership system
At the foundation of the PRC in 1949, all the 60 private and 21 foreign-owned HEIs among the 205 HEIs at that time were taken over and transformed into public ones. The 124 public HEIs also undertook reforms to establish state ownership of HEIs, and the ownership was shared between the MOE and other central commissions and ministries.1 After 1963, provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions began to be included as one of the owners, but in essence HEIs were still owned by the state.
The system was fit for the highly centralized planned economic system of that time; however, with China’s reform, opening up and rapid development of the economy and education, its drawbacks became increasingly obvious. For instance, allocation of educational resources was of low efficiency. Personnel provided by education could not meet the needs of economic development. In addition, investments from various social groups and organizations in education could not be motivated.
The first private HEI of the PRC appeared in 1980.2 Since then, nongovernment entities, including non-government organizations, private businesses and individuals, have become owners of HEIs. The 1982 Constitution of the PRC stipulated that ‘the state encourages collective economic organizations, state-owned enterprises, public enterprises and social forces to participate in the education enterprise in accordance with the law,’ which provided a legal basis for the development of private higher education. In 1987, the State Education Commission (SEDC, the central administrative department of education replacing the MOE during 1985–1998) clearly stated in a relevant document that education run by social forces was an integral part of education in China and a supplement to state-owned education. Yet, during this period, the relevant national policy was not stable enough and effective co-ordination and regulation of private HEIs were in short supply. Public HEIs were still dominant, and private HEIs were not on an equal footing with public ones.3
In 1992, the SEDC stressed the need for a gradual establishment of an education mechanism with government as the core and social entities as participants. In August 1993, the SEDC listed the first group of nationally recognized private HEIs qualified to award formal degrees. Since then, private HEIs have broken the state monopoly of the higher education diploma in a real sense. The implementation of ‘Regulations on the Running of Educational Institutions with Social Resources’ in 1997 established the state principles of ‘vigorous encouragement, correct guidance, strong support and effective administration’ on the society to run schools. In December 1998, the MOE promulgated the ‘Action Plan for Vitalizing Education for the 21st Century,’ initiating a systematic transformation of public schools, a precedent violating the former system. In addition to public HEIs and private HEIs, a new form of HEIs, namely independent colleges,4 came into existence and began to develop rapidly. In September 2003, the Private Education Promotion Law came into effect, and hence Chinese private education has entered a new era of development in accordance with law. As a basic social system, the promulgation and implementation of the Law would play an important stabilizing and guiding role in the development of private higher education. In February 2004, the MOE issued ‘2003–2007 Action Plan for Invigorating Education,’ which clearly stated the supporting measures and preferential policies of the state government on private schools. A pattern has gradually been formed in which public HEIs, private HEIs and independent colleges complement each other, compete fairly and develop jointly.5
The funding system
Funds for higher education in China had been provided entirely by the state from the establishment of the PRC to the opening up. Students did not only not need to pay tuition fees and accommodation, but also had the ‘people’s grant’ as subsidy for study and living expenses. Appropriation was determined by the government authorities mainly based on school size and expenses, and increased each year on the basis of the preceding year and according to financial status (‘Base plus development’ funding approach). After the final accounts of the budget at the end of each year, the school must return the fiscal surplus to the public finance. This method of budget allocation and management is simple and easy to operate, but the main problem is that it leads to improper use of education funding, and low utilization of education resource.6
Since 1978, there has been an increasing demand for a variety of specialized talents at all levels to meet the economic development. In order that schools produce personnel in accordance with market demand, the structure of HEIs needed to be adjusted. Demand for higher education also increased with the improvement of living standards, which meant that it became necessary for the state to provide more opportunities of higher education. However, this could not be achieved if the state bore all costs. Reform of the funding system for higher education was imperative. Meanwhile, with the development of the market economy, people’s views changed dramatically. It became a popular belief that funding higher education was not solely obligation of the state and government. Moreover, growth in personal income made it possible to establish a higher education cost-sharing mechanism.
In 1980, China began to reform the traditional financial system. According to the affiliations of HEIs, funds were provided by the central and local governments by their respective share. This allowed local governments to adjust the structure of higher education according to the demand of local economic and social development, which mobilized the initiative of local governments to invest in higher education. Among the 404 HEIs that emerged during 1980–1989, more than 300, namely more than 70 percent, relied on local financial resources of the provinces/autonomous regions/municipalities.7 Since the 1990s, an increasing number of HEIs have started to rely on management and funding of local governments. Entering the 21st century, local HEIs have become the subject of higher education.
This funding–sharing method has a side-effect, which is the irrational structure of government investment in higher education. First, regional structure is irrational. Government investment is mainly concentrated on the developed eastern region, and less in central and western regions; second, the structure level is irrational. Duplication of similar HEIs and majors built by the central and local and different provincial governments reduces the overall efficiency of higher education funding.
Since 1986, the ‘comprehensive quota plus special subsidies’ funding approach has been adopted into the education funding system. ‘Comprehensive quota,’ including staff salary, wage supplements, employee benefits, scholarships for students (the People Scholarship), business expenditures, equipment acquisition costs, repair costs, other costs and subsidies making up the balance, was provided by the administrative authorities in accordance with the approved standards and the number of students. Furthermore ‘special subsidies,’ as supplements to the ‘comprehensive quota,’ were accounted and provided separately by the financial sector, the education authority under the state’s policy orientation, and the special needs of universities. This kind of fund included construction funding for new and key disciplines, majors and laboratories, expenses on long-term training of teachers, retirees’ funds, special project grants and so on. The famous ‘211 Project’ and ‘985 Project’ are special higher education projects funded by the government. Compared with the ‘base plus development’ funding method, this operation overcomes to some extent the uneven distribution of funds, and the significant improvement of fairness and transparency favors higher efficiency of fund utilization. But the drawback is that it still does not reflect the actual running costs of HEIs, which contributes to the blind expansion of colleges and universities.
In 2000, the National People’s Congress (NPC) proposed to speed up the state budget reform, and the MOE was the first to introduce departmental budgets. Since 2002, the finance department has checked the budget of central sectors according to the ‘basic expenditure budget plus project expenditure budget.’ The basic expenditure budget is the annual budget plans for administrative departments and institutions to ensure their proper functioning to complete their daily tasks. The project expenditure budget is the annual expenditure plans for administrative departments and institutions to complete their special tasks and development goals. The funding of education administrative departments of HEIs began to reform accordingly. This method takes under control such problems as incomplete or untrue budget and expenditure beyond budget, and insufficient implementation existed in budget management of HEIs. The differentiation between the basic expenditure budget and the project expenditure budget makes it possible to set priorities to important projects, thus facilitating the rational and full use of funds and improving the efficiency of fund utilization.
As mentioned above, HEIs should return the fiscal surplus to the public finance before the reform. This ‘surplus return’ method changed into the ‘surplus retention’ approach in the 1980s, which urged HEIs to reduce cost and improve the efficiency of running schools. In the late 1990s, the system of centralized collection and payment by the state treasury8 was applied to HEIs. On the one hand, it is conducive to supervising the whole process of using funds and preventing corruption at source and in the system, while on the other hand it greatly enhances the direct control of the central finance department over financial management of HEIs, so that the autonomy of HEIs in internal financial management obviously becomes limited. It takes time to verify its effectiveness.
Money-raising by HEIs themselves was permitted and started in 1986; before that funds for higher education were solely provided by the state fiscal. The 1993 ‘Outline’ proposed to establish a new funding system of diversified sources of higher education funds, with state financial allocation as the main body, supplemented by multiple channels such as education surcharges, tuition fees, funds from school-run enterprises, donations, and so on. Since 1999, with the enrollment expansion of higher education, social and personal investment in higher education has increased significantly and self-raised funds of many HEIs have surpassed national funding. The ‘Higher Education Law’ was passed in 1998 and entitled HEIs the status of a legal entity, which enhanced the HEIs’ capacity for raising money. Some new financial channels emerged, such as cooperation between different HEIs, between HEIs and businesses, and between HEIs and banks. Through this multi-agent co-sponsoring form of joint investment, social capital was not only involved in the construction of infrastructural facilities and management and administration of logistics of HEIs, but also penetrated into education, teaching and research fields, and was even invested in building new campus. In addition, Sino-foreign cooperation in running schools developed rapidly. The funding system with national public funds as the main body and multiple sources as supplements was established.
In terms of tuition and fees, the 1985 ‘Decision’ allowed HEIs to recruit a small number of fee-paying students, which was implemented in 1986. In 1989, the Chinese government set that all college students enrolled, except in certain majors, must pay tuition and accommodation fees. In that year, most HEIs began to charge tuition of 100–300 yuan per student per year, and that of fee-paying students was 1,200 yuan, thus a ‘dual-track’ system was formed. Debates on the fairness of this system continued, and the experiment of ‘merging the dual-track’ began in 37 universities in 1994,9 with all students paying the same 1,000 to 1,200 yuan annual tuition fees. All HEIs began to charge the same level of tuition fees to all students in 1997 and the dual-track system was abolished. The establishment of the cost-sharing and compensation system of Chinese higher education greatly eases the lack of higher education funds, and tuition fees have become the second important source of funding after government funds. The main problem arising is that the fees of higher education are, to some extent, beyond the capacity of ordinary people.
Since 1992, the government has actively supported schools to set up school-run enterprises through tax relief, establishment of revolving funds and other means, and encouraged schools to provide paid services to the community and society with individuals and social entities to donate to schools. In 2007, revenues of the school-run enterprises industry exceeded 5 billion yuan. But donations to HEIs have been small.
HEIs did not get loans until 1980, and the sums were small, but in the 1990s Chinese HEIs began to increase loans from banks, which mainly went to school-run enterprises. It became difficult for the infrastructure to meet the needs of enrollment expansion in 1999, and the HEIs started to ask for enormous loans. In 2002, the government required commercial banks to provide more credit to support the construction of college dormitories and other logistics,10 so bank loans became an important source of funding for university infrastructure. However, excessive bank loans led many HEIs into debt. The total bank loans of public HEIs reached 150 to 200 billion yuan in 2005, with almost all HEIs involved.11 Under such circumstances, the Chinese government took certain measures to strengthen macro-administration so as to control the scale of college loans. In 2005, the MOE established the loan approval system for HEIs under its direct administration, gradually leading the HEIs funding system into a rational stage.
The rapid development of private education is another indicator of the transformation of Chinese Higher Education. The state has been supporting and standardizing the running of schools by non-governmental sectors since the mid-1980s. During 1992–1994, as many as 406 private HEIs were approved and established,12 while in 1996 funds from social entities and individuals were up to 2.62 billion yuan.13 It was demanded by law that HEIs must not take profit-making as the object, so the development of private higher education was hindered during this period. In 2002, private education earned an equal legal status with public education. The provision of the law that the investor in HEIs can obtain a reasonable return greatly stimulated social entities and individuals to invest in higher education. By 2009, 658 private HEIs (including 322 independent colleges) qualified for regular higher education, with a total enrollment of 4.46 million, including 2.52 million normal course undergraduates and 1.94 million short-cycle course ones; there were also 193.9 thousand preparatory students, students preparing for self-study examination and other types and 812 non-academic private HEIs, with an enrollment of 852.2 thousand.14 As for the funding system of private HEIs, tuition fees are the main source of funds. Raising funds by charging tuition fees and the investor’s personal investment, private higher education has greatly eased the financial pressure on the government and promoted the rapid development of higher education.
Despite the great achievement of the reform, some problems still exist. For example, the government investment is insufficient and the proportion of state education budget in GDP is low; the diversified funding mechanism is in need of further improvement; the education funding structure is not reasonable, financial allocations and fees occupying a too high proportion and other channels not fully opened up; regional disparities of higher education are severe and the financial transfer payment system needs improvement; distribution of higher education funding is not reasonable and not linked with performance, leading to low education resource efficiency; overall financial management of HEIs is low, with arbitrary use of funds; a sound legal system has not been established, leading to irregularities in the investment process.
Enrollment system
As an important part of the process of higher education, the College Entrance Examination is not only directly related to the quality of university graduates and the sustainable and healthy development of higher education, but also concerns social justice and harmony, and the development of the country. Through continuous reform and exploration, China has established a relatively complete enrollment system, with the NCEE as the main body, and separate examinations and recommendations for admission without examination as supplementary.
Enrollment of regular higher education
After the foundation of the PRC, the government decided to develop higher education in order to quickly restore the post-war economy. In 1952, the MOE resolved to practice a nation-wide enrollment system with a unified proposition, once-a-year examination and batch admission. During the Cultural Revolution, the system was replaced by a system of recommendation combined with selection, which paid much attention to family background and political conduct.
After the Cultural Revolution, China restored and reconstructed the college entrance examination system. In October 1977, the State Council approved the ‘Opinion on 1977 college enrollment work’ put forward by the MOE. The Opinion allowed anyone qualified to apply and increased requirements on literacy, which were taken into account for admission. The 1977 College Entrance Examination became the only one held in winter. In June 1978, the MOE issued the ‘Opinion on 1978 college enrollment work’, which stated,
proposition will be unified nation-wide; examination and marking will be organized by provinces/municipalities/autonomous regions; papers for Arts and Science will be different; examination results of the candidates will be fully disclosed all around China; and the examination will be held on July the 20th to 23rd.
Then the MOE compiled ‘Outline for preparing for the 1978 College Entrance Examination’ as the basis for the proposition. In 1979, a new policy required that the candidates should not be more than 25 years old,15 which meant that high-school graduates became the main body of candidates. The restored and rebuilt college entrance examination system reshaped the values of fairness and justice, provided an opportunity to change people’s lives by studying, and greatly mobilized the enthusiasm of the youth to learn, unfolding a vigorous nationwide fervor for reading.
At the beginning of the restoration (to 1984), China’s college entrance examination system had many problems, such as over-centralization, too much rigidity and many little flexibility, too many powerful administrative functions and many weak service functions, and lack of autonomy of local government and HEIs. This system has been in constant reform and improvement ever since.
In April 1987, the ‘Provisional Regulations on Enrollment of HEIs’ were introduced, which clearly defined the basic principles, organization, leadership, institutions and authority related to college admission. This meant that the administration on college enrollment started being standardized and institutionalized. In June, the Education Examination Center of the former SEDC was established, achieving the significant transformation of functions from testing administration to social testing service.
The college enrollment plan is an important part of enrollment work. The MOE issued two documents in November 1984, reforming the planning system by the central departments. In May 1985, the CPC Central Committee issued the ‘Decision on the Reform of the Education System,’ which stressed the reform of enrollment and graduate employment systems of higher education and the expansion of university autonomy. In addition to students within the state enrollment plan, there were other sponsored by organizations (entrust foster) or by themselves. In 1993, the policy of ‘combining state plan with adjusted plan’ was carried out, increasing the enrollment ratio of self-funded or organization-funded students. However, this policy led to the phenomenon that there would be two score lines for the same HEI, resulting in the problem of ‘paying for lower scores’ (‘buying scores,’ i.e. the score for self-funded and organization-funded students were lower), violating the value of education equity. In 1994, the former SEDC decided that one score line and the same tuition should be adopted for different types of students, which was known as ‘merging the track.’ This reform was completed in 1997 with all HEIs.
In 1998, the ‘Higher Education Law’ was promulgated, which stated clearly that HEIs had autonomy in admission, including the independent development of recruitment plans, evaluation criteria, admissions policies, and enrollment procedures. In order to develop outstanding teachers, six normal universities directly under the administration of the MOE opened its doors free of charge in 2007. This system opened a new page in the training of teachers at primary and secondary schools and received a tremendous response. Enrollment of this kind has been progressing smoothly ever since with sufficient candidates of high quality. In general, when an HEI makes an enrollment plan, the quota assigned to the HEI region is more than that of other regions. So the minimum passing scores of the same HEI vary greatly from region to region. Regional differences in minimum passing scores have always existed, and generally, being lower at municipalities and provinces where higher education is more developed and HEIs are more concentrated.
In 2006, the China University of Political Science and Law carried out a major reform in its enrollment system, distributing the quota of enrollment among provinces according to the proportion of population for the first time in order to solve the problem of regional disparities. With the enrollment expansion of 2008, 35,000 students from provinces that lacked educational resources were arranged by the MOE to be recruited by HEIs in educationally developed regions.16
Subjects of the NCEE directly determine the contents of the examination, not only affecting the quality of higher education but also to a great extent, deciding the direction of primary and secondary education; thus they are always the focus of the reform of the college enrollment system. Subjects included in the NCEE for Sciences and Arts were different, with Political Science, Chinese, Mathematics, History, Geography and (one) foreign language for Arts and with Political Science, Chinese, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, (one) foreign language and Biology for Sciences.
The former SEDC proposed a ‘3 + 2’ structure in 1992 and a ‘3 + X’ structure in 1997. In the ‘3 + 2’ structure, ‘3’ refers to the 3 basic subjects – Chinese, Mathematics and (one) foreign language, and ‘2’ refers to Political Science and History for Arts and Physics and Chemistry for Sciences. In ‘3 + X,’ ‘3’ also refers to Chinese, Mathematics and (one) foreign language, while ‘X’ stands for an integrated competence test such as Integrated Arts, or Integrated Sciences. This pattern was first tried out in Guangdong in 1999, and then implemented all over China in 2002.
Decentralization of proposition to provinces is a major reform of the NCEE. In 2004, the MOE decided to adopt ‘unified examination, provincial proposition,’ which had been implemented by 15 provinces/municipalities by 2005. The subject structure had also developed from the unified ‘3 + 2’ pattern to various patterns such as ‘3 + 2,’ ‘3 + X,’ ‘3 + X + 1’ and so on.
With the above subject structures of the NCEE, high school students tend to go overboard on one or more subjects. In order to solve this problem, the high school general examination system was implemented. In the Reform Bill of the NCEE by the MOE in 1985, it was proposed that the provincial general high school examination system should be adopted as the basis of NCEE reform. Shanghai was the first to experiment with the reforms of the general high school graduation examination and the NCEE.
For students who had similar scores in the NCEE, their scores at the general high school examination, extra-curricular activities and academic competition results would be an admission reference. Based on a survey carried out in 1989, the former SEDC drew the conclusion that the general high school examination had a significant effect on the all-round development of high school students and the quality of college candidates. This operation continues and passing all the subjects included in the general high school examination is a prerequisite for taking part in the NCEE. In 2004, some provinces began to include comprehensive ability or subjects of the general high school examination in the NCEE.
In order to eliminate the negative impact of the hot weather on the candidates, the examination time changed from 7–9 July to 7–9 June in 2003, which was the fourth adjustment of time, with the first three being 20–23 July in 1978, 15–16 July in 1983, and 7–9 July since 1984.
At resumption of the NCEE, a unified admission system and an approach of admission in stages or phased admission approach were adopted, adhering to admission based strictly on scores from high to low. This system embodies fairness, but it highlights the significance of the total score to such an extent that it is not conducive to selecting excellent students with special quality. In 1985, after testing, an independent admission approach was adopted by HEIs at the first phase, and then ‘casting archives according to applications of the candidates to an HEI at a proportion of 120 percent of its enrollment plan’ approach was applied at the second phase (the second batch of schools).
‘Regulations and Implementing Rules on Expanding rights of HEIs in Students Enrollment’ was issued in 1987, establishing an admission system of ‘HEIs responsible and the admission office (of MOE) supervising,’ which expanded autonomy of HEIs to some extent.
Implementation of ‘parallel applications’ is another important operation in the enrollment system. In order to respect the candidates’ wishes, Zhejiang Province canceled ‘subject to the swap’ column in the application form in 2002, and candidates could fill out the first, second and fourth preference wishes. In 2008, the MOE promoted this pattern all over China – that is, among the same batch of HEIs, a candidate can apply for a number of parallel schools, and the admission would combine scores and wishes. This pattern increases the opportunities for the candidates to be admitted.
To make up for deficiencies resulting from the unified examination system and to encourage the all-round development of high school students, the MOE decided to experiment with a recommendation method of enrollment in some HEIs, that is, outstanding students can be admitted by colleges without taking part in the NCEE. In February 1988, the State Education Commission formally issued a recommendation policy, which identified 52 qualified HEIs, requirements for recommendation, the recommendation process, proportion, rights and duties, and discipline.17
In 2001, Southeast University, Nanjing University of Science and Technology and Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics started to try out an ‘Independent Admission’ approach. Independent enrollment means that within its admission plan, an HEI can decide autonomously the admission of no more than 5 percent of students with special talents, provided that they reach the corresponding minimum score of the same batch of HEIs and have passed a certain procedure such as approval, public notification, testing, and so on.
The MOE decided in 2003 to authorize 22 HEIs, including Peking University and Tsinghua University, to experiment on independent enrollment, and in 2008 the number was increased to 68.18
Enrollment of adult higher education
Originally adult education was oriented to on-the-job leaders, workers, teachers, and so on, so it is a compensatory education. With the reform of the economic system, working staff change their jobs in an increasing number and frequency, so status of candidates changed. From 1993, with the massification of higher education, the majority of candidates for adult HEIs changed from higher school graduates to secondary vocational school graduates, secondary technical school graduates and secondary vocational school graduates.
At the reconstruction of adult higher education, the entrance examination was similar to that of regular higher education. During 1984–1986, a practice of unified proposition, examination and independent admission by different HEIs was adopted. Nevertheless, due to the fact that test subjects then failed to reflect the characteristics of adult higher education, in the following years the MOE adjusted the examination several times, reducing the difficulty and focusing on the test of practical ability. In 1993, the entrance examination of Higher Vocational Education for candidates of high school graduates adopted the ‘3 + 2’ pattern, including the three basic subjects of Political Science, Chinese and Mathematics and two specialized subjects. This was a major step forward for the adult college entrance examination in testing the professional knowledge and skills of candidates.
In 2003, the MOE decided that the regular college entrance examination for candidates with a junior college diploma would include three subjects, i.e. the two basic subjects of Political Science and a foreign language, and one specialized subject which would be decided by the discipline, and both short-term and regular college entrance examinations for high school graduates would include Chinese, Mathematics and a foreign language. Physics and Chemistry comprehensives, or History and Geography comprehensives, would also be included in the regular college entrance examinations. The above series of reforms on subjects of adult college entrance examination indicates a developing trend of this examination becoming more and more suitable to adults.
Graduate employment system
Employment of college graduates is related to returns to investment in education. So it is not only an important component of employment, but also one of the key duties of higher education. Since the founding of the PRC, relevant departments and universities have undertaken the responsibility for promoting employment of college graduates. Before the establishment of the market economy, ‘the unified distribution of all college graduates’ (the planned distribution of graduates based on the government’s orders)19 had been implemented, that is, the government planned the distribution of graduates and HEIs carried out the plan as well as coordinated the relationship between the graduates and the government and employers. While in the market economy, the ‘mutual choices between graduates and employers’ pattern was gradually formed.
The reform of the employment system has greatly opened up the college graduate labor market, urging higher education to make a major breakthrough in the bottleneck, which made it possible for the expansion of enrollment and the massification of higher education.
After the foundation of the PRC, the government decided to allocate college graduates in order to ensure the personnel needs for the development of key economic departments. The government made and issued plans, and the HIEs allocated the graduates one by one; then the graduates report to the affiliation or employers. During the ‘Cultural Revolution,’ the principle of appointing graduates to jobs or posts back in their hometowns was basically followed.
The ten-year Cultural Revolution once again resulted in the severe lack of talent for economic development, so it was urgent that college graduates be allocated efficiently to where they were most needed to satisfy social and economic development. Therefore, the government decided to resume the system of unified allocation of college graduates, and the department in charge of distribution of the HEI was made responsible for the allocation. The new ‘unified allocation system’ took into account the interests of the administrative departments and the site of HEIs, in addition to the country.
With the continuous deepening of reform and opening up, the defects of this system gradually became apparent, such as majors and pedagogy in HEIs being out of touch with social needs and low employment efficiency, as a result of lack of communication between HEIs and the society.
To better promote combination of the training, allocation and functioning of talents, China decided to implement the ‘Supply meeting Demand’ employment method in 1983. In 1985, a new system was implemented, by which ‘students apply, HEI recommend and employers choose.’ This was a major turning point in the graduate employment system which laid a foundation and pointed out the direction for the deepening of the follow-up reform. The policy of ‘mutual choices between graduates and employers,’ started in 1989 accelerated the pace of reform of the graduate employment system.
Established in the 1990s, the market economy brought about a major change in the human resources allocation mechanism, with the market becoming the major means of regulating mobility of all kinds of human resources at all levels. The 1993 ‘Outline’ provided that most graduates would choose their own jobs through the labor market, except normal university graduates, graduates of majors of some tough industries, or graduates coming from remote areas. The graduate employment system formally entered a new stage of market-oriented independent job choosing. By 2000, the new system had basically been established and at the same time put an end to the ‘planning, allocation, dispatchment and report’ college graduates employment system. In the new market-oriented system, both the graduates and employers got rid of the ‘arranged marriage’ of without meeting and choice beforehand and obtained freedom to choose. The main task of HEIs is now to provide such related services as career guidance and information for students, sites for corporate recruitment and recommendation. The main duty for the government becomes macro-control, providing a powerful guarantee for the perfection of the labor market.
Difficulties in college graduate employment emerged in recent years. The causes mainly lie in structural problems including: the quality of college graduates not meeting the needs of the transitional society; hierarchical- and major-structure of graduates are unreasonable; and graduates prefer big cities and the developed Eastern Area. Therefore, a series of policies and measures have been adopted by the government; such as speeding up the pace of reform of higher education and pedagogy; strengthening the interface between the HEIs and the community; guiding through policy college graduates to work at grass-roots level organizations and areas or industries with tough conditions; encouraging them to start their own businesses; encouraging them to assign in vocational training to obtain qualification certificates; and taking employment ratio as a core indicator for assessment of Higher Vocational Colleges and establishing a ‘college graduates probationary system.’
The market-oriented graduate employment system promotes the employment of college graduates, eases the contradiction between supply and demand, optimizes the allocation of human resources, promotes the reform of higher education and teaching, promotes the continuous improvement of the quality of teaching and promotes the process of comprehensive reform of higher education.
Administrative system
The administrative system includes two parts: one is the higher education administrative system, which means the state’s macro-management system of higher education, mainly referring to managerial relationships between government departments and HEIs, including the jurisdiction of HEIs. The other is the administrative system of the HEIs.
Higher education administrative system
Promulgated in 1950, the ‘Decision on the Relationship of HEIs’ constituted an important document on the higher education administrative system of the PRC at that time. Under the guidance of this decision, a socialist higher education system was established with single-subject colleges as the predominant type and public ownership as the sole ownership.20 The government is both the owner and the administrator of HEIs. This highly centralized administrative system of higher education over-restrained HEIs and thus resulted in lack of vitality in Chinese HEIs. A system of ‘respective administration and responsibility of central and local governments’ was set up in 1993, and the forums on reform of the higher education administrative system held by the former SEDC in 1994, 1995 and 1996, stated explicitly the intention to reform the single-ownership system of HEIs and to strengthen the planning of provincial government. Five reforms were therefore put forward, namely, joint development, cooperation, mergers, association and transition. In March 1998, the former SEDC was transformed into the MOE and the pace of reform in the administrative system of higher education was accelerated. Li Lanqing summed up the five forms into the principles of ‘joint development, adjustment, cooperation and mergers.’ Under the guidance of these principles, a large-scale campaign was launched in 1999 of joint construction and administration of the central and local governments and institutional transition of ownership of some HEIs from central ministries to local government – by 2007 a total of more than 400 central-ministries-owned universities had been transformed into local government-owned ones. A new system of bi-level administration and division of responsibilities between the central and provincial governments was gradually formed.
Pilot economic and technological reform played a catalytic role in the reform of higher education. The 1985 ‘Decision’ changed the overly centralized administration system and increased autonomy of HEIs, and a prelude to the reform in the higher education administrative system in a new era began. In 1986, the State Council promulgated two documents to clarify the administrative rights and responsibilities of the central government departments, local government and HEIs, pointing out that the HEIs had certain autonomy in such areas as recruitment, graduate employment, expenditures, infrastructure, personnel, teaching, research and foreign exchange, on the premise of obeying and complying with the plans, regulations and requirements of the government and the administrative departments. In 1992, a document of the former State Education Commission stated ‘to make HEIs become a truly independent legal entity,’ which provided a basis for the autonomy of HEIs in administration. The 1993 ‘Outline’ pointed out that the government should change from direct administration of the HEIs into regulations, funding, information, and services-oriented macroeconomic management to ensure that the HEIs will become a truly community-oriented legal entity. The promulgation of the ‘Higher Education Law’ in 1998 enacted the legal status of HEIs.
Higher education management system
At the foundation of the PRC, HEIs in China were divided into Arts and Sciences Universities, multiple-subject universities and single-subject colleges, following the pattern of the former Soviet Union. As for the organizational system of HEIs, schools within universities were cancelled and the institution-department administrative system was widely adopted with the institution-department-teaching office as the major organizational system. After reform and opening up, the trend of comprehensive development of subjects was strengthened, and this organizational structure was no longer conducive to scientific research, although conducive to teaching. HEIs underwent major reform in the structure of grass-roots organizations for teaching and research in the 1980s. In order to strengthen scientific research, most of the leading universities set up such organizations as institutes, research centers, computing centers, analysis centers, audio-visual education centers and scientific research institutions. They also constructed key disciplines and laboratories, and tried out engineering research centers and graduate schools. Since 1983, some HEIs have begun to set up a variety of schools.21 In the 1990s, numerous universities basically completed the strategic adjustment of multi-disciplinary and comprehensive development. A new academic discipline system with a combination of science and engineering, permeation of sciences and arts, and a selective and focused development of new and interdisciplinary disciplines began to take shape. Meanwhile, the administrative mode changed into an institution-school-department one. Many HEIs made school the fundamental organization, exerting its academic and administrative functions, and power was gradually decentralized to schools and departments. Schools became the entity to carry out daily management, and departments changed into units in charge of organizing teaching and research work.
As for the leadership system within HEIs, successive system patterns were practiced from the founding of the PRC to 1976. They were: the president responsibility system (1950–1956), the academic council responsibility system under the leadership of the Party committee (1956–1961), the academic council responsibility system headed by the president (1961–1966), and the Revolutionary Committee system (1966–1976). In 1984, Beijing Normal University and Northwestern Polytechnical University became the first to readopt the president responsibility system. More than 130 universities had tried out this system by 1989 when the CPC Central Committee issued a promulgation that clearly stated, ‘HEIs should adopt president responsibility under the leadership of the Party committee system.’
The internal management system of HEIs since reform and opening up has been aimed at converting mechanisms and improving efficiency. The personnel and distribution system is a breakthrough, undergoing a positive and beneficial exploration in a full contract employment system of fixing posts, responsibility, personnel allocation, and a structural wage system. Shanghai Jiaotong University took the lead in the reform on the responsibility and wage system in 1979, allowing mobility of personnel. In 1983, the MOE agreed to expand the management authority of Shanghai Jiaotong University and the reform on the internal administration system gradually spread.22 At the beginning of 1991, the former State Education Commission approved Nanjing University and Southeast University to carry out the reform on the internal administrative system. In August 1992, this reform spread out to 36 universities directly under the SEDC, and in November, all HEIs participated in the comprehensive reform.
The 15th Party Congress held in 1997 proposed the establishment of the social security system, and accompanied by such social reforms, the internal management system reform of HEIs made significant progress. A substantial number of HEIs reduced a large number of organizations and personnel. Teaching and research organizations were adjusted and strengthened, and some HEIs transferred gradually from the co-existence of the school-and-department administration system to a two-tier management system, namely a university-and-school administrative system or a university-and-department administrative system with the school or department as the entity. As to the personnel system reform, a full contract employment system and post allowance system were gradually implemented and socialization of the logistics service achieved positive progress.
The College Faculty Congress is the basic form of democratic management and supervision institution that empowers the faculty to participate in management. It is an important part of the democratic administrative system of HEIs. Taking the experience of the workers’ congress system at enterprises as reference, some HEIs at Shanghai and Liaoning Province executed experiment in setting up the College Faculty Congress System in 1979. In 1980, the pilots covered all provinces.
After six years of trial, this system matured and the 1985 ‘Decision’ provided to establish and improve the College Faculty Congress System with teachers as the major representatives and to strengthen democratic management and supervision, marked the formal establishment of this system. By 1998, the College Faculty Congress System had been established in all regular HEIs in China. This system has been institutionalized and legalized so as to promote democratization at HEIs.
The main powers and functions of the College Faculty Congress are as follows: to discuss and pass faculty-related regulations before they are issued by the president, to discuss and decide affairs related to welfare of the faculty, and to supervise school management and leaders at all levels.
Academic administrations have gradually been established and improved. According to the provision of the 1978 ‘Regulations on the National Key HEIs (draft),’ Academic Committees were set up in HEIs. As time goes by, the Academic Committee System is constantly being improved and perfected, the status and functions of the Academic Committee are strengthened, and the impact of academic power is growing. Since 1980, the Academic Degree Evaluation Committee has been established at HEIs in accordance with national policies on education, and the Teachers’ Professional Title Evaluation Committee has been set up at HEIs since 1983. In addition, such academic administrations as the Teaching’ Committee and Major Setting Committee are set up at some HEIs. With the deepening of the reform in higher education, the roles academic organizations play are growing and are attached more importance by HEIs.
Academic degree system
China officially began granting academic degrees in 1912. The RC (Republic of China) government promulgated the ‘Academic Degree Conferral Law’ in 1935, which signified the formal establishment of the academic degree system. After the founding of the PRC, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, referring to the practice of the former Soviet Union, became the first to award Associate Doctor’s Degrees to post-graduates in 1950. Although the MOE and others handed in drafts of ‘Academic Degree Regulations’ twice in 1956 and 1961 respectively, that bill did not become legislation. For a long time since the foundation of PRC, there had not been a real degree system. The promulgation of ‘The Academic Degree Regulations of the PRC’ in 1980 demonstrated the formal establishment of a degree system in the PRC. After its foundation in January 1980, the State Council Committee on Academic Degrees (SCCAD) issued two documents about accreditation of degree-conferring units and implementation measures to ensure the execution of the Academic Degree Regulations. The Regulations and these two documents constitute the basic framework of China’s degree system.
‘The Academic Degree Regulations’ contains 20 articles, covering requirements for granting of a degree, grades of degree, the leadership of granting of degrees, degree-conferring units, the oral defense process, grant of honorary doctorates, degree grant of international students, degree revocation and other related issues. The ‘Academic Degree Regulations’ is the first major legislation in education and has great significance in both promoting educational legislation and perfecting the academic degree system.
The ‘Academic Degree Regulations’ established a three-tier academic degree system: the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, in which the master’s degree is an independent rather than a transitional degree. There were 10 degree-granting categories of disciplines, namely philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, history, science, engineering, agriculture, and medicine in 1981, and military science and management were added later. Heretofore, these twelve categories include 89 first level disciplines and 386 second level disciplines. In addition to the three-tier degrees, China has also set up an honorary doctoral degree and second bachelor’s degree. An honorary doctorate degree can be granted with approval first of the Academic Degree Evaluation Committee of the degree-conferring unit and then the SCCAD. It can be granted to foreigners. The length of schooling to obtain a second bachelor’s degree is generally two years.
When the ‘Academic Degree Regulations’ was issued, the requirements for the grant of degrees were common and academic-oriented. Since 1984, positive adjustment and practice in granting professional degrees have been made. Professional degrees also include the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, but generally a master’s degree is granted, with all other degrees granted in only a few professions (such as architecture, clinical medicine, etc.).23 In 1996, SCCAD set provisions for the grant of professional degrees so as to make it institutionalized. The setting of professional degrees differentiates them from academic degrees, and thus distinguished high-level research-typed talents from high-level professional talents, which not only improves the degree system in China but also helps to promote the professionalization of certain professions. Of course, no matter what, degrees can be obtained through either full-time study or on-the-job application.
As for leadership of the degree conference, the State Council established the Committee of Academic Degrees to lead the conference of degrees all over the country. The Committee of Academic Degrees provides a list of degree-conferring HEIs and research institutions for the State Council to approve, and releases and sets requirements on Academic Degree Evaluation Committees of degree-conferring units.
For membership of the Academic Degree Evaluation Committee of a degree-conferring unit, names of candidates should be submitted by the unit to the administrative department, and then with its approval they will be reported to the State Council Committee of Academic Degrees for the record. The Academic Degree Evaluation Committee is mainly responsible for examining and approving the applicants to be granted degrees at all levels, and making the decision to grant degrees. Only when passed by the Academic Degree Evaluation Committee can the grant of a degree be effective. Therefore, the setting up and operation of the Academic Degree Evaluation Committee are important components of the degree-conferring system in China.
China has gradually established a degree system with special characteristic, including the three-tier degree system, degree audit system and degree-conferring system. The unique features of the degree system in China are as follows:
First, the degree in China is a national degree. HEIs and research institutions must be authorized by the State Council to grant a degree, and the State Council formulates and promulgates a common catalog of disciplines and majors for degrees, which is different from some other countries where universities are free to grant degrees.
Second, the master’s degree is an independent degree in China, unlike a transitional degree in some countries, and is divided into a traditional academic degree and a professional degree.
Third, a three-level degree administrative system of central government, local government and HEI or research institution has been established in China. The State Council Committee of Academic Degrees is the supreme administration, responsible for policy making and guidance, auditing degree-conferring units and categories of disciplines, and so on. Local committees are responsible for approving new disciplines at the local level, supervising and evaluating the quality of degrees. Degree-granting institutions are responsible for the selection, education and awarding of degrees.
1Ying, Wangjiang. Reform and Development of Higher Education in China: 1978–2008. Shanghai: Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Press, 2008: 49.
2Liao, Jingchi and Liang Shijie. Two decades of Hunan Zhongshan University. China Higher Education, 1999(7): 25–27.
3Ying, Wangjiang. Reform and Development of Higher Education in China: 1978–2008. Shanghai: Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Press, 2008: 56–67.
4Independent institution refers to the independent private secondary faculty set up at public HEIs according to new mechanism and new model. It is the combination of the brand of public HEIs and private capital and operation mechanism. Refer to Chapter 4.
5Ying, Wangjiang. Reform and Development of Higher Education in China: 1978–2008. Shanghai: Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Press, 2008: 59–60.
6Yang, Huiliang. The Evolution and Characteristics of Chinese Education Financial System before Reform and Opening up. Journal of Hebei University, 2006(4): 58–63.
7Min, Weifang and Chen Xiaoyu. Reform on the demand and investment system of China’s higher education funding. Education Research, 1994(12): 30–38.
8The treasury system of centralized collection and payment is a treasury management system of collection and payment adopted by most market economies. Its basic implication is that the state treasury collects and manages all kinds of government income, including budgetary revenue and non-budgetary revenues brought into the budget. Meanwhile the payment processes of all departments and units are under centralized administration, and all fiscal expenditures are paid through the single state treasury account.
9MOE. Introduction to Reforms of Higher Education Cost-recovery Policy. Retrieved October 10, 2002, http://www.moe.edu.cn/jytouru/xxshoufei/06.htm.
10Li, Guoqiang. The review and reflection on the 30 years history of university loan in our country – From the perspective of correlative policy and system. Journal of Higher Education, 2008(6): 33–41.
11Peng, Shuyan and Ming Fang. Research on Present Situation, Problems and Countermeasures of College Loan. Journal of Anhui Agricultural University (Social Science Edition), 2007(6): 31–35.
12Wu, Wei. Reform and Development of Private Education. Beijing: Educational Science Publishing House, 2002: 43.
1313 Fan, Xianzuo. Mode Selection and Evolution of Chinese Educational System. Wuhan: Huazhong Normal University Press, 1999: 153.
14MOE. 2009 National Education Development Statistical Bulletin [EB/OL] 2010-08-03.
15With the accelerated pace of higher education, age requirement on candidates was relaxed in 2001.
16Jiao, Xin. HEIs Plan to Enroll 5.99 Million Short-Cycle and Normal-Courses Students in 2008 [EB/OL], 2008-03-18.
17Ying, Wangjiang. Reform and Development of Higher Education in China: 1978–2008. Shanghai: Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Press, 2008: 175–178.
18Liu, Dan. Examination of Independent Enrollment Crowded like Another National College Examination [EB/OL]. Xinhua Daily Telegram, 2008–0110.
19Gu, Jianmin, Xueping Li and Lihua Wang. Higher Education in China. Hangzhou: Zhejiang University Press, 2009: 90.
20Hu, Jianhua. An Analysis of Reform in Administrative System of Chinese Higher Education. Journal of Nanjing Normal University, 2005(4): 76.
21Hu, Jianxiong et al. Organizational Innovation of Disciplines – Study on Reform of Discipline Structure of Schools and Departments of HEIs. Hangzhou: Zhejiang University Press, 2001: 161.
22Deng, Xiaochun. Review and Prospect of Reform of Chinese Higher Education. Liaoning Education Research, 1998(1): 6–12.
23Research Teams on Development Report of Academic Degrees and Graduate Education. Development Report on Academic Degrees and Graduate Education (1978–2003). Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2006.