1、1Approach to Higher Education ReformOn September 1, Luo Lan became a freshman at Tianjin-based Nankai University. Unlike most other schoolmates，she did not gain entry merely on the strength of her results in the entrance examination. Luo Lan got a spot thanks to her musical talent. Excelling at play
2、ing the harp, the young woman won early admission to Nankai University prior to the national college entrance examination, which promised her access to the school once she reached the minimum mark for class-one universities in the examination. The condition was that if she made the cut, she had to j
3、oin the universitys symphony orchestra. This form of admission is known as independent enrollment in China, and while initially it was a means to get people into arts and sports programs, its scope has expanded to other fields. The percentage of independently enrolled students has increased from no
4、more than five percent eight years ago to as high as 30 percent in some of Chinese universities. “In my time there was only one way to go to college, that was taking part in an entrance examination,“ said Luo Lans 2mother, Ms. Zhang, who was admitted to Hebei University in 1982. The new mode of enro
5、llment is in fact only one of the many reforms Chinas higher education system is undergoing. The Process of Marketization For Luo Lan, the annual tuition fee is RMB 5,000, accommodation is RMB 1,200, and monthly living expenses come to at least RMB 1,000.“It is said universities of lower ranking cha
6、rge more,“ said Ms Zhang.In the early 1980s, higher education was free of charge. Her mother gave her RMB 30 per month for her living expenses. From these monthly allotments she had saved RMB 120 by the end of her four years in university, with which she took a train to Beijing to see an optometrist
7、 and have a pair of glasses made. In the decades following 1949 when the PRC was founded, until 1988, Chinas higher education was free. This changed the destiny of many children from poor families.By 1989, the reality for people seeking a higher education had changed:the formerly nominal tuition fee
8、 was hiked to RMB 200, one-seventh of the annual per capita income of urban residents (RMB 1,376). 3But this was just the beginning. By 2000 the annual tuition fee for universities had risen to RMB 5,000, close to the annual per capita income of urban residents that year (RMB 6,980). One direct resu
9、lt of high tuition fees is the extent of family expenditures on higher education. A college students annual tuition fee, food and lodging now approaches RMB 15,000,which is out of reach for most rural families. Even though the government has promulgated an assortment of policies on scholarships and
10、grants, poor communication means many students in the countrys backwaters are not clear on the provisions made for them, so they give up before applying. Seismic change has also occurred in employment prospects for college graduates. Before 1994, regular college students were assigned a job on gradu
11、ation. Employment was not a worry. Ms Zhang majored in the Chinese language, and she wanted to become a teacher. She had her wish fulfilled, going to work for a military college. Her schoolmates also got decent jobs as journalists in state media such as Xinhua, or as officials in provincial public r
12、elations departments. Job handouts for college graduates like these expired as of 1994, forcing young men and women to cold call employers or use family connections if they had any. But there was still less 4pressure involved in finding work for people with college degrees as they were a treasured m
13、inority in those days. Gross enrollment in higher education was merely 5.7 percent that year, and college graduates numbered 800,000. In 1999, the government expanded college quotas, and enrollment increased by 48 percent, or 1.08 million in 1998 to 1.59 million in 1999. Finding work soon became mor
14、e difficult. In 2008, the Ministry of Education admitted for the first time that the expansion of college enrollment had gone too far.Although the pace of expansion slowed down a little after that, the year 2011 found China with a total college enrollment of 6.75 million, eight times that of 1994. B
15、ack to Academia Shenzhen-based South University of Science and Technology of China(SUSTC) greeted its first batch of students in March 2011. The decision to autonomously recruit its own students was made when SUSTC, a university undertaking a mission of “de-bureaucracy“and “letting professors run th
16、e school,“failed to obtain recruitment authorization by the Ministry of Education despite three years of preparation. This meant that in the 5future this intake of 45 students may be unable to get the national education authority to recognize their academic qualifications, and hold only an SUSTC-gra
17、nted diploma. The iconic stance of “de-bureaucracy“ taken by SUSTC was intended to steer school management away from the state administrative hierarchy, which primarily covers government de-partments but also state-owned establishments. Zhu Qingshi,president of the university, conceives the SUSTC as
18、 an innovative research-oriented institution like the California Institute of Technology. “SUSTC established a council responsible for ruling on major issues the university faces. All decisions are made by voting after intensive discussions,“ he said. He thought this was a good way to avoid administ
19、rative interference, and he acted just as any CEO would. “A universitys de-bureaucracy does not mean removing management or administrative functions. On the contrary, universities demand efficient administrative management,“ Zhu explained. “The essence of removing the state administrative hierarchy
20、is to let academic power dominate. Administrative power dominating a university implies that the highest-ranking official makes his word count; however, if academic power is dominant, the one who masters the truth makes the 6decision.People all obey the truth regardless of their official ranks,“ he
21、clarified. In fact, experiments meant to relieve universities of bureaucracy were conducted years ago. As early as 1985, the Decision of the CPC Central Committee on the Reform of the Educational System elucidated the intention. The Outline of the National Program for Medium- and Long-Term Education
22、al Reform and Development, released in July 2010, once again clearly proposed that universities should overcome the tendency to amass administrative ranks, and “gradually abolish the existing administrative hierarchy and administrative management mode.“ Twenty-six universities including Fudan Univer
23、sity were enlisted in a pilot program to restructure internal management centering on the formulation of a university charter. In the pilot program internal governance of the university was reorganized and the role of the executive officer reevaluated. In 2010,Yang Yuliang, president of Fudan, publi
24、cly declared of the new governing principles of the university that it was characterized by “academic research as the soul, education at the core, legally regulated governance, and democratic decision making.“ Fudans administrative heads accordingly with drew from its three major academic organizati
25、ons - the academic 7committee, academic degree committee and teaching assessment committee.Later, reforms were expanded to the school and department strata - most deans and department chairs were removed from leadership posts in the above three academic units. Greater autonomy in recruitment also he
26、lps entrench the academic authority of universities. As early as 2003 the Ministry of Education initiated an experiment allowing some universities to independently select applicants for no more than five percent of their annual undergraduate enrollment quota. Today more than 80 schools have joined t
27、he program, and many have exceeded the five percent quota. This year, Tsinghua, one of the best universities in China, took a step further:for its enrollment reform it introduced Plan A and Plan B, relaxing admission standards for talents of a specific nature and students who had demonstrated excell
28、ence in underdeveloped areas. “Among our alumni are Qian Zhongshu and Wu Han (both famous writers), whose math scores in the entrance exams were respectively 15 and 0.We always welcome students with special talents and potential,“ said Xue Ping, head of Shanghai recruitment team of Tsinghua. “We int
29、end to give the 8exceptional whether in academic achievement or in character access to highly regarded universities,“ Xue added. Many other members of Chinas Ivy League have embraced similar independent enrollment, such as Peking University and Nanjing University. Fudan University even disclosed pla
30、n to expand this practice to its entire enrollment in Shanghai, the city where it is located, next year. Whether for autonomous enrollment, educational autonomy or just stream lining administration out of university governance, their ultimate purpose is the same, to make higher learning institutions
31、 return to the traditional concerns of academia. Administrative power will not interfere with academic matters, and professors will focus on their research and teaching. Ji Baocheng, president of Renmin University of China,has reflected extensively on Chinas current situation in higher education. Hi
32、s conclusion is while the autonomy granted to universities by the government in the 30 plus years since the reform and opening up is obviously greater than before, “The power of universities is impaired. For example, due to the implementation of project management in finance, all special projects mu
33、st be submitted to the government for approval.Moreover, money for a specific project cant be used 9for other projects or items. Therefore, the schools ability to handle its affairs flexibly is limited,“ Ji explained. He thinks the whole process is over elaborate and troublesome because of the compl
34、icated and protracted reporting, evaluation and competition to which a project is subjected. Ji proposed government responsibilities in education should be limited to formulating education policies, basic systems and standards, but allowed to continue, as before, implementing macro adjustments to ed
35、ucation. As for detailed and specific management affairs like the establishment of disciplines and enrollment mechanisms, schools should gradually take these over. Education authorities should only retain the necessary and supreme supervision and veto power. “The government must make way for higher
36、learning institutions to assume educational autonomy, which entails returning authority over academic requirements to schools,“ Ji said.“I suggest abandoning the concepts of ministry affiliated and province controlled universities, replacing them with state and provincial universities, so as to ensu
37、re their independent legal status. Meanwhile, China should explore ways to establish higher education organizations of multiple types and at multiple levels, such as university 10associations, as soon as possible,“he added. Gradually Solving Problems in Reforms Although the reform measures at Chines
38、e universities have their supporters, critical views have been endorsed and the airing of negative opinions is incessant. Xiong Bingqi, a famous education scholar, believes the current college autonomous enrollment mode is tripling the stress on college applicants. The students have to pass written
39、tests offered by a specific university or an alliance of universities,then participate in interviews with the schools they aspire to,and sit for the conventional national college entrance exam before they can make it into their desired school. If a student applies to several universities through the
40、 autonomous en- rollment channel it means taking more exams, adding to the physical, psychological and financial burden on them and their parents. Whats more, the autonomy of the college is actually very limited:its range of choice is confined to students whose scores meet the baseline mark in the national college entrance exam set by educational authorities for the class of colleges to which they apply.
