China celebrated the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s
Republic of China (also called New China) on 1 October 2019. Despite
twists and turns, China has established one of the largest higher
education systems in the world. For example, Chinese universities and
colleges have accommodated the largest numbers of undergraduate students
worldwide, with more than 30 million students on campuses.
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China’s gross enrolment ratio for higher education reached 48% of the
18-year-old population in 2018. This indicates that its higher education
system will soon offer near-universal access to higher education
according to United States sociologist Martin Trow’s definition.
Also, it produced and trained more than 60,000 doctoral graduates in
2018. This number is even larger than that for US universities.
Further, the status of several Chinese universities has kept moving
upwards in the major global university ranking tables since the early
part of the 21st century. For example, in the Times Higher Education
World University Rankings 2020, Tsinghua and Peking universities and the
University of Science and Technology of China are listed among the top
100, with four other Chinese universities in the top 200.
However, little is known of what the most striking characteristics of
China’s higher education are or what higher education systems China has
formed over the last 70 years.
Compared to the United States, United Kingdom, European countries and
Japan or South Korea, the distinctive features of present Chinese higher
education can be practically summarised as follows.
First, all higher education institutions are rigidly controlled and
regulated by the central government and especially by the Communist
Party. This is not only evident in the relationships between the central
government, local authorities and higher education institutions but is
also true in governance arrangements and management within all higher
education institutions.
All presidents and party secretaries in national universities are
directly selected and appointed by the Ministry of Education and other
ministries at a central level. The institutional leaders of the local
public higher education institutions are determined by local
authorities. Even in private universities the party organisations are
present and party secretaries are appointed or dispatched by the local
government.
At an institutional level, dual governance patterns are adopted.
According to the Higher Education Law, all higher education
institutions, including private ones, have to establish grassroots-based
committees of the Chinese Communist Party.
The party committees are expected to exercise unified leadership over
university work and support the presidents and carry out their
leadership from the political and ideological perspective, while the
presidents exert their influence on more academic and administrative
matters. Perhaps this is the most important characteristic of the
current Chinese higher education system in relation to governance and
administration.
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