Developing Chinese Higher Education in Tensions, An Conclusion

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DEVELOPING CHINESE HIGHER EDUCATION IN TENSIONS
Yuzhuo Cai
University Lecturer and Adjunct Professor, Higher Education Group
Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, Finland
yuzhuo.cai@tuni.fi
Fengqiao Yan
Professor, Graduate School of Education, Peking University, China
fqyan@pku.edu.cn
Cited as:
Cai, Y., & Yan, F. (2020). Developing Chinese Higher Education in Tensions, An Conclusion.
In M. A. Peters (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory (pp. 1-6).
Singapore: Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_608-1
Introduction
The challenges faced by Chinese higher education can be understood as consequences of both
system and institutional responses to global and domestic pressures (Cai 2004). The two
pressures are closely intertwined with each other and often explain the changes of higher
education systems around the world (Pinheiro, Wengenge-Ouma et al. 2015). The combined
external and internal pressures have also caused conflicting logics underlying the Chinese
higher education.
Challenges in Chinese higher education
Regardless of the reform achievement, a number of problems have arisen mainly as a result of
the expansion of higher education (Wang and Liu 2009, Li 2010, Cai, Kivistö et al. 2011).

First, along with the rapid growth of student enrolment and greater scale of higher education,
there are a lack of sufficient resources and effective measures to ensure quality (Cai and Yan
2017). On one hand, broader entry into universities has lowered the quality of enrolling
students. On the other hand, the rapid increase in student numbers leads to a decrease in
qualified teacher resources per student. It also results in very large class sizes, which have
limited the capacity to develop sufficient teacher-student interaction. To overcome this
challenge, many institutions have recruited new teachers. However, many of these new teachers
received their doctorate within the past 10 years, and it is commonly accepted that the quality
of doctoral education has been deteriorating in the same period (Shi, Ma et al. 2009).
Second, the education model in Chinese higher education is formulaic and universities lack the
capability to cultivate outstanding, innovative talents. Graduates are criticised for lacking
innovation, practical abilities and social responsibility. In 2005, when Premier WEN Jiabao
visited the father of China’s space scientist QIAB Xuesen (who passed away at the age of 98
in 2009), QIAN raised the question, ‘why our universities can hardly cultivate first-class
talents?’. He told the Premier that none of Chinese universities were running in the right model
of cultivating excellent talents and were not innovative enough. He believed that the lack of
scientific spirit was where the real problem lay.
Third, there is a lack of diversity amongst Chinese higher education institutions (HEIs). Smaller
colleges attempt to follow the structure of comprehensive universities, and vocational schools
seek to evolve into research institutions. The homogenisation of HEIs is due to the current
practice whereby institutions are measured by a single set of criteria and institutions tend to
define themselves by rank (Zha 2009). Such a homogenous structure of higher education does
not meet the requirement of economic development or the needs of the labour market.
Fourth, there is a rise of unemployment amongst university graduates. In 2008 about 30%
(more than a million) of university graduates were unable to secure employment upon
graduation (Zhou and Lin 2009). Although the media reports that the current employment rate
has reached 90%, it has been alleged that some HEIs force students to forge employment claims
(Wu and Zheng 2008).
Fifth, there are unbalanced distributions of higher education resources between regions and
unequal access to higher education between different social groups. Disparity has been a major
issue associated with the past 30 years of economic development in China. There are regional
disparities, disparities between urban and rural areas, and disparities in household incomes. As
regional governments take on important financial responsibility for HEIs under their

jurisdiction, the differing economic state of regions naturally leads to unequal conditions for
higher education development between regions.
The rapid economic growth in China has widened the gap between rich and poor in society.
Currently, the Gini coefficient—a commonly used measure of inequality of wealth—has
reached 0.47, overtaking the recognised warning level of 0.4 (Jia 2010). Despite the progress
made in equalising access by urban-rural and strata origins in China, disadvantaged groups
retain their unfavourable status in accessing higher education (Yao, Wu et al. 2008).
Last but not the least, the reforms face tensions between Chinese and Western ideologies (Cai
2004, Cai 2012). Chinese higher education reforms reflect an influence by Western reform
ideologies. While the Chinese government wishes to obtain economic benefits from the
international economy, this does not mean that the government takes a laissez-faire attitude
towards all associated ideologies. Higher education, considered as an important ideological
battlefield, is always in the front line of conflicts between Western ideas and the Party’s
principles. China’s practices of importing foreign models in the development of a modern
higher education system have followed a theory of borrowing from the West what was useful
without losing the essence of Chinese values. However, as the philosophies and ideas
underlying Western higher education systems are often alien to Chinese traditional culture or
ideology, the development of Chinese higher education inevitably confront dilemma. Because
of the deeper ideological concerns, some old functions of higher education administration have
not necessarily been terminated.
Global and local pressures for Chinese higher education
Global pressures for Chinese higher education include the omnipresence of globalisation and
particularly its effects on emerging knowledge-based economy, competition for global talent,
and introduction of information and communication technology (ICT) in education, etc.
(Pinheiro, Wengenge-Ouma et al. 2015). Because globalization manifests itself primarily at the
local level (Coleman and Sajed, 2013), the domestic pressures are to some extent derived from
the global pressures but mostly rooted in China’s local political, economic and cultural
contexts.
In the past decades, there are three major domestic pressures for Chinese higher education.
Firstly, demand for a higher quality of education has been increasing, in part, because of
improved economic conditions in the country. While more students are able to take higher
education entrance examination, and have a better chance to pass the exam, the competition for

entering “good” universities has become fiercer. Amongst more than 2000 HEIs, only about
some 100 universities (often “Project 211” and “Project 985” universities) are considered as
being of high quality or prestige. Now the two projects are replaced by the “Double World
Class” project (Yan Forthcoming), but those HEIs enjoying special financial support from the
State under the new scheme are more or less the same of those of Project 211 and Project 985
institutions.
Second, the increasing demands for higher education and industry collaboration require
universities to increase their quality (human capital function), and to link higher education
more strongly to economic development, particularly in collaboration with industry (Cai and
Liu 2015).
Third, rising urbanisation and its associated social disparity problems have aggravated the
equity in higher education in two ways. On the one hand, partially due to differences in
economic development, HEIs are not evenly distributed among municipal cities and provinces.
On the other hand, students from poorer families and regions have unequal access to good-
quality secondary education, thus leading to different chances of gaining access to the most
prestigious HEIs and careers (Feng 2011, Ma 2011).
System responses to both global/external and domestic
pressures
To respond to these global and domestic pressures, the government has launched a series of
policies. The correspondence between policy instruments and the pressures they address can
be described in following table 1:

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Table 1 Summary of pressures and responses in Chinese higher education
Demands/pressures for higher education
Governmental reforms as responses to the
demands
Students demands for quantity:
There is an increasing demand for higher
education. Many students pursue higher education
abroad
Introduction of private higher education
Expansion of higher education enrolment
University merger
Students demands for quality:
Students compete for good universities (high
quality of education) but the available places are
limited.
Quality assurance
Internationalisation
Society’s demands for further investment in higher
education:
Governmental financial constrains
Tuition fee policy
University-run enterprises
Privatisation of higher education
Labour market demands for high-quality human
resources and innovative talents:
High-quality and innovation talents are in short
supply.
Building first class universities
Expansion of post graduate education
Internationalisation
Labour market demands for different types of
human resources:
The phenomenon of academic drift
Differentiation between academic education
(mainly MOE’s responsibility) and
professional/vocational education (local
responsibility)
Economic development needs close cooperation
between university and industry (due to emerging
knowledge-based economy):
University and industry lack trust and motivation
for cooperation.
University-run enterprises
University Science and Technology park
“Project 2011”
Society’s demands for equity in access to higher
education:
Inequity in access to higher education between
people whose household registration in different
regions
Inequity to access to higher education between
social groups
Imbalance in affordability between poor and rich
families
Student loans
Green gate (first enrol student and then seek
economic solutions)
Special admission policies
Source: Cai and Yan (2015)

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Pressures and responses at the institutional level
The recent national policies on higher education have mainly resulted in the following four pressures
for Chinese higher education institutions (HEIs). First, along with the devolution of administration
power to the local government and growing institutional autonomy, HEIs are required to be more
accountable to the stakeholders’ needs. Second, the stakeholders of HEIs have become diversified.
When China was in a centrally planned system, the sole stakeholder of HEIs was the state. However,
nowadays the stakeholders have been extended to local governmental agencies as not only regional
level administration authorities but as partners for regional development, enterprises who employ
university graduates and utilise the knowledge and technology produced by universities, students as
fee-paying consumers, and private owners/investors of HEIs (particularly private ones). Third, the
system of higher education has shifted from the one with vertical differentiation to horizontal
differentiation. For two decades, the Chinese HEIs have been divided into four vertical layers from
the top research universities to those higher vocational colleges at the bottom. However, the recent
reform launched in 2014 is going to transfer 600 regional universities to a parallel track providing
applied technological and vocational education instead of academic education. Finally, HEIs are
placed in a fierce competition mainly for funding resources, either public or private. In order to
succeed in the competition, HEIs must closely collaborate with local industry, better serve labour
market needs and explicitly address stakeholders’ concerns.
Chinese HEIs are susceptible to both the global/local pressures and an environment resulted by policy
instruments. For a university with high level of institutional autonomy, it tends to make its
independent strategies to respond to the different needs, though the demands from the state, often
eventually represented as financial incentives, are one of most important considerations. Although
the Chinese 1998 Higher Education Law stipulates quite high level of autonomy for HEIs in
formulating their own institutional strategies and plans, in practice, their autonomy is “regulated
autonomy” (Yang, Vidovich et al. 2007), meaning that they have limited scope to decide their goals
and educational programmes but can to a large extent determine the means by which their goals and
programmes will be pursued. In such context, Chinese HEIs mainly address the demands from the
government, who has translated both global and local pressures for higher education into higher
education reform policies. This may result in two kinds of consequences. On the one hand, HEIs lack
initiatives to plan for long-term institutional development. On the other hand, how HEIs are able to

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successfully respond to external pressures is largely dependent on how wisely the governmental
policy is designed. In practice, HEIs always try to maximize their benefits from existing policy
instruments.
Tensions in underlying logics
While universities typically endeavor to follow policy guidelines, the reforms planned by the
government often result in conflicting logics in the field of higher education, and which may confuse
HEIs and complicate their actions. Some contradictory logics underlying the 1990s higher education
reforms have been identified by (Cai 2004). Although more than 10 years have passed, most of
tensions still exist today, such as: a) between socialist ideology and Western values; b) between the
traditional higher education steering model and the active participation of society (stakeholders); c)
between inadequate conditions at the level of HEIs and resource stringencies in the public purse; d)
between short-term market demands and long-term national development priorities or public
interests; and e) between weak legal consciousness and requirements for a regulated market system.
In addition, some new tensions have emerged as a result of reforms in the past decade. The most
profound ones pertain to higher education as an ivory tower and the pursuit of scientific (global)
excellence against the logic of higher education for market needs, e.g. knowledge production for
business use and education for skills enhancement. Such tension has led to challenges in two
concurrent reforms in Chinese higher education, namely calls for universities to become more
engaged in knowledge and technology transfers to society (particularly to industry), and the
transformation of some regional HEIs towards more applied and professional oriented institutions.
The historically long time separation between academia and industry has, to a large extent, resulted
in the lack of trust and motivation (both sides) for developing effective and reciprocal cooperative
relations (Kroll and Liefner 2008, Wang 2011). In 2014, the Ministry of Education launched a new
reform aimed at transforming hundreds of regional HEIs to universities of applied sciences. This
policy efforts is hampered by the trend of “academic drift” (Berdahl 1985), since all Chinese HEIs
strive to adopt the structures and norms of more prestigious universities (Hölttä and Cai 2012), in
addition to the problem of the Confucian tradition which values human knowledge rather than
vocational skills (Xiong 2011).

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Conclusions
The Chinese HEIs do not directly respond to the external pressures, but rather addressing a regulative
and operational environment set by the government. While most HEIs narrow their strategic focus on
pursuing and maximise their benefits from existing polices, the challenge in their operational basis is
how to reconcile these conflicting logics.
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