Higher Education in Post-Mao China

11. Stratification Trends in Technical-Professional Higher Education

11 Stratification Trends in TechnicalProfessional Higher Education Vilma SEEBERG INTRODUCTION This chapter looks at contemporary trends in Chinese society as it undergoes the transition from isolated bureaucratic socialist state to player in the global economy.1 We examine whether, in the transitional times of the late 1980s, the advantaged social strata were passing on their status to the next generation by means of higher education of the technical-professional kind. Two types of research were used to examine enrolment patterns as predictors of social and economic changes in the PRC: qualitative analysis of interviews and statistical analysis of a stratified, random sample sociological survey.2 The findings of the quantitative analysis are statistically generalizable to the national student population, but caution is warranted as Chinese institutions vary greatly one from another.3 The economic transition undertaken in all of the former socialist states has had an impact on their social structure, but the significance of that impact has been difficult to assess. What movement is taking place and how quickly? Which are the lasting trends, who is moving ahead and who is losing? Educational trends provide useful insight into long-term social patterns. People 'flow through' educational systems over an extended period of time and educational decisions are made with long-term goals in mind. At the 212 Vilma SEEBERG upper levels of the educational pyramid, the stakes are high and the competition fierce. Reforms in the educational systems have accompanied the economic and political changes throughout the former state-socialist world. The changes have been tailored largely to respond to market needs. For example, redistributive admissions policies based on CCP politics largely have given way to examination-driven merit selection based on skills competition. Has this change made a difference in who is admitted into higher education? Under state socialism, a bureaucratic system of allocation and distribution had a monopoly hold on power, and political capital was the coin of the realm. In the deregulated economies of ex-socialist states, however, economic capital- indeed money - is the new coin. How has this impacted elite formation? Will the socialist political elite seize control, recasting itself as the new capitalist elite; will the pre-revolutionary financial elite reemerge ; or will new class groupings form? Technical-professional higher education The Thirteenth Party Congress proclaimed in 1987 that further economic growth in the PRC 'hinged' on the progress of science and technology and increasingly on the quality of education received by 'workers' and 'intellectuals'.4 In response, technical-professional higher education was expanded to produce workers skilled in the processing of technology and information. For example, in industrial and agricultural production, such personnel serve as engineers, agronomists, food production specialists; in management, as middle-level managers; in medicine, as pharmacists, nurses or lab professionals; in commerce, as account executives, accountants or legal paraprofessionals; in education, as secondary school teachers. Though loosening state control over important sectors of the economy, the Chinese government, through the first phase of reforms, 1980-95, has kept a tight grip on education. It did, however, increasingly 'marketize' both the supply of students to education and the product of education. The previous redistributive socio-political aims of education became subsumed under national economic development goals. Hence, technical-professional education at the tertiary level assumed an unaccustomed importance in the educational system and it was expected to provide the engine of economic growth. Furthermore, the flow of youth through the technicalprofessional educational systems represents avant-garde trends in social patterns at the upper end of the social hierarchy. Stratification Trends in Technical-Professional Higher Education 213 Stratification Post-reform China inherited a steep educational pyramid.s From the 1950s to the 1980s, 'upward access channels for the majority of [lower school] students were never significantly widened'.6 Access to advanced skill and academic training and employment did not expand beyond elite population groups, higher Party members and the urban professional class.7 In 1980, about 2% of primary school entrants made it to higher education.R Throughout the 1980s, the proportion of the age group enrolled in higher education remained at this level even despite the rapid expansion of higher education places.9 During the dramatic transition in the 1980s and 1990s, however, stratification in Chinese society was shifting rapidly in structure and composition.1O Though the legacy of the bureaucratic rank order remained strong,l1 the transformation towards a money-based economy proceeded at a rapid pace...