Traces 5: Universities in Translation: The Mental Labour of Globalization

From Elitism to Populism: The “Industrial” Model and Chinese Higher Education

From Elitism to Populism T R A C E S : 5 119 From eliTism To PoPulism: The “indusTrial” model and chinese hiGher educaTion lei Qili — Translated from Chinese by Ma Hongnan In recent years, higher education has time and again become a focal point of intense public discussion in China. Debates over the objectivity of entrance exams, equality in the admissions process, regional disparities in acceptance rates, and the possibility of abolishing the existing admissions system altogether have swept the country. Academic controversy has also boiled up around inclusion of the advanced English “Band IV” and “Band VI” exams among the qualifications for an undergraduate degree, requiring graduate students to produce academic publications before receiving their degrees, and over the “2003 Reform” proposal (Guiwei Gaige) which set forth new standards for faculty recruitment at Beijing University. Following each other in rapid succession, these debates have seemed endless. Each has had some direct provocation, with the opposing parties asserting their own logic and points of departure in ways that defy the application of simplistic, normative judgments. Yet we may assume that certain fundamental material conditions underlie these debates, just as they do the emergence of any new perspective or agenda in a society. Expansion of Scale of the University in China Any consideration of Chinese higher education today must begin by taking into account the reality of its expansion, measured in both growth of enrollment Lei QiLi 120 T R A C E S : 5 and the assets now held by universities. Out of a total university population of 3.408 million in China in 1998, 1.083 million were freshmen. In June of 1999, the Chinese State Council called for further increases in enrollment for higher educational institutions. That year, total enrollment reached 1.53 million, a staggering 42 percent increase (450,000 new students) from the year before. This expansion policy was directly related to the economic restructuring policies of “Enterprise Reform.” In order to alleviate pressures to find new employment for workers who had been laid off due to restructuring, there was a need to delay the entry of high school graduates into the labor market. A second goal was to provide the highly educated talent which, it was envisioned, China’s future economic development would demand. Finally, fixed asset investment in higher education was seen as a way of stimulating domestic consumption and economic growth. The policy of expansion maintained its momentum for several years, as we can see from the following statistics: • The net increase of university enrollment between 1998 and 2005 totaled 10 million students. Between 2003 and 2005 alone, total university enrollment more than doubled from11.09 million students to over 23 million students.1 • Between 1998 and 2006, there was a five-fold increase of incoming freshmen, with a total population of 5.4 million freshmen entering the university in 2006. Admissions of students seeking bachelor and associate degrees in 2005 reached 4.75 million, an 8 percent increase over the 4.1 million students entering in 2004.2 Moreover, given the low admission thresholds of technological and professional colleges, private institutions, and numerous regional universities, almost all high school graduates with the necessary financial resources were able to gain admission to one university or professional college or another during this period. • For the same reasons, a similar trend toward rapid growth has been observed in graduate education and the granting of master’s and doctoral degrees. The number of degrees awarded, on average, has increased annually by 27 percent since 1998. Graduate admission nation-wide was estimated at 72,000 in 1998. That figure reached 269,000 in 2003; 326,000 for 2004; 367,000 for 2005; and 400,000 for 2006. From Elitism to Populism T R A C E S : 5 121 As a result of an expansion on this scale, there has been a drastic change in the composition of China’s student population. Accordingly, a redefinition, or rethinking, of the quality, purpose, and nature of the educational endeavor for both undergraduate and graduate populations is underway. In today’s China, university education is no longer for the elite few. Rather, it has become a popular pursuit. Contradictions of Expansion Such a rapid increase in the number of students admitted to China’s universities has glaringly exposed the inadequacies of its higher education infrastructure. Such problems as shortage of faculty and lack of proper facilities have become...