Recently, China’s Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance and National Development and Reform Commission issued the Opinions on Furthering the Construction of World-Class Universities and First-Class Academic Disciplines. With the unveiling of the new list of “world-class universities” and “first-class academic disciplines” to construct, the second round of China’s top university and discipline construction commences. These reforms are crucial for the further development of higher education in China.
This is another of China’s major academic initiatives after the 211 Project and 985 Project. The second round of construction no longer classifies first-class universities and universities for first-class disciplines, but aims to break new ground in exploring the independent and characteristic development modes of universities. Peking University and Tsinghua University are granted autonomy in discipline construction. After the completion of the overall plan to expand autonomy in construction, the two universities can announce their own chosen disciplines. In addition, relevant departments will continue to give certain authority to a number of universities for the independent construction of disciplines. Expanding the autonomy of universities in construction and management is an important step toward improving governance and boosting their scientific research and teaching capabilities. Universities, the most important role in human social inheritance and academic innovation, should have a high degree of autonomy in their own construction and management. The ministries propose giving this right back to universities, which is a step in the right direction.
The document passed at the meeting of the central committee for deepening overall reform calls for seeking new modes for the independent and characteristic development of universities. It says that China should select several high-level universities, give them full authority in setting their own to-be-constructed disciplines and evaluation cycles, and encourage them to probe new models of school construction and management. It also says that universities with distinctive disciplines and comprehensive advantages should be identified, granted certain authority to choose and adjust their to-be-constructed disciplines, and have relatively loose evaluation cycles set for them. Also, China should improve the management mechanism wherein the rights and liabilities of universities that are granted discipline construction authority are well-aligned to ensure that authority is truly implemented.
Yet, it is not enough to focus on the autonomy of discipline construction alone. Since reform and opening up, the guiding ideology of China’s higher education has gone through a fundamental change, and its scale of higher education has soared. That said, China’s management system and governance mechanisms for universities themselves have undergone no obvious changes. If we look at the reforms in China’s economic system and other fields, we can easily see that the reform of the university system is progressing slowly. The decentralization of the autonomy of discipline construction means that universities must reform their evaluation systems, internal restraint mechanisms and governance systems simultaneously. In economic system reforms, issues that government departments are unable to handle are usually handed over to enterprises, which is a basic lesson that can by learned by education reform so as to expand the autonomy of universities to the greatest extent. This requires the education authorities to reform themselves, such as what was advocated around the resumption of the national college entrance examination, or “gaokao” — to “boldly emancipate the mind and gain the initiative.”
Currently, nothing is more urgent than moving faster to expand the autonomy of universities in construction and management, and promote structural reforms. The fierce global competition is essentially a competition for talent. Over the past four decades, Chinese universities have trained myriad low-paid yet high-quality workers to meet the needs of rapid economic development. Now, China has entered the stage of high-quality development, with its position in the global industrial chain rising continuously. At the same time, however, it is challenged by adverse external factors such as “technological decoupling.” The only way China can overcome these challenges is to become an innovative country that relies on talent with an “independent spirit and a free mind,” and also relies fundamentally on education, especially higher education.
Apparently, China’s higher education is currently incapable of taking on this important role, so thorough reforms are needed. Despite some achievements since the initiative of constructing world-class universities and first-class academic disciplines was launched, China’s higher education still has some prominent weak points, including unclear relations in university governance and the absence of an environment conducive to innovation and free exploration. Chinese universities train students the way products are finished on assembly lines, resulting in a relatively high average quality of students, but individuals with few differences and unique characteristics, so outstanding creative talent has become rare. The question of “why can’t our schools produce outstanding talent?” — the so-called “Qian Xuesen’s confusion” — has yet to be answered.
In the coming years, on the basis of summing up its experience, China should promptly grant authority for school and discipline construction to a batch of universities such as Peking University and Tsinghua University in this round of reforms, and include noncomprehensive universities and less prestigious universities. The key is to completely abandon the idea of blindly pursuing political achievements and caring only about numbers and scales, and return to the original aspiration for education by refocusing attention on teaching and scientific research. Moreover, rights and resources need to be appropriately redeployed.
The evaluation system should serve as a baton to prevent universities from becoming obsessed with indicators and rankings, while ignoring the construction of connotations. Pursuing only quantity rather than quality will never help to build world-class universities. At present, China’s universities generally pay great attention to rankings, which is understandable, but results in “putting the cart before the horse” when it becomes the focus of their efforts. It remains to be seen whether the national initiative will calm or worsen their ranking fever. The initiative involves more than 100 universities, each of which has its own characteristics. Thus, it is also a difficult task to design scientific and reasonable classified evaluation systems.
The governance mechanism of universities is the internal cause and basis of all the above-mentioned reforms. Since talent growth and scientific research have their own laws, we cannot simply apply administrative management methods to scientific research, let alone manage scientific research talent the way we manage administrative officials. We need to constantly break away from administrative thinking, resolutely eliminate formalism and bureaucracy in universities, and free up scientific research personnel. Furthermore, we should attach great importance to the role of the academic community and give respect and full play to the roles of academic committees and other similar organizations. There is still much room for improvement in the internal decision-making mechanisms and resource allocation mechanisms of universities.
The document also calls for enhancing Chinese universities’ international exchanges and cooperation in an all-round way, and deepening their integration into the global innovation network. While considering China’s own characteristics, university reform should be based on a global perspective so that advanced educational concepts and governance systems can be learned, especially the ways in which excellent foreign public universities are managed and operated.
It is possible that a university is excellent because of its autonomy, not the other way around. The reason why Peking University and Tsinghua University can boast numerous masters and enjoy a good reputation lies in their philosophy of being “all-inclusive.” We wish the initiative success, as it not only involves huge human, financial and material inputs, but also relates directly to China’s future. Its significance goes beyond education.
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