AboutFrom Department of International Cooperation and Exchange, Ministry of Education
1. To enhance the improvement of teaching for undergraduate education
The fundamental task of higher education institutions (HELs) is o train talents therefore the core of HEIs is teaching. The quality of undergraduate education is the key and priority of the quality of higher education because it is the main component and basis for higher education.
During the recent years, the reform and development of higher education has achieved remarkable progress, especially in terms of the rapid expansion of the scale of undergraduate education. The “Several Opinions on the Improvement of Teaching Quality and Enhancement of Teaching for Undergraduate Education in Higher Education Institutions" has been promulgated by the Ministry of Education of China. This document sets the guidance for increasing input into teaching, encouraging professors to give lectures to undergraduate students, enhancing the teaching of basic courses, introducing and using original teaching material from other countries, and promoting teaching in English. It also clarifies that head of the HEIs, the person directly responsible for teaching qualify, should establish the philosophy that quality is the lifeline of HELs and continuous innovation should be made in systems and daily work. The international competitiveness of HEIs as well as the education quality will be further improved.
2. To promote the adjustment of discipline structure of undergraduate education
The new catalogue of disciplines for undergraduate education in HEIs was issued in1998 and the total number of disciplines has been reduced from the original 504 to294. However, with the development of economic globalisation, rapid expansion of access to higher education and the breakthrough progress in systematic reform in higher education, it has been an emergent task to adjust the structure of disciplines in HEIs. For this purpose, the Ministry of Education issued “Several Opinions on the Adjustment of Disciplines in Higher Education Institutions", which then expands the authority of disciplines establishment for HEIs. At the same time, it also requires HEIs to establish a disciplinary management system of self-development and self-adjustment to meet the social reform and needs, to stop the trend of neglecting internal development and only paying attention to external development. It encourages development such as IT, life science, new material science, those which meet the needs of local economic development and those new cutting- edge disciplines. Some disciplines, attach importance to the development of Humanities and take measures to enhance the reform of traditional disciplines. Moreover, this document also emphasizes the disciplines development in HEIs in the west. Endeavours are to be made to perfect the system of discipline structure in this area so that an even development of higher education in the whole nation could be turned into reality. In March 2002, seven universities including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Beijing Normal University, Wuhan University, Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiaotong University and the University of Political Science and Law, are authorised by MoE to have their freedom in discipline establishing.
3. To implement the Programme of Teaching Reform in the new century
Based on the achievements of “Reform Plan of Teaching Content and Curriculum System of the Higher Education facing 21 Century” which was launched in 1994, the MoE decided to implement the Programme of Teaching Reform in the New Century in January2000.This Programme aims at training high qualified talents with innovation, creativity and application capacity to meet the needs in the new century. Comprehensive research and practices will be carried out in areas of training module, teaching content, curriculum system and pedagogy to promote deeper teaching reform in higher education.
The main content of this Programme includes the strategic plan and research for talents training, reform and practice of undergraduate education and higher vocational education, resource establishment of modern distance education, teacher training among young and mid-aged key teachers. In August 2000, MoE issued the Notice of Projects on teaching reform for Undergraduate Education and rectified 670 projects which will be carried out by 265 HEIs. The total input for them reaches 25.3 million RMB.A number of excellent achievements in reaching reform has been turned out by this initiative.
4. The initial success of talents training bases for basic disciplines and the teaching bases of basic courses
since the later year of 1980’s, the basic disciplines in HEIs has been facing serious difficulties such as severe inadequate expenditure, very unstable teaching team, obvious decline of students’ quality. As a result, the long term development of our science and technology and the training quality of talents in higher education were threatened. Under that circumstance, the former SEdC decided to establish the training bases for talents in basic disciplines and the teaching bases of basic courses. By the end of 1998,84 national training bases of talents from basic disciplines of science, 51 for basic disciplines of Arts, 45 for engineering disciplines and 13 for economics have been set up in succession. The bases attracted lots of outstanding high school graduates, thus the quality of students was improved obviously and the initiative of the teachers increased unprecedentedly. The establishment and reform of bases gained common approval and appreciation from higher education sector.
5. The enhancement of cultural education of university students and the exploration of new talents training models
In 1995, the former SEdC envisaged to enhance the cultural education of university students. With the tangency of enhancing the cultural quality of university students, moral and ideological quality, cultural quality, professional quality and physical and psychological quality were combined organically together. Passing on knowledge, training capacities and improving quality were be mixed and quality education was realistic strengthened.52HEIs participated in the pilot work. The concerning HEIs took various measures, such as identifying the compulsory reading list, strengthening classroom teaching, offering lectures, and organizing all kinds of cultural activities, to promote the programme development. Some pilot HEIs identified the goal, basic requirement and assessment standard of the programme while some others began to adjust talents training and teaching plans in the light of new requirements. After 3-year of pilot, MoE promulgated the “Opinoins in the Enhancement of Cultural Education of University Students", set up directory committee for cultural education and ratified 32“Bases for the Enhancement of Cultural Education of University Students", which symbolizd that the enhancement of cultural education of university students was carried out full and over the country.
6. The increase of vitality of higher vocational education and sherr 2-3 years higher education
Since 1998, great efforts have been put into the basic development and reform of higher vocational education and short 2-3 years higher education. The schooling condition has been remarkably improved, the establishment of basic infrastructure for teaching accelerated, teaching capacity significantly improved and the important progress has been witnessed in reaching reform. Altogether more than 300 teaching materials have been complied and published. Teacher training bases have been set up in Beijing, Tianjin, Henan province and Zhejiang Province. 346 disciplines have been identified as the national teaching reform pilots and 103 reform topics have been confirmed by MoE. The feature of higher vocational education institutions are being demonstrated more clearly and higher vocational education is showing its great vitality in this reform.
7. The establishment of macro management system on quality of higher education made stable progress
In 1993, the Department of Higher education of former SEdC began to research the assessment plan and the practice of teaching assessment.
Aimed at helping the HEIs consistently identify their schooling directive ideology, improving the schooling conditions, enhancing the basic construction of teaching, deepening teaching reform, increasing management level and gradually setting up and perfecting the system of self-development and self-restrain so as to continuously improve education quality and increase schooling efficiency, the assessment of undergraduate teaching adheres to the principle of “promoting reform and establishment through assessment, combining assessment and establishment together with the emphasis laying on establishment". There are three forms of assessment: the first is the pass level teaching assessment to the universities with comparatively weak basis and short history of undergraduate education; the second is the excellent level assessment to the universities with good basis, high teaching level and a comparatively long history of undergraduate education; and the last one is the random level assessment to the universities between pass level and excellent level. since 1994, 178 HEIs with weak basis and short history of undergraduate education have undertook the pass level assessment step by step and16 key universities have under taken the excellent level assessment. The development of teaching assessment evoked intense repercussions among educational administrative departments and HEIs and played an important role in promoting the improvement of higher education quality. In early 1993, the Department of Higher Education of MoE(former SEdC) and other four departments jointly organized a research group of"Theoretical Research on the Construction of Higher Education with Chinese Socialist Characteristics”, of which the key focused on two issues that what was and how to construct the higher education with Chinese Socialist Characteristics. With 4-year endeavor of education administrates at all levels, a series of significant research outcomes including “Key Points on Higher Education with Chinese Characteristics” have taken shape, which evoked great effects within the whole higher education circle. Consequently, in accordance with both the national development and new achievement of higher education reform as well as the moment of new century, MoE again recruited a research group of “ Higher Education in 21" Century ” to continue the theoretical research on higher education with Chinese Socialist Characteristics.
In early 1993, with other three departments, the Department of Higher Education of former SEdC jointly sponsored and organized research team for the task of “On the research of theory for socialistic higher education with Chinese characteristics". With the Keys on what is the socialistic higher education with Chinese characteristics and how to establish such higher education, the team carried out their theoretical research. Supported by educational administrative departments at various levels, after four years' endeavour, a number of important research achievements like“the Theory keys of Higher Education with ChineseCharacteristics” have been made and aroused great influence in the higher education circle. After this research, in the light of development of our socialistic modernization construction and higher education reform and the historic opportunity of entering a new millenium for our human beings, MoE organized the research team for the task of “Chinese Higher Education in 21st Centruy" to continue the theoretical research on socialistic higher education with Chinese characteristics.
8. The track of managing higher education through laws
On 29 august, 1998, the 4th conference of the 9th standing committee of National Congress passed the“Higher Education Law of People's Republic of China” which is implemented from 1 Jan, 1999. Higher Education Law is the first complete higher education legal document in term of legislature. It is a law which standardizes the internal and external complicated social relationship of higher education and its own activities. It is a basic law promulgated with the direction of the Constitute and Education Law which laying the important foundation for the establishment of a systematic and perfect higher education legal system led by the Higher Education Law.
9. The assurance of further deepened reform through further improvement of schooling conditions
With the deepening of teaching reform, inadequate input in it has been an obstacle, In order to solve the problem, educational administrative departments at various levels and HEIs have actively explored the measures and ways to increase educational expenditure and improve schooling conditions. At present, the World Band Loan Project, which is being carried out, will all together input $70 million to improve the experiment conditions for the basic courses in HEIs. Local governments at various levels have also take a serious of measures to expand the input to local HEIs to enhance the construction of disciplines, bases, curriculum, laboratory and library for HEIs, greatly improving the material conditions of these HEIs.
