The Strategies of Reforming Higher Education in China under Global Competition

Global competition results in an overall demand for higher skills. In the competitive world, China has no choice but to adjust themselves to become more efficient, productive, and flexible. Higher education in China has played a key role in achieving socialist economy and modernization. Since the open-door policy in the 1980s, there has been a shift from elite to mass education, practice of corporate managerialism in education governance, privatization of education, and spread of transnational education in the tertiary sector. The author first attempts to explore the strategies that have been adopted in higher education reform in China. Then there are reviews of the roles of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Initiative in higher education reform in China. Higher education reform has allowed mainland China to identify a small group of universities to be measured alongside the best universities in North America and Europe. However, there are also some backwash effects created from these trends of restructuring of higher education in China. [For the complete Volume 21 proceedings, see ED629259.]