The Development and Trends: Adult Higher Education in China

Transcription

1 The Development and Trends: Adult Higher Education in China Liu Jianfeng, PhD. Vice President National Institute of Education Sciences, China July,12,2015 1

2 Brief information about NIES The National Institute of Education Sciences (NIES) is a research arm of the Ministry of Education and the only national-level comprehensive education research institution in China. NIES has strived to contribute to the education development in China by advising policymaking process, advancing theoretical innovation and guiding local practices. Now the institute employs 253 staff, including 217 researchers and research associates, engaged in studies on each fields of education with 12 centers. 2015/7/22 2

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4 Overview of AHE in China 2015/7/22 4

5 Community colleges have a lot of functions in the US and some other countries, and play a very important role in the development of education and the community. Community colleges in China differ a lot. In Chinese higher education system, the roles what the American community colleges play are played by various types of HEIs. Among those the adult higher education institutions have gained great success. 2015/7/22 5

6 No. of HEI in China From MOE webpage,up to the end of 2013 TYPES OF HEI No. 1. General HEIs 2491 a. Of which: offering degree programs 1170 included: Postgraduate programs 548 b. Of which: Independent institutions 292 c. Higher Vocational colleges AHEIs Other none public 802 Total /7/22 6

7 Number of Students of Formal Higher Education from MOE webpage, up to the end of 2013,million Types and levels No. Postgraduate 1.79 Undergraduate Undergraduate in AHIs 6.24 On-line undergraduate 6.14 Total /7/22 7

8 AHE System Adult Education Non-degee Education Degree Education Community College Training AHEIS Self-taught examination of HE Online HE Adult Higher Education

9 Community colleges The first community college was established in Shanghai in Functions: None degree education. Training. Vocational and skills training for on-job persons, and for retired persons and housewives of the local community. Educational and cultural activities, sports. Features: Local, economical, flexible, informal. Based on on-line, TV, broadcasting. 2015/7/22 9

10 Definition of Adult Higher Education In China, AHE is a type of education that parallels with general higher education Enrollment: on-the-job personnel Admission: Candidates need to pass the national adult college entrance examination (ACEE) Self-taught exams students do not need to take ACEE Levels: Three types : from High School to Junior College, from Junior College to undergraduate, from High School to undergraduate Credentials: Junior College Diploma, Undergraduate Certificate and Bachelor s Degree

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12 Adult Higher Education System Adult Higher Education Institutions Self-taught exams Online HE Ratio of graduates receiving higher education between

13 Size of Adult Higher Education Enrollment of Adult Higher Education in 2012 In 2012, million candidates participated in the entrance exam for Adult Higher Education institutions.

14 Types of AHE Institutions AHE institutions run by regular colleges and universities In early 1950s, China began to establish correspondencebased night universities. After the reform and opening up, compensational degree education became one of the main tasks of AHE. General colleges and universities reopened, in which AHE was organized through correspondence-based night universities. In 1986, AHE started to unify its enrollment, test design, test time, scoring criteria at the national level in order to ensure its quality. In 1993, a unified national system of adult education certificate verification came into practice.

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17 Types of AHE institutions (Cont d) Independent adult colleges and universities Adult higher education institutions with independent legal person qualification, including those for staff, farmers, administrators, education, and Radio & TV University (now Open University) and independent correspondence colleges. Different missions, such as learning part-time for improving education level of workers and farmers, for compensation after college entrance examination re-started, etc. in the mid-1990s, AHE institutions of this kind reached 1100, with average annual enrollment of 300,000. Restructured in 21 st century, with part of them turning to general colleges, another part merger with other colleges. The number of independent adult colleges dropped sharply, now accounting for 5.4% of the total size of adult higher education.

18 Majors in AHE Institutions A total of 488 majors in departments, covering 11 disciplines involving philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, history, science, engineering, agriculture, medicine and management science. The majors of engineering amount to 10568, falling into 162 categories, standing on top of the list. The number of enrollment in AHE by type of degree in 2012: junior diploma vs. bachelor degree.

19 Self-Taught Examination for Higher Education In 1988, the State Council issued <Interim Regulation on Self-taught higher education examination>, which mandates that self-taught learners could attain higher education degrees through national self-taught examination. To encourage young people to develop their potentials and skills towards talents, the Ministry of Education established a system of self-taught examination for higher education and issued <Implementation Regulation on Self-Taught Examination for Higher Education>. From 1984~2013 年, million people attained higher education degrees by such examination, including 6.98 million with junior college diploma and 5.27 with bachelor degree.

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21 Online Adult Higher Education In 1999,the Ministry of Education launched a pilot initiative on modern distance education to allow universities to offer online programmes, online education was inaugurated in China. by 2015, there are 68 online adult higher education institutions across the country, offering four types of programmes: degree-oriented education including junior college diploma, higher vocational and technical education qualifications, bachelor degree, post-graduate degree, etc; Entering into the 21 st century, online education has became a new type of education of rather rapid pace and large dissemination scope. Together with classroom-based education, broadcasting education, TV education, it constitutes a diversified education system. From , it has trained million tertiary graduates, including 6.27 million with junior college diploma and 4.2 million with bachelor degree.

22 Challenges 2015/7/22 22

23 Aggravated Contention for Recruiting Students The great expansion of general higher education, rapid growth of private higher educational institutions as well as the falling threshold for entering higher vocational schools have put great pressures on AHEIs in recruitment of students.

24 Population taking part in the exam (million) /7/22 24

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26 Vague Orientation in School Running that reflect on following aspects: Pay attention to expansion of school scale, but ignore quality improvement; Pay attention to economic benefits, but ignore social benefits; Pay attention to knowledge learning, but ignore development of student ability; Pay attention to obtaining certificate and degree, but ignore nurture of student character.

27 Quality Crisis For getting competitive advantage in recruitment of students, some AHEls have lowered the threshold of admission at a cost of lowering educational quality, and that have damaged the reputation of Adult Higher Education. Most of AHEIs in China have not established a mechanism that can actively adapt to market economy and social development, and their offering is unable to meet the diversified demands of the society.

28 Lack of unique feature AHEIs are unable to offer diversified services, and ignore the diversified learning demands from adults. There is a trend in AHEIs in terms of curriculum contents and teaching methods towards to general higher education. There is a homogenization tendency in terms of development orientation, degree level, course offering, teaching methods and service target among AHEIs.

29 Lack of Application of ICT The development of ICT has largely impacted traditional education forms which could not meet the demand of society. AHEls mainly use face-face lecture and correspondence. The inadequacy in applying ICT turned to be hindrance against upgrading teaching management and teaching quality and thus undermines its competition and attractiveness.

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31 Urgent need to strengthen teachers The teachers for adult higher education have to change their role towards guide, facilitator, promoter, evaluator and for those purpose, develop their ability on ICTbased teaching.

32 Strategies for transformation 2015/7/22 32

33 To implement reform and innovation, offer needs-oriented services Reform: There is a need to implement reform in traditional school management and assessment towards more open, service-based, ability-orientated school management and assessment. Improvement: To improve the capacity of AHEIs in analysis of the demand of economic and social development; upgrade the quality of talent cultivation; restructure the courses and subjects on the needs-oriented basis; establish a resource-sharing mechanism that open to and serve all students.

34 To implement reform and innovation, offer needs-oriented services (Cont d) To promote reform of AHEIs entrance examination, lower the entering threshold and rise the graduation threshold; pilot a system that AHEIs themselves decide student admission and enrolment, so as to offer more choices for in-service students to access to higher education. Establish a system that can convert and ratify the credits among AHEIs, promote student interflow among AHEIs; pilot credit conversion between vocational qualification certificate and degree education to broaden the path of life-long learning.

35 To integrate AHEIs To make an overall arrangement and integrated use of educational resources among AHEIs; To equip AHEIs with modern ICT and internet technology; To shift the traditional teaching towards student-centered learning under the help of internet, long-distance education facilities.

36 To achieve the coexistence of degree education and non-degree education To form a mutually-promoted interactive surroundings of degree education and non-degree education through adjustment of education structure and distribution; to develop education resources that is suitable for adult learning, also take into account the use for both degree education and non-degree education, to achieve the sharing of education resources and teacher resources among degree education and non-degree education.

37 To regulate institutional governance and improving education quality to lead and reform adult higher education by policymaking at national level. to reinforce monitoring of quality of adult higher education institutions including offcampus correspondence tutoring station, learning center and cooperative learning. to improve efficiency and efficacy of management of adult higher education institutions.

38 Overall Trends 2015/7/22 38

39 Trend 1:to develop credit transfer and mutual recognition system to explore credit transfer and recognition within degree-oriented continuing education system as well as among various forms of degree-oriented continuing education such as open university, TV university, correspondence-based education, evening university, online institute, self-taught examination, etc. to pilot on credit mutual recognition and transfer among academic HEIs, vocational education institutions, and adult education institutions.

40 Trend 2:Formulate and issue qualification standards Formulate and issue qualification standards, which specify the number and structure of credit, as well as related protocol for application, evaluation and assessment open to the public. The learners, through flexible learning, could obtain degree and/or qualification by accumulating credit and accreditation on the basis of credit transfer and recognition.

41 Trend 3: To establish national credit bank Based on learning portfolio (one portfolio for one person), a national credit bank is to be established by integrating credit recognition and transfer of various provinces and municipalities and through cross-area accreditation, accumulation and transfer, with monitoring by government and public.

42 Trend 4:To accelerate building the lifelong education legal system To accelerate develop laws and regulation on continuing education regulation, opening public universities>, lifelong education institutions and staff, accreditation of learning outcomes of nondegree education, accumulation, mutual recognition and transfer of learning outcomes, towards a range of qualify standards and coordination mechanisms to realize effective integration of degree-education and non-degree education towards the goal of a learning society.

43 Visions of cooperation 2015/7/22 43

44 Chinese government policies: opening to the outside world To enlarge the scale of exchange and cooperation in various means; To enhance the students mobility both inbound and outbound; in 2014,460,000 outbound, by 2020, more than 500,000. inbound, 377,000. To encourage the establishment of Chinese foreign cooperation running schools /7/22 44 universities by 2015.

45 Proposed Strategies and Approaches 1. To develop vocational and technical education curriculum suitable for adults as well as practical, flexible and diversified curriculum. 2. To create open, scientific and efficient governance structure and system. 3. To develop job-based and competency standard-oriented professional qualification certificate block. 4. To reform adult higher education admission by drawing up American admission policies which combine open enrollment and selected enrollment,. 5. To reinforce exchange and cooperation of teachers between community colleges in two countries 6. To encourage adult higher education institutions for joint venture schools with American community colleges.

46 NIES pays much attention to internationalization of the education development in China. Mission: inbound and outbound, a bridge of the educational institutions between foreign countries and China. 2015/7/22 46

47 Thank you! LIU JIANFENG, NIES Address: No.46, Beisanhuanzhonglu, Haidian District, Beijing, China, Tel: