Brief study on the emergence and preliminary development of China’s marine higher education in the early and mid-20th century

Abstract

China’s marine higher education originated in the early twentieth century and was led and promoted by a group of educators and marine scientists in the Republic of China. There are three sources of marine higher education, namely, National Shandong University, Xiamen University, and Fudan University, which, over time, have formed three unique paths of marine higher education in China. With the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, from 1949 to 1952, there was a reform in marine higher education, in which the teachers and students of the Oceanography Group of Fudan University and the Department of Oceanography of Xiamen University were merged into Shandong University, and the three sources were then merged into one. Among them, the students of the Oceanography Group of Fudan University were adjusted to Shandong University by policy, which opened the prelude to China’s ‘colleges and departments adjustment’. After the ‘colleges and departments adjustment’, the characteristics of marine discipline at Shandong University became increasingly prominent, which drove the development of China’s marine higher education from less to more vigorous. As a whole, it has formed the unique characteristics and patterns of the emergence and the initial development of marine higher education in China.