The Global Quest to Building World-Class University in China

Abstract

In the trends of internationalization and globalization of higher education worldwide, building world-class universities and institutions has gradually been adopted in many countries in recent years. In accordance with the global trend of advocating world-class universities, Chinese government gradually focuses on enhancing global competitiveness of higher education by implementing a series of educational policies in recent years. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide an overview of Chinese educational policies for building world-class universities (WCUs) and reconcile with a global competitiveness framework. In addition, from a global competitiveness perspective, this research also provides an additional lens to bear on how China strived in developing its world-class universities and what are the specific characteristics of China’s endeavors to shape Chinese key universities for recent decades. Specifically, in a competitiveness-based framework, the factor-driven, efficiency-driven, and innovation-driven higher education all contribute to conceptualizing world-class universities in China. Moreover, this study also suggested that building innovation-driven higher education is essential to build word-class universities in a global context. Meanwhile, in order to develop innovation-driven higher education in contemporary Chinese higher education system, education policy implication suggested that changing current landscape of teaching and learning in Chinese higher education is fundamental to advocate innovation-driven higher education system in contemporary China. Meanwhile, funding support, curriculum and pedagogic implications, and labor market linkages also should be fully considered in response to cultivating innovation-driven Chinese higher education systems. Additionally, for policymakers, accounting for various advantages of advocating international student mobility, Chinese government should offer sufficient support for inward and outward mobility of students in an international higher education regime.