Higher Education Sector In China Research Articles

An Empirical Study on the Impact of Incentive Factors on the Teachers’ Performance among Private Higher Institution in China

This empirical study delves into the intricate relationship between incentive factors and the performance of teachers within the realm of private higher education institutions in China. With the rapid expansion of the private higher education sector in China, understanding the mechanisms that drive teacher performance becomes imperative for sustaining educational quality and institutional competitiveness. Employing a mixed-methods approach, this research integrates quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews to capture a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted dynamics at play. The quantitative phase involves administering structured questionnaires to a representative sample of teachers across various private higher institutions in China, while the qualitative phase entails in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, including administrators and educators. The study evaluates a range of incentive factors, encompassing financial rewards, professional development opportunities, recognition, and job satisfaction, among others. Through statistical analyses and thematic coding, the research aims to identify the most influential incentive factors and their differential impacts on teachers' performance indicators such as teaching effectiveness, research productivity, and overall job satisfaction. Preliminary findings suggest that while financial incentives remain a significant motivator for teachers, non-monetary factors such as opportunities for professional growth and recognition also play a pivotal role in enhancing performance and job satisfaction. Moreover, the study uncovers nuanced variations in the perceived effectiveness of incentive mechanisms across different demographic and institutional contexts. By shedding light on the intricate interplay between incentive factors and teachers' performance, this study provides valuable insights for private higher education institutions in China to formulate evidence-based strategies for optimizing faculty motivation, productivity, and overall institutional effectiveness. The implications of these findings extend beyond the confines of academia, offering policymakers and educational stakeholders actionable recommendations to foster a conducive environment for teaching excellence and innovation in the private higher education sector.

Comment on “What Can Students Gain from China's Higher Education?”

Over the past four decades, China has built up one of the largest higher education systems in the world which is no small achievement. The Chinese higher education system is very diverse and complex, and varies a great deal in terms of ease of access for students, the quality of teaching and research, and the returns to education. Therefore, summarizing its progress or the lack of it is a daunting task. Li et al. (2023) offer fresh findings on the returns to higher education in China and their determinants. Their main conclusions are that the returns to college education in China have stabilized after a significant rise and the relatively high returns are largely explained away by signaling and social networks channels as opposed to the human capital mechanism. However, Li et al. (2023) can be improved by talking to the broader Chinese literature and incorporating the institutional details of the higher education sector in China into its analysis. First of all, as Li et al. (2023) rightly point out in the beginning of their paper that the enrollment in Chinese higher education has experienced a 10-fold expansion since 1999 and the resultant system is very diverse and highly stratified. The elite colleges, 211 project colleges, regular 4-year teaching colleges and 3-year vocational colleges operate in utterly different orbits with the elite colleges catching up quickly with the leading universities in the world on many fronts. The expansion concentrated disproportionally on the lower-tier universities, and therefore drove down the returns to an education in these universities as well as the overall returns to higher education to some extent. Another paper coauthored by the lead author of Li et al. (2023), Prof. Hongbin Li, clearly shows that the college premium for young workers declined while the college premium for senior workers increased over the period 1990–2019 (Li et al., 2022). This trend is also evident in work of Chinese scholars, for example, Ding et al. (2012, 2013). Although I understand the sampling is not necessarily representative at the different tiers and further analysis of the four groups of universities may not be possible, the overall conclusion of Li et al. (2023) needs to be qualified. Second, the Chinese labor market is also quite diverse. Dual labor market theory would not adequately capture its complexity. Public sector jobs couple strong stability and high benefits with relatively low nominal salaries. The private sector mostly relies on salaries but leading firms can attract even graduates of elite colleges. Therefore equation (1) in Li et al. (2023) at least needs to control for the sector the graduates landed in. The same goes for the city/region/industries of choice as these greatly shape the kind of work–life balance college graduates will enjoy. Third, while I appreciate the Li et al.'s (2023) efforts to categorize the determinants into the three mechanisms of human capital, social network, and signaling, it might be difficult to pinpoint their independent effects using existing data. For example, it might be premature to draw the conclusion that human capital accumulation in college does not generate the proper returns for students because human capital proxied by the grade point average (GPA) may affect students' long-term socio-economic status through the possibility of securing a spot for graduate school abroad or in China. Li et al.'s (2023) table 3 shows exactly that students who intend to go to graduate school have much higher GPAs. Even among students who enter the labor market immediately upon graduation, their GPAs are somewhat correlated with other variables in the other two dimensions. In particular, when local party organizations consider who to recruit as their member, GPA is definitely one of the criteria. On the social network front, is parental income social capital or economic capital? Other researchers have looked at this question using whether or not parents work in the public sector, whether or not they are party members or whether or not they hold public offices. Parental education is usually used as a measure of cultural capital. Moreover, is a student's score on a college entrance exam a signal or a measure of the student's cumulative human capital prior to college?

The Pandemic and Higher Education: Learning and Reflection from the Experience of Chinese Higher Education

Twenty months have passed since China’s first lockdown of Wuhan city. The Chinese higher education sector has withstood the challenges of the pandemic. This paper discusses the experience of the higher education sector in China, drawing primarily from the early period of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, we present a narrative of Chinese higher education managing some of the multifaceted challenges, which is pivotal to understanding its policies and practices during the early pandemic. In particular, this paper extends and provides further contexts to Ma et al. (2021) in better understanding their Chinese perspective, giving readers a fuller picture of the governance of Chinese higher education and some of its practical insights. It also provides some important lessons and reflections drawing from localised experiences, which provide important insights into the Chinese higher education policies and practices in response to the national crisis. In addition, we suggest further areas of research relating to the content of this paper, and finish this paper with a future picture of hope after the crisis.

Academic Elites or Economic Elites

At an academic conference, I chatted with the Dean of Admissions from a prestigious public university in the mid-West and was struck by a story he told me: A Chinese doctoral student walked into his office one day and blasted him for admitting so many undergraduates from China, saying that this devalued his own credentials, as the qualities of those Chinese undergraduates, in his opinion, were no comparison to his. 
 The dean narrated this story half-jokingly, apparently feeling it was funny. However, he might not fully understand the roots of this student’s complaint. In a test-oriented Chinese education system, students are ranked by test scores, and by test scores only. In this student’s eyes, he had been able to score high on the competitive Gaokao, and then was selected by an equally, if not more, competitive screening to study at this famous U.S. university (Liu 2016). In his view, he had abilities superior to those who were not able to score high on the Gaokao but, instead, paid to study at the same university he had tried so hard to get into. This student’s statements may sound crude and cruel, but they are based on the perspective from his small world. 
 However, the larger world is changing and getting flatter (Friedman 2005). In part, that means an increasing number of Chinese students have access to world-class universities. Despite the massive growth of higher education sector in China, only two Chinese universities are ranked among the top 100 best universities in the world, while 41 out of these top 100 are located in the United States (Times higher education 2018). With the increasing proportion of upper middle-class families in today’s China, more and more Chinese students do not have to rely on American scholarships to study at American institutions. The recent history of Chinese students’ dependency on full American scholarships to study abroad was merely a reflection of the economic deprivation and limited education opportunities of the country at that time. This gave rise to the mindset of academic elitism exhibited by this doctoral student, which sees prestigious universities as belonging to the few students who can outscore the masses. Perhaps, instead, he should feel happy for the younger generation of Chinese students who have the freedom to choose. 
 This change, of Chinese international students’ academic and social backgrounds and their ensuing experiences abroad, has motivated my research over the past 7 years. My book (Ma 2020) Ambitious and Anxious has shown a diverse set of Chinese students in terms of both family backgrounds and education trajectories. Their capacity to pay for the overseas education has often obscured their socioeconomic diversity, the parental sacrifices and their own academic and social challenges and struggles. 
 In other words, this freedom to choose and access a wider set of education options overseas is backed by economic resources that are vastly unequally distributed among Chinese students and their families. Perhaps this doctoral student is frustrated partly because American universities often admit Chinese undergraduates who have the resources to study here. 
 This touches upon a thorny identity issue that American universities, particularly selective ones, have to grapple with. How can they avoid being considered bastions of privilege and wealth? Over the past few decades, American universities have made efforts to recruit students from humble backgrounds. However, these efforts have been almost exclusively limited to domestic students. For many institutions, the tuition dollars of international students are a key revenue source for funding financial aid for domestic students. This logic may help balance the books, but it runs the risk of challenging institutions’ meritocratic ideals. The increasing concentration of economic elites from foreign countries may not enter into the diversity metrics of campus administrators, but surely it tacitly reinforces the culture of privilege and wealth that our universities strive to break out of.

Service Quality Dimensions, Students’ Satisfaction and the Link Between Them: A Study of Student Information System at Jiangsu Province’ Universities China

The Chinese educational system's reputation is remarkable in the region. Graduates from universities in China have played a great role in the development of their countries. The increasing number of students is the most significant challenge facing the higher education sector in China. This study sought to examine the impact of students information system’s service quality on students satisfaction among universities in Jiangsu Province in China. Data for the study was obtained from 400 international students sampled across the region of Jiangsu province in China. Findings from this study shows that a rise of 0.485 in empathy will result in increased satisfaction of students in universities. Likewise, an while 0.174 tangibles increase will result in an increase directly in satisfaction of student in universities. Moreover, the satisfaction of students in universities in China will be influenced by Reliability when a 0.165 reliability increase will result in increased directly to satisfaction of student within universities. Keywords: Chinese education , service quality dimentions , student satisfaction . DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-9-04 Publication date: March 31 st 2020

China’s Plans: A View from the Outside after a Previous Period on the “Inside”

The author, a British academic who was President of the University of Hong Kong between 2014 and 2018, discusses the Belt and Road initiative and the Greater Bay Area plan, particularly focusing on the possible implications for the higher education sector in China and beyond.

Resources allocation in Chinese universities: hierarchy, academic excellence, or both?

Scholars are aware that the higher education sector in China is highly affected by its administrative system, but the questions of how and to what extent the Chinese administrative system impacts academic resources allocation have yet to be answered. By examining the empirical data from 2003 to 2010 of China’s National Excellent Doctoral Dissertations Award, this article finds that the hierarchical position of doctoral advisors who hold a university or college post will have an important influence on academic resources allocation, although these advisors are professors with high academic ability. This article also finds an interaction effect between advisors’ hierarchical position and students’ academic abilities in influencing the decisions on the award. Overall, the Chinese case digs rather deep into the increasing hierarchisation of academic life and science.

Growth and conflict: the views of Chinese private higher education managers

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a series of interviews conducted with a number of managers of Chinese private higher education institutions on the growth of the private higher education sector in China and the relationship it has with the government. Private higher education managers in China do seem concerned with the regulatory impediments to their institutions’ development and the difficulties involved in competing with state-funded institutions. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses a series of interviews conducted with a number of managers of Chinese private higher education institutions on the growth of the private higher education sector in China and the relationship it has with the government. Findings The research found that private higher education managers in China do seem concerned with the regulatory impediments to their institutions’ development and the difficulties involved in competing with state-funded institutions. Originality/value This work is the only one of its kind in the academic literature.

Exploring the potential rationale for the privatization of higher education in China

The last three decades have witnessed great social, political and economic change in China since the market reforms in the late 1970s. A market economy was adopted as a replacement to the planned economy in order to allocate resources more efficiently. Consequently, higher education in China has undergone dramatic reforms to adapt to this socio-economic transition. This paper adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining fieldwork data with documentary analysis, to investigate the rationales of privatization in Chinese universities. It starts by examining the conceptualization of privatization. This is followed by an introduction of the public/private mix in the higher education sector in China. It then turns to explore drivers of the higher education reforms. A key contribution of this paper therefore is a systematic examination of the causes and the aims of privatization identified in Western literature set in the context of radical change as seen in the Chinese context. Drawing to fieldwork data, this paper presents findings that stand in conflict with prior studies. This investigation of the implementation of the Chinese privatization reveals both common features shared with Western practice but also a special uniqueness. It concludes by arguing that the neo-liberal reforms in higher education in China is likely to be used as a contingency strategy to encourage private spending, rather than suggesting a paradigm shift in university governance.

Massification, bureaucratization and questing for “world‐class” status

PurposeThis article aims to review the latest developments of the higher education sector in China since the mid‐1990s by focusing on the expansion of university education.Design/methodology/approachIt is argued that while massification of higher education is an important indication of the progress in China's higher education system, the quest for world‐class universities indicates China's ambition to earn international reputation in higher education sector compatible with its increasing economic power.FindingsThe driving force of these two developments is from the state, which demonstrates the dominant role of the Chinese government in higher education policy and administration. However, the ambitious state constitutes both a driving force and a constraint for China's higher education. The strengthening administrative control accompanied by the financial benefits from the government has led to bureaucratization of China's universities. China's world‐class pursuit necessitates a fundamental change of the existing pattern of relationship between the state and university and university governance model.Practical ImplicationsThe strategic plan to build up world‐class universities shows that China is not satisfied with the quantitative growth of its higher education, but is seeking to achieve a breakthrough in quality higher education.Originality/valueThe paper explains how China's desire to achieve world class status within the area of higher education is being achieved.

ERIC Review U.S. Community Colleges and China's Counterpart Institutions

After providing an overview of the higher education sector in China, the authors discuss its challenges with a particular emphasis on the role played by junior colleges and vocational institutions that award two- or three-year degrees. Their recommendations for restructuring higher education in China consider policies and practice in U.S. community colleges and include devising specific policies for developing junior colleges and adult higher education, establishing guidelines for institutional management, and giving institutions greater decision-making power.

The Role of the Higher Education Sector in China's Research and Development System

Since 1978 science and technology (S&T) have been officially seen as the motors of future growth and modernization of the Chinese economy. Much effort has been devoted to the formulation and implementation of policy to reform the S&T sector to ensure that it will contribute much more than it has in the past to social and economic development. One objective of the reforms has been to mobilize under-utilized resources to expand research and develop ment (R&D) activities. It is in this context that policy-makers in China started to focus their attention on the higher education sector (HES). The sector's potential role as an important R&D performer has been progressively articulated over time in breadth and depth as policy-makers’ concerns have expanded, to examine the relationship between training S&T personnel and scientific research in the context of the rapid changes wrought by the “new technological revolution” (xin jishu geming).