Study On Reforms Of Oxford’s Internal Governance Structure In Early21st Century

There are some problems in the inner governance structure of universities in China, which are extremely unfavorable to scientific development and construction of world-class universities. These problems include the unclear distribution of power and responsibility, administrative power overtopping academic power and other ones that go against the idea of "Academic Autonomy and Freedom". The Ministry of Education has promulgated "Rules of Academic Committee in Colleges and Universities" at the beginning of the year to establish and better the academic governance institutions, and to raise the academic power in colleges and universities. The state has reaffirmed that colleges and universities must insist and better the President Responsibility System under the Leadership of the Party Committee. Chinese universities have successively drawn up University Statutes to specify their leading system and operating mechanism.Recent years, University of Oxford has taken twice reforms to rebuild and better its inner governance structure. It aims at distributing administrative and academic power appropriately, strengthening its characteristics and academic competitiveness, and to raise its status in the world first-class university. Nowadays, Chinese universities have burdened heave reform tasks. They can learn the successful experience from Oxford to perfect their inner governance structures.This paper studies the two reforms of inner governance structure of Oxford at the beginning of21st century via the method of literature, comparative research and case study. It analyses the successful experience of the two reforms and their importance to develop Oxford competitively. Afterwards, the paper provides some feasible suggestions for Chinese universities based on their problems of inner governance structures. The paper is mainly divided into five parts. The first part introduction clarifies the research question and core concepts of this paper. The second and third parts discuss the2000and2004-2006reforms of inner governance structure of Oxford separately from background and main measures, and analyze them in-depth. The two parts mainly discuss how to reform and operate the inner governance structure of university-class, how to balance the administrative and academic power. The forth part comprises the two reforms of inner governance structure of Oxford, and summarizes their relationship, similarities and differences and reform importance. The fifth part puts forward the enlightenment on Chinese universities from analyzing the two reforms of inner governance structure of Oxford. It uses the comparative research to learn from Oxford and provides some suggestions for Chinese universities considering the system of President Responsibility System under the Leadership of the Party Committee.