A Study Of The College Curricular Reform In The Horizons Of Social Needs

Knowledge economy has made the relationship between colleges and the society much closer, and it has become an overwhelming trend that college curriculum should respond to social needs. The previous researches on the relations between social needs and college curriculum focused more on the influence which the society had had on college curriculum, but less on the perception and response which colleges within themselves made to social needs in the process of curricular reform; more on the effect of markets or governments as a single factor on college curriculum, but less on that of markets, governments and the third sector together as comprehensive factors. Under the background of Chinese higher education reform and development which began from the mid-1990s and taking markets, governments and the third sector as three main bodies of social needs, this research has chosen six colleges as the cases from the north and south of Jiangsu Province, at such levels of colleges as"985 project", "211 project" and general ones, and of different categories such as comprehensive colleges and technology ones, and analyzed the process and mechanism in which the members of colleges perceive, understand and respond to social needs.On the basis of the collected relative text materials of these six colleges, the researcher has interviewed deeply 18 administrative personnel of colleges, administrative and academic personnel of schools, and academic personnel of departments, who have various discipline backgrounds. Through interview and literature research, the research finds that our mighty government plays the leading role in college curricular reforms, which to some degree expels the due influence of markets and the third sector in college curricular reforms; the competition between enrolment markets and colleges has less effect on college curriculum, and although there were some passive reactions, every college has ever tried positive reforms in curriculum in order to cope with employment markets; and the third sector has little effect on college curricular. Generally speaking, though the interaction between college curriculum and social needs has formed in our country, there exist the hardships and obstacles which come from inside and outside of colleges.Depending on Giddens' structuration theory, the research constructs a concept model on the interaction between college curriculum and social needs. The model reveals that in the interaction between college curriculum and social needs, the perception and response of college personnel to social needs, is an active and informed decision-making process in which colleges consider such three factors as their owned resources, employment situation of their graduates, and notions and systems, the relationship among the three factors and negotiations among them. The response of college curriculum to social needs is a selective response of college personnel to such three factors, instead of a mechanical or duplicative response.Based on the analysis of the factors which influence college personnel's perceiving and understanding social needs, it is suggested in this paper that we should reduce our governments' excessive interference with college curriculum in the process of college curricular reform, speed up the construction of a new model of college curriculum which adapt to social needs, and actively motivate teachers into participating in curricular reform, thus keeping the balance between administration and academy and the balance between disciplines and markets, and realizing the positive interaction and win-win of governments, markets and colleges.