On The Distribution Structure And Its Logics Of Higher Education In China

In the modern society based on education and knowledge, higher education has been closely linked to the fate of the country and the people. Higher education should be adapted to the development of the country and society, meet the people's demands for education. The scientificity of the distribution structure of higher education (DSHE) is directly related to the efficiency of resources, affect the development of higher education and its functions, thus affecting the development of the country and society, impacting the degree of people's needs to higher education.As a macrostructure of higher education, DSHE refers to the distribution of higher education recourses in different places. According to the theory of structural functionalism, DSHE is a symbol of the relationship between higher education and the environment. Usually, a special period of history will directly affect DSHE by social structure. When the environment looks forward to new functions of higher education, the changes of its functions will promote the adjustment of DSHE. The functions of higher education have the tendency of integration and of competition that affects DSHE directly. The factors influencing DSHE include politics, economy, science and technology, population, geographical features of a country and the logics of higher education. There are two kinds of the adjustment of DSHE: the strategic one and the adaptive one. Different counties will employ different kinds of adjustment in different period.From Westernization Colleges in the late Qing Dynasty to the early 21st century, our higher education had gone through over a hundred of years of elite higher education. Westernization Colleges embarked from the coast in the late Qing Dynasty, creating a new situation for modern higher education. The conception about establishing colleges and universities zonally in Republic of China had initiated a basic pattern for higher education. During the Anti-Japanese war, the reconstruction and rehabilitation of colleges and universities made the backward state of higher education in a vastly different situation in northwest and southwest districts. The Colleges-Departments Adjustment during 1950's was the most extensive and far-reaching events in the early days of P.R.C., and DSHE formed in that time is still playing an important role nowadays. After the "Great Leap Forward", China readjusted higher education, and the chaos of the expansion of higher education ended. Then, "Three-Fronts Construction" strengthened the establishment of colleges and universities in the hinterland, small and medium-sized cities, and improved DSHE. During the Cultural Revolution, the tenet of "to remove means revolution, to scatter is a route" was advocated, colleges and universities were relocated to the rural areas and a series of movement made DSHE fall into the most chaotic and absurd state in the history. Higher education entered a new period after Cultural Revolution, with the deepening of market-oriented economic reforms, affected by non-balanced strategy of regional economic development, the higher education had formed a non-equilibrium situation of strength in the east and weakness in the west. In the phase of elite higher education, the adjustment of DSHE was strategic in the period of significant transition in society, and its focus was to replace the old distribution structure, which no longer met the needs of social development, with a new one. In short, it was a typically national mode, and the result of national will and governmental actions, and characteristic of nationalism and utilitarianism. Before the reform and opening up, higher education was a tool to achieve the national goals directly, and its distribution structure didn't take the level and needs of regional economic development into consideration. After the reform and opening up, with economic system transformed from planned economy to market economy and from the economy of industry sector to regional economy as well as the system of higher education reformed in depth, the impact of regional economic development on the development of higher education strengthened gradually.At the turn of the century, great changes have happened in higher education, which highlight the rapid expansion of its scale and its massification. Based on the amount of universities and colleges and on the enrolled students of every ten thousand population, in the perspective of absolute and relative difference and the aspect of scale, level and new forms of higher education, we analyzed the changes and characteristics of DSHE in the early period of higher education massification. Empirical research shows that, from the horizontal point of view, DSHE has been improved, but the urgency of strengthening higher education in the central and western regions and undeveloped areas is becoming increasingly prominent; that the developmental level of higher education in some provincial areas fails to adapt and satisfy the needs of the rapid development of its economy, and the structure of universities and colleges in different regions becomes more similar, which shows that the development of higher education is not coordinated with regional economic development. Empirical research also shows that, from the vertical point of view, with the rapid development of higher education massification, the localization of higher education has achieved a breakthrough. Higher education in the non-provincial capital cities has become the vital part of higher education, which has increasing quantity and progressively upgraded level. A new group of sub-centers of local higher education has grown up, and the rapid development of higher education in the non-provincial capital cities has changed the situation that colleges and universities are densely set up in the capital cities and municipalities. The rapid development of higher education in the non-provincial cities not only means the adjustment of DSHE but also the down-shift and creation of the functions of higher education. In the early period of higher education massification, the adjustment of DSHE is adaptive one, whose focus is to adapt to the continuous growth of higher education's scale by self-adjustment. Compared with the phase of elite higher education, the changes and characteristics of DSHE in this period are greatly affected by the level of regional economic development. However, the level of regional economic development is not the only factor that affects the development of higher education in this period. The original features of DSHE, the policies of central government, the system innovation of local governments and the laggard reforms in the management system of higher education also have an effect on it.In the future 20 years, our country's development of higher education is faced with such environment and tasks which include rapid advance of knowledge-based economy and economic globalization, building a well-off and harmonious society in an all-round way, propelling the higher education massification and so on. This not only brings about requirements but also opportunities for the adjustment of DSHE. In the late period of higher education massification, the adjustment of DSHE should be based on the pursuit of balanced development and regional coordination with economic and social development. Besides, it must cope with four kinds of relationship: the means of non-balanced development and the aim of the balanced development, overall optimization and self-systematism, adjusting DSHE by establishing new colleges and universities and by restructuring present colleges and universities, centralized distribution structure and scattered one. Therefore, we must reshape the relationship between market mechanism and the regulation by government, and optimize the model of higher education massification; reconstruct the system of powers in public education, and distinguish scientifically between responsibility and authority of governments at all levels; strengthen system construction, and consolidate the benefits of adjustment of DSHE; implement the positive discrimination policy, and strengthen the supporting level for the undeveloped regions; continue to promote the localization of higher education, and vigorously develop higher education in the non-provincial capital cities.