Comparative Study On Higher Education Development Of Miniature Society

Macau is a tiny area, with developed economy, open society and higher degree of internationalization. After Macau reverts to Chinese sovereignty, the SAR government attaches great importance to the role of higher education in social development. In the context of booming of tourism and gaming, the Macau SAR Government has adequate financial resources to support the requirements of higher institutions. Currently, there are10higher institutions in Macau, which includs four public and six private institutions. However, the overall level of higher education in Macau is not high; none of these institutions is a world-renowned one. Why Macau lack a world-renowned institution? How should Macau plan the way forward for its higher education?Macau is a typical small territory. There are many small states and territories similar to Macau across the world. Small states and territories are not the "mini-version" of the giant or large countries, they have their own uniqueness. Small states and territories should combine with the uniqueness to seek a different kind of way to develop their higher education. For this reason, Macau should be placed under the Small states and territories sight in order to explore the development of higher education in Macau. The higher education system in any states or territories is difficult to achieve perfect; its development of higher education need to learn from other states or territories’excellent experience. Comparison the higher education system with other states or territories means review one’s own higher education system, it also means looking for good practices which can be learned from the "similar groups". Thus, this study selected Hong Kong and Malta as two cases to compare with Macau in four dimensions, such as system structure, the growth of scale and quality assurance, internationalization, social adaptability. On this basis, the study explored the development strategy of Macau higher education.Macau, Hong Kong, Malta are three miniature society, they have typical characteristics which are different from giant or large society. First of all, they all have a colonial history. Secondly, miniature society has limited economic scale; it is difficult to achieve economies of scale. Thirdly, miniature society has a highly open society, with diverse culture. These characteristics of miniature society shaped its "miniature higher Education".The development of higher education in Macau can be traced back to the establishment of the European-style St. Paul’s College. However, after the shut down of the St. Paul College, Macau Higher Education entered into a "long period" of "blank stage". The establishment of the private University of East Asia in1981can be described as the onset of modern higher education in Macau. In response to the demand for talent in the transition period, the Macanese government purchased the private University of East Asia and transformed it into a public university. Since then Macau has an indigenous higher institution; it subsequently split into three higher institutions. With the growth of social demand for higher education in Macau, Macau higher education achieved rapid development after the return of sovereignty of Macau to China.In terms of higher education system, public and private higher institutions coexisted in Macau, but lack of overall co-ordination and planning. Hong Kong’s higher education system showed the characteristics of the "orderly difference". University Grants Commission of Hong Kong optimized the structure of the higher education system under the concept of "To make a difference". Malta has a "dual track" system of higher education. Its structure is distinct; also the system is easy to co-ordinate and supervises.In terms of scale growth of higher education and quality assurance, Macau and Hong Kong higher education have arriving at the stage of popularization, which was put forward by Martin Trow. The scale growth of Malta higher education is relatively slow; it is still in the stage of massification. Macau higher education achieved rapid growth in a few years. However, it isn’t a balanced development of higher education between quantity and quality. The quality assurance system remains to be perfect. As Hong Kong transplanted British tradition of higher education, it focuses on quality assurance at the beginning of the scale growth. Thus Hong Kong has a comprehensive internal and external quality assurance system. Malta introduced the Higher Education Quality Assurance System motivated by the Bologna process. In terms of internationalization of higher education, Macau has the inherent advantages to achieve internationalization of higher education, but blocked by postnatal elements. The standards of internationalization of higher education remain to be improved. The transplantation of the British model of higher education laid the foundation to achieve a higher level of internationalization of higher education in Hong Kong. In addition, the industrial strategy of higher education and the target of "building a regional center for higher education" strongly promote the internationalization of higher education. Under the influence of the overall goals of the "European Higher Education Area", Malta put strong focus on the European dimension of higher education. Malta’s development strategy of internationalizing higher education is to motivate internationalization through regionalization.In terms of social adaptability of higher education, Macau, Hong Kong and Malta showed a higher degree of social adaptability. This related closely to the fact that the sustainable development of small states and territories need more support from higher education. However, compared the three, Hong Kong and Malta’s social adaptability mechanism of higher education is more complete, their external guide mechanism and internal response mechanisms interact effectively. The external guide body of Macau higher education to adapt to society need is relatively single, relevant body didn’t play their roles.Finally, this study summarized the three models of higher education development in Macau, Hong Kong and Malta. And then the common dilemma and solution of higher education development in miniature society were analyzed in the dissertation. Based on this basis, I proposed six strategic proposals for the future development of higher education in Macau.