Study On The Occurrence Mechanism Of The Weak Institution Of Higher Learning

The great development of higher education beginning on the last centuryfundamentally changed the structure and characteristics of higher education system inour country. It has become the largest higher education system in the world, at the sametime, the internal differentiation is increasing. According to Burton Clark’s scaleformation types of higher education system, the structure of our higher educationsystem forms the different status based on the reputation, which is controlled by thestate administrative power.In the recent years, the number of our institutions of higher learning is superfluous,and the size of current students can only maintain2,000institutions, which decides anumber of institutions trap in the survival and developmental difficulties, being theweak ones. The appearance of these institutions is not only individual phenomenon, butalso has formed a group, expanding the coverage and the weak degree. The weakinstitution of higher learning generally takes on typical features: difficult to completethe planned enrollment, lack of funds, low employment rate and poor employmentquality of graduates, weak teachers, backward management and difficult to assure theteaching quality. The weak institutions of higher learning will effect the stability ofhigher education system.The development state of higher education depends on the capacity of theinstitutional environment designed by the social structure. In the condition of this socialstructure in China, our country has formed a highly centralized and unified managementsystem of higher education and administrative control mechanism of resource allocation.The institutional environment holds the allocation right of economic, social andsymbolic capital, and puts the weak institution of higher learning in the margin of thesecapitals, which makes the origins of the weak institutions inevitable. From the twoaspects of average education expenditure and average education expenditure in budget,the institutional environment shows different in economic capital allocation in different areas and institutions. In the background of national administrative power being weak,the elite institution of higher learning is in the center of the “circle”, while the weakinstitution of higher learning is eager to enter the circle, forming a kind ofcenter_margin structure. Moreover, institutions with labels and without are constructedsome separate groups, breeding the symbolic capital. Due to lack of it, the institutionswithout labels come together more and more closely, and become a group with somesimilarity. The role of institutional environment plays on the weak institutions isforcible one. The enforcement mechanism dose not effect directly, but through capitalallocation, so it is weak sense. Under the incentive mechanism, many weakinstitutions of higher learning fall into legitimacy trap.Another important factor for the weak institutions is the elite institutions of higherlearning. Key university, discipline and laboratory system ensure the legality andlegitimacy of the elite institutions have a variety of capital, making them the constructorof game rules. Constructors and being constructed characterize capital distribution. Inthe higher education field, rules become the resources for the elite ones regulatingothers. The two functions of rules are making a decision to act and constructing of theliving environment. Because of the weak institutions of higher learning having thepotential of imitation, when they face the uncertainty of how to train students, they willchose to imitate the ways of the elite ones. Finally, imitation mechanism becomes thepractice way in the weak institutions of logic rules constructed by the elite ones.The last but not least factor is the weak institution of higher learning itself. Theirrational organizational behaviors of the weak institutions of higer learning are thebehaviors of opportunism of information asymmetry, disorder development for toomuch uncertainty, separation with regional interest because of role chaos, and lack ofsense of place. These behaviors induce function dissimilation, and bring unorganizedforces. The increase of these forces makes the normal institution come to the aging,becoming the weak one. In practice, there are two types of the microstructure evolutionof the weak institution of higher learning: super stability and extinction type. Y institution and W institution maybe belong to the former, and H institution maybebelong to the latter. For any institution of higher learning, as long as it cann’t become anew one, function dissimilation must lead to the increase of unorganized forces. Due tolack of the negative feedback mechanism which can clear the unorganized forcesperiodically, it is inevitable that the weak institution of higher learning comes to theaging.For a function, there is always a corresponding organization structure; on thecontrary, for a structure, there are many corresponding functions, namely the versatilityof the same structure, of which can determine the existence of organization is sustainingstructure. From the perspective of system philosophy, the institution of higher learningbecoming the weak one is because of the unorganized forces produced by functiondissimilation that destroyed the sustaining structure. The sustaining structure of theinstitution of higher learning is constituted by three subsystems, namely, resourcesubsystem, organization subsystem and the spirit subsystem. When the sustainingstructure collapses and the institution becomes weak, it is very difficult to turn back, inother words, not reversible.