A Rational Choice: Study On The Operation Of Independent College System

As a distinctive mode of running schools, Independent Colleges emerged at a special stage in a particular country. With the enrollment expansion of higher education in 1999, "state-run private secondary colleges" appeared in a large scale in the history of China's higher education. These colleges are considered to be in a "gray area" because they are "neither public schools nor private schools", yet they fit into the category of both public and private schools. It can be said that controversy on the identity of these colleges has never stopped since the first day. Different researchers have reviewed this "educational spectacle" from different perspectives. With such approaches as policy analysis, case studies, literature and interview, this dissertation attempts to present a "panoramic view" of the generation,execution, evaluation and change of independent college system from the theoretical perspective of rational choice of institutionalism so as to explore the intrinsic logic of this phenomenon.Confined to the realistic national situation of "undeveloped country running large-scale education", ordinary public higher education, the main force of innovation, when driven by interests, created a new school system-the state-run secondary colleges to make up for the lack of school funding. When implementing the enrollment policy in 1999, local government was trapped in a difficult situation, facing policy directive from higher authority and pressure from the ordinary people, as well as limited government resources. In order to enhance the legitimacy of government domination, the local government rendered "policy support" to state-owned private secondary schools, resulting in a mushroom development of state-run secondary schools. The Ministry of Education issued a series of policies and measures to regulate the behavior of independent colleges and curb such issues as illegal recruitment, student unrest, educational equity caused by ineffective regulation. From Opinions on regulating and enhancing the management of Independent Colleges with new mechanisms and modes in 2003 to the Settings and management measures of Independent Colleges which was officially promulgated in 2008,the features and content of the operation in the independent college system was also reflected.The implementation of any educational policy is a complex process of continuous trading, negotiation and political interaction. Different stakeholders, dwelling in different "fields of system" which was permeated with "meaning construction", often adopt a different attitude, behavior and approach to "elaborate" and "practice" specific policies and shape the way of policy implementation. The implementation of policies of independent Colleges is also subject to the central government, local government and the strategic interaction of Independent Colleges, resulting in "false independence ", "false private", "false quality" in the way of implementation. Limited by the "gap" between "the system supply " and "system demand " under the progressive reform, and confined by the institutional logic of multiple conflicts of the policy objectives, the central government showed some tolerance toward misconduct of the local government and independent Colleges. When there are multiple conflicts of policy objectives, the local government will choose to pursue policy objectives for their own benefit, and avoid or weaken the pursuit of certain goals in line with their interests and pressure they face. They tend to implement policy objectives that benefit their own interest in the "pressure-type bureaucratic system", and flexibly carry out the policy which are not conducive to their own interests in the discretion through the "re-defined policy " and""conspiracy' under rational nonfeasance'" and "fully applying policy ", etc. Subject to the routine reliance on institutional logic, independent colleges generally implement policy objectives through means of "opportunism" of scarce resources, and "policy modifications" in network relationship in order to obtain larger, more benefits.In the development of independent college system, various measures are often adopted to obtain legitimacy in social, political and administrative areas. But this legitimacy is limited, because it does not have access to legal legitimacy. However, with China's transition, as long as it meets the social, political and administrative requirements, the independent college system is also likely to continue even with a lack of adequate legal legitimacy. With the development of the institutional environment and the change of ideas and concepts, independent college system will be facing crisis of value of choice, the public crisis, procedure crisis and the crisis of effectiveness in the course of future development. Under this circumstance, we should design the system of Independent Colleges by the means of establishing a rational, sound structure of property rights within Independent Colleges, implementing reasonable "selective incentives" and establish three-dimensional, diverse supervision mechanism,improving educational policy making system, and reconstructing a public governance system of "polycentric governance".