Independent College And Education Equity

Independent college is a secondary school model of higher education run under the new mode and mechanism, the emergence of which is the result of an innovative initiative to accelerate the pace of higher education development. It plays a constructive role in expanding higher education resources. Independent college, as is a newly-born phenomenon, will surely undergo a progressive process towards maturity. One potentially striking problem incurred thereof would be concerned with education equity, which falls to the focal attention of this paper.Independent college is supposed to make critical contributions to the popularization of higher education in China. However, the access opportunities are somewhat restricted to the privileged social strata since student recruitment in independent college has been primarily effected by means of lower recruitment lines of scores and higher tuition fee. It gives rise to people's doubt over the objectivity of college entrance examination scores as the only criterion to ensure the upheld tenet of "equality of education opportunity for all" and subsequently causes considerable skepticism among them about the fairness of college entrance opportunity.With an extensive review of the historical development of independent college along with all the attendant national policy changes and an in-depth examination of varied views that people hold on the various issues related to independent college, it is revealed that an empirical study of independent college is severely wanting. In view of this, this paper is devoted to a contrastive study of students' origins and education resources in Chengyi College Jimei University within the framework of education equity theory. It is found that there exists a recruitment preference for urban population and those born into well-off families, who are therefore in a better position to enjoy high-quality education recourses. It is in point of fact remarkably detrimental to the implement of education equity. Nevertheless, significant contributions made by independent college can in no case be denied in terms of cultivating numerous talents, increasing higher education opportunity and in particular shedding some light on further reform of higher education in China.The paper consists of four chapters with Chapter 1 probing into the controversial issues regarding independent college, Chapter 2 examining its three developmental stages with emphasis laid on its status quo, Chapter 3 proceeding to a case study of independent college and the ensuing data analysis, and Chapter 4 focusing on the implications drawn from the previous research findings.The thesis is believed to provide deeper insight into the existing situations of independent college and arouse our awareness of the complexity of its problems, which can by no means over generalized as whether to promote or sacrifice education equity.