A Discussion On The Reform Of Academic Degree Management System From Governance Perspective

Academic degree management system has stipulated for the establishment of manage institution and subordination relations as well as the jurisdiction division in a degree education in a country. It involves which institution to manage, how to establish and distribute the authority, how to manage the degree education. With the scale expansion of degree education in our country, the existing degree management system is faced with a series of contradictions and problems. It mainly includes the contradiction between the scale expansion of degree education and the lag of management, the uniform management method and the flexible market, the improper responsibility, authority and benefit between the three manage levels. The basic reasons of these contradictions are that the government power is too concentrated, the social participation is not enough and the lack of communication and feedback between government, universities and society.Governance theory in the public management domain can provide help for the reform of degree management in our country, such as setting up multi-authorities, improving the legal environment, establishing responsibility mechanism and so on. There some conditions for carrying on reform of degree management system in our country from governance perspective, such as the gradually releasing of power during the reform of higher education management system, the acceleration of internationalization pace, the improvement of market mechanism, the appearance of social intermediaries and so on.The degree management in developed countries has some governance characteristics, like the distribution of government power and participation of social power, especially those perfect education intermediaries and perfect legal and regulation systems have played essential roles in the guarantee of academic degree quality, which have provided experience for the reform of degree management system in our country.According to the enlightenment of governance theory and experience of developed countries, the reform of degree management system in our country should try to establish effective multi-participation governance pattern in view of the existing contradictions. It means to realize three transformations: from "omnipotent government" to "limited government", from "political means" to "legal means", from the "only leadership by government" to "multi-participation".