Research On China Governmental Participation In Higher Education Evaluation

The quality of higher education has become the focus of the popular higher education .Evaluating higher education has become one important means for supervision of the management of higher education. As the dominant part, the Chinese government organizes and participates in the evaluation, whose behavior has active effects on the development of the evaluation of higher education. The type of centralization of state power evaluation has effectively accelerates the development of the evaluation from the point of development of higher education. However, with further reform of the higher education management system, there appear many indispensable problems in the process of the evaluation. On the premise of researching government activities in the evaluation, analyzing the developing process of higher education involved with governments in several foreign countries and China, the thesis points out the existing problems in the evaluation connected with Chinese government and the reasons of them, and puts forward countermeasures in perfecting governmental behavior, exerting theoretical analysis ,document retrieval, , survey method ,and the theories of public policy, of the governmental organization behavior, and of higher education.Firstly, the thesis introduces and analyzes the following three developing processes: the cooperation mode between the government and the civil groups main in the USA; the centralization of state power mode mainly in France; the instructing mode mainly in Holland. From the analyses above, we can see that all countries are actively leading the social potencies to participate in the evaluation of higher education to different degrees, to entrust the outer evaluated function with intermediary organs between the governments and colleges. Among them, the instructing mode mainly in Holland has developed maturely.Next, looking back the evaluation process connected with the Chinese government in the past twenty years, the thesis analyzes the policy background of the involvement of the government, and summarizes the roles of the government. On May 27th 1985, the China central committee issued"The Decision on the Educational System from the Central Committee". The document definitudes the dominant position of the government and the management in the evaluation, and demonstrates the direction of evaluation. In the following evaluation work, the China government timely and effectively adapted the concerned policies so as to advance the system reform of higher education. The 44th clause of"Law of the People's Republic of China on the Higher Education"issued on January 1st prescribes: the level of running a school and the quality of education must be under the supervision of the administrative department for education and the evaluation of it. The issuance of"Law of the People's Republic of China on the Higher Education"indicates the evaluation system of higher education has legal guarantee.It is obvious that our government plays an important role in the theoretical research and concrete practice of the evaluation. But there exist many problems. The thesis puts forward the problems existing and the reasons for them concerning the government. There are obvious administration characters, that is, the government directly controls every link, which restricts experts'activities. The experts can't creatively develop their work according to different colleges'features, which, therefore, hinders the healthy development of evaluation. There is one principal part in the evaluation, which lacks science and justness and has disadvantages to running school independently. The phenomenon"Rent-Seeking of Authorities"lies in the evaluation, and it makes evaluation not the original goal but a measure for controlling colleges.In order to push the evaluation better, it is necessary to analyze to reasons for the present situation and find out the countermeasures. First, the practice of evaluation lacks theoretical support. As the theoretical researches and practices aren't unfolded for a long time and evaluation theories lags behind, the systemic higher education theories have not been established. Second, there aren't sanity organs. The evaluation from Administrative department on education alone can't meet the information require from the public. Third, such problems exist as faulty evaluation system, no restriction to the main body's concrete action and process from special law restriction in the implement of evaluation, no countering system in the procedure, and lack of necessary reevaluating system, etc.Aiming at the problems above and the practical situation, the thesis proposes countermeasures. First, get rid of the thought of"official standard", improve service consciousness, carry out evaluation to higher education effectively, reduce the interference to higher education, shift from centralization of state power to service, and enhance the function of participation and service. Second, enhance the force of managerial system reform of higher education, realize multi-dimensional evaluation. Based on the Chinese situation, the government should reduce participation and action to the evaluation, encourage colleges and society to participate in it, and establish efficient multi-agent evaluation mode, to guarantee the socialization and scientific system. Third, advance the legal system effectively to assure the objective and impersonality and justness. Only under the laws and rules, can the true conclusions be drawn according to the evaluation objects, and can the true running school standards be reflected in view of objective and justness. Finally, continue to enhance the theoretical researches to provide evaluation with the theoretical support .At present, the expansion of evaluation practice mainly depends on experts'experience, and lacks systemic evaluation theories. Therefore, the Chinese government must enhance the theoretical survey, shooting at establishing flawless higher education evaluation theories with Chinese features.