Adaptation And Selection - The Convergence Of China's Higher Education And Thinking

With the proceeding of popularization of higher education, a convergence of educational modes in Chinese higher education institutions becomes inevitable. Many higher education institutions in China haven't fully considered the feasibility of their educational modes. They do not combine history and reality, or not adopt a differential strategy, but run crudely in the perspective of size, quantity and speed, causing such consequences as the missing of their characteristics and convergence of their objectives, orientation, and majors, even structural unemployment of their graduates. The analysis of the deep causes of this convergence, interpretation of the duality of the convergence and exploration of sustainable development of educational modes in higher education institutions are theoretically and practically important to the long-term development of Chinese higher education.In the beginning, this thesis clarifies the notion of higher education modes, states that higher education modes are synthetic integrated systems and comprehensive inflections of educational factors. The key factors involving educational modes are: educational idea, educational orientation, educational classification, educational characteristics, which determine the structure and development of educational modes. The thesis constructs a graphic to indicate the interrelationship among those factors and outside influence, showing that educational idea is the heart of an educational mode, that educational orientation is the guide and determiner, that educational orientation takes educational classification for its ground, that educational orientation includes objectives, type and rank of the institution, reflects and is constrained by its governing idea and characteristics, that educational characteristics is the core of orientation, that an important reflection of educational orientation is the institution's major setup and that educational characteristics distinguishes itself from that of other higher education institutions.The convergence of higher educational modes can be analyzed in three dimensions: convergence to synthesis, convergence to higher levels and convergence to non-characteristics which are respectively represented by the trend of synthesis, trend of high levels and trend of repeated major set-ups. The third chapter takes 39 universities of 985 Project,10 agricultural universities, some local colleges in Hunan and Xinjiang provinces as examples to illustrate their educational classification, objectives, orientation and major distribution of higher educational institutions in order to confirm the convergence of higher educational modes. The causes behind the phenomena are more valuable to study. Inspired by organizational convergence theory, the thesis detects three causes of this convergence, the most important one being the methods and policies of higher education resources in China, the next factor being the influence of current higher education evaluation system, the last one being the "fashion" among higher education institutions. There is certainty, inevitability, dynamites and instability in such a convergence, yet though it is abiding to educational laws, it has serious hidden risks.To eliminate the hidden risks, this thesis introduces in details the experiences from the practice of Shanghai local higher education institutions orientation plan summary, practice of promotion and development by focusing on building characteristics and advantages in China, and the experiences from three prestigious universities as Yale University, University of Wisconsin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From the above-mentioned experience, it clarifies a fact that our national and local government regulation in higher education not only focuses on major aspects of construction, grasps the orientation, promotes the wisdom of school characteristics, but also learns to adhere to the international level university educational philosophy, based on school and maintain the spirit of school characteristics.In conclusion, the formation and change in higher educational modes are the product of adaptation and selection. To build and maintain a good college running mode, the author suggests, that we should create a good ecological education:universities fulfill their own higher education system to communicate with other systems organically; should explore the scientific evaluation methods:classification and evaluation, a variety of evaluation methods coexistence; should build a multi-dimensional harmony in adapting to school rules, meet the needs of the society under the premise of making rational choice for higher educational institutions.