The Research On Quality Promotion Of Degree Awarding Of Independent Colleges In Guangdong Province

Independent colleges act as one kind of special institution of innovation with a progress over ten years, and have become an important part of higher education system in China. However, the awarded degrees have been heavily criticized by the whole society since their founding. On February 22 nd, 2008, the Ministry of Education issued a regulation The Setup and Management Measures of Independent Colleges that the students who have completed their studies and have passed all the exams would be awarded diplomas with the seals of the independent colleges, and the independent colleges should firstly apply for eligibility to award bachelor’s degree according to the relevant regulations, and then award to those eligible. This regulation changed the status quo of the degrees awarded by the host colleges. It means that the independent colleges could no longer attract students with the awarded degrees by the host colleges. Under the increasingly competitive environment and the condition of higher education improved with quality, whether the independent colleges could realize sustainable and healthy development and especially effectively improve the quality of education so as to carry weight and create core competitiveness?For a case, take the independent colleges of Guangdong Province, herein our investigation of the status quo of the degrees awarded by independent colleges was conducted with methods of literature research, case research and questionnaire. Different standards of the awarded degrees, lower level of teaching management, poor execution of degree management system, and imperfect supervision mechanism on the quality of the awarded degrees have been found in the independent colleges. Deep analysis based on all the above problems was carried out. The main factors affecting the quality of the awarded degrees in independent college are the quality of students, teaching staff, the guidance of graduation thesis and the other ones beyond the system. Finally, the measures, including strengthening awareness of degree management, correctly understanding the bachelor’s degree, improving the students’ comprehensive quality, aggressively constructing the teaching staff, enhancing the teaching management, standardizing the degree management, unifying the standards of the awarded degrees and establishing the quality supervision system, have been proposed by the introducing of the total quality management.