A Revolution

8/6/2019 A Revolution

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A revolution (from the Latin revolutio, "a turn around") is a fundamental change in power or

organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time. Its use to refer to political

change dates from the scientific revolution occasioned by Copernicus' famous De Revolutionibus Orbium

Coelestium

Revolutions have occurred through human history and vary widely in terms of methods, duration, and

motivating ideology. Their results include major changes in culture, economy, and socio-political

institutions.

Tanzania's educational revolution

Tanzania inherited an elitism educational system but broadened it to create ample opportunities

for its citizens. Most Africans were illiterate before independence, but this has been reduced to a

minority of 35 percent and that number is still falling. Tanzania still plans to eradicate illiteracy,

as well as ensuring full primary education to all Tanzanian children, improving the quality of

education, and stressing science and technology in its schools. Access at all levels has

dramatically increased since 1961. The Ugandan invasion caused massive diversions of

expenditures and set back literacy campaigns and the expansion of educational opportunities.

Despite this, primary education is now offered to almost every student, and secondary chances

are expanding fast with the help of private schools. A growing gap between rich and poor

students needs to be watched carefully, as does recurrent textbook shortages, low teacher

salaries, and regional inequalities that persist. Swahili has grown in prominence since the

Germans elevated it to the medium of instruction in their colonial schools. It is still the major

medium of instruction at most levels of Tanzania's educational system. University populations

are growing very fast, and Tanzania may soon be in a position to attract high tech industries

because of the number of qualified engineers, computer programmers, and skilled workers that it

is producing. Tanzania truly earned the World Bank's assessment of it as a "rising star" and a

nation to watch, despite on-going problems.

Tanzania abolished tuition fees in 2002, and school attendance surged from 59% to 95% today.

But growth has bought its own, unforeseen difficulties.


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Tabitha Friday is determined to be among them. After her father died, she went to live with her aunt, and

now at the age of 18 is determined to get the primary school education she never had.

EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN CHINA

A natural interest in learning more about education in the People's Republic of China has grown

out of the reestablishment of relationships between the United States and mainland China. This study, one

of a series to help inform the American educational community about significant educational

developments in other countries, provides basic background information to understanding recent

developments in the educational system of mainland China. Based mainly on primary source material, the

study summarizes the course of the educational revolution which was initiated in China in the spring of

1966 and provides a succinct analysis of the impact of this wide ranging upheaval on the organization and

conduct of the educational enterprise in that country. Data on the number of higher education institutions

of various types and universities within the Peoples Republic of China are appended.

While China's remarkable economic achievements attract international attention, a less advertised

revolution is quietly taking place in China's higher education system. The long-term implications of this

may be much more important for China's future and the world's. A small part of it I witnessed myself.

Last May I visited Xiamen University on China's southern coast, overlooking Jinmen (Quemoy) and

Taiwan. Established in 1921, the university's main campus still displays early 20th century Western

influences. Yet its new campus, recently built from scratch within nine months on a desolate island,

definitely belongs to the 21st century. Accommodating thousands of students from all over China, the

new campus contains state-of-the-art buildings, classes, labs, dormitories, offices, halls and an

outstanding library with advanced equipment and technologies. The students who accompanied us were

conversant in English and open-minded. Of course, it was impossible to judge quality on the basis of a

few hours' visit, but this visit was a signpost pointing to the course of China's higher education revolution.

To a great extent, this revolution implies a reincarnation of the Western model of the

comprehensive university, abandoned in 1949 when the communists seized China. For the next 30 years,

China's higher education duplicated the Soviet system, with all its advantages and disadvantages.

Furthermore, as a result of the political and ideological upheavals, especially the break with the Soviet

Union and the Cultural Revolution, Chinese universities decayed and even closed down for about ten

yearsfrom the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. With the beginning of reforms and modernization in the


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late 1970s, institutions of higher education were re-opened and revived, but remained mired in past

practices.

Thus, a gap gradually emerged between China's growing free-market economy and opening to the

outside and the more conservative and still-secluded higher education system. The system suffered from a

number of problems that included central rigid planning and control; departmentalization and barriers

between teaching, research and production; narrow range of studies; small universities, duplication and

overlap; too much emphasis on science and engineering; lack of academic freedom; waste and low

efficiency; free tuition; limited spending and investment; and low admittance rates. To be sure, China's

post-Mao reforms indirectly affected the higher education system, but reforms in higher education did not

begin in earnest until the late 1990s.

In 1998, CCP General Secretary and PRC President Jiang Zemin called for the establishment of

100 first-class universities and 30 world-class research universities by 2020. Right now only four Chinese

universities are recognized as meeting top international standards: Beijing and Qinghua (in Beijing) and

Fudan and Jiaotong (in Shanghai) (Taipei Times, September 7, 2005). Entitled the 98-5 Project, the new

plan has already achieved remarkable results. To begin with, the number of higher educational institutions

has almost tripled, from 598 in 1978 to 1,731 in 2004. From 1978 to 1999 the average annual increase

was 20; from 2000 to 2004 it was 172. In fact, the increase is even more dramatic, as over the last few

years a number of smaller universities merged into larger academic institutions (all data herein, unless

otherwise noted, is from China Statistical Yearbook 2005).

The overall number of full-time higher education faculty more than quadrupled, from 206,000 in

1978 to 858,000 in 2004. Again, the main growth was from 2000 to 2004: an average of 98,750 were

added each year (compared to an average of 11,680 from 1978 to 1999). Also, by 2004, the overall

number of students in China had reached over 21 million. The share of undergraduate students was 62.5

percent, while postgraduate students accounted for less than four percent, still quite small. Of the

postgraduate students, about 20 percent were studying for a Ph.D., with the remainder as masters degree

students.

Another indication of this revolution is that the number of new students in the higher education

system has increased over ten-fold, from about 400,000 in 1978 to nearly 4.5 million in 2004. While from

1978 to 1999 the average annual intake was 82,000, from 2000 to 2004 it was 566,750. The total number

of undergraduate students has increased more then 15 times, from 856,000 in 1978 to 13.3 million in

2004. While from 1978 to 1999 the average annual increase was 213,863, from 2000 to 2004 it was

nearly two million. The number of those who successfully completed their undergraduate study has also


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increased by nearly 15 times, from 165,000 in 1978 to 2,391,000 in 2004. While from 1978 to 1999, the

average annual increase in graduates was 35,682, from 2000 to 2004 it was 238,750.

The number of new postgraduate students has dramatically increased over 30 times, from 10,708

in 1978 to 326,286 in 2004. While from 1978 to 1999 the average annual intake was over 5,000, from

2000 to 2004 it was nearly 50,000. In fact, the total number of postgraduate students in China's higher

education institutions has multiplied by an amazing 75 times, from 10,934 in 1978 to 819,896 in 2004.

From 1978 to 1999 the average annual increase was 13,196; from 2000 to 2004 it was 129,664. These are

perhaps the most significant figures that reflect the revolution in China's higher education. Equally, the

number of those who successfully completed their postgraduate study has increased from nine in 1978 to

150,777. From 1978 to 1999 the average annual increase in postgraduates was 2,671; from 2000 to 2004

it was 23,000.

In 2004, the majority of China's postgraduate students have studied either engineering (38.8

percent) or science (12.5 percent); nearly 60 percent of the doctoral students and nearly 50 percent of the

masters candidates study one of these subjects. In 2004, about 56,000 engineering students successfully

completed their postgraduate study. About 48,000 received their masters and about 8,000 received their

Ph.D.s. The percentage for undergraduate students is somewhat lower, but still impressive. Out of a total

of 13.3 million students, nearly 4.4 million, one-third, study engineering. Nearly 2.3 million

undergraduates (17 percent) study managementmore than three times the number of economics

students. An additional 1.16 million study science and around one million study medicine. In 2004, more

than one million Chinese students successfully completed their undergraduate study in engineering (over

812,000) and science (over 207,000).

Evidently, China is still considerably weaker in humanities and especially in social sciences and

law. As a matter of fact, the China Statistical Yearbook does not provide any data on sociology,

anthropology, political science, international relations, demography, statistics or religion. History attracts

0.5 percent of all students and Philosophy 0.1 percent. Aware of this handicap, Beijing tries to promote

the idea of the comprehensive university notwithstanding its sensitivity to humanities and social sciences.

Yet this imbalance is also, and perhaps mainly, an outcome of the students' preference for more

practicaland profitableprofessions.

Another interesting change has taken place in the number of Chinese students studying abroad.

Until the beginning of reforms in the late 1970s, Chinese students had mainly studied in Soviet and East

European universities. With the launch of reforms in 1978, Beijing allowed and even encouraged students

to travel wherever they wanted. As early as 1978, 860 students were already studying abroad, reaching a


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peak of 125,179 in 2002. Then the number began to decline reaching 114,682 in 2004. Although higher

education in China has become more expensive over time, it is still considerably less expensive than

studying abroad. More important, this home-study trend must also reflect the students' realization that

some Chinese universities are of similar quality to Western universities. Still, Chinese students have

continued to go abroad in the 2000s. The annual average for 2000-2004 was 18,923, compared to 2,631

for 1978-1999.

While the number of Chinese students abroad is slowly decreasing, more and more foreign

students come to study in Chinese universities. In 2004, the number reached approximately 86,000,

mostly from Asia, with 60 percent from South Korea and Japan. China is interested in attracting foreign

students and plans to accommodate 120,000 in 2007 (The Chronicle of HigherEducation, 61:9, October

22, 2004, p. A52). Once again, foreign students come to China not only because higher education is less

expensive but also because its quality is improving. Although Taiwan still slights mainland China's

academic institutions and degrees, the fact that they become attractive to students is causing concern in

Taiwan whose universities face a growing shortage of students, or another wave of brain-drain (Taipei

Times, September 7, 2005).

China's revolution in higher education reflects large-scale investment. In 2004, most higher

education funds came directly from the central government (nearly 47 percent) and from tuition fees

(nearly 30 percent). The rest came from other organizations that included donations and fund-raisingthe

share of which in the higher education budget has been growing steadily, reflecting China's remarkable

economic growth and the contribution of companies, corporations and businessmen. There has also been

an exceptional increase in governmental allocation for science and research that jumped over 22 times,

from the equivalent of US$660 million in 1978 to US$14.6 billion dollars in 2004. Again, this was

especially evident from 2000 to 2004 when the average annual increase reached 1.85 billion dollars,

compared to about 300 million dollars from 1978 to 1999.

This is just the beginning of China's higher education revolution, which is a long-term plan. With

its huge population, Chinas plan to increase the entrance rate of the relevant age-group (19-21) from 13.3

percent in 2001 to 23 percent in 2010, to 40 percent in 2020 and to 55 percent in 2050over a four-fold

increase. Correspondingly, they plan to almost triple the number of undergraduate students between 2001

and 2050 and to quadruple the number of graduates by 2020. One planned outcome is that the share of

those with higher education in the workforce is due to increase almost 10 times from 4.66 percent in 2001

to 44 percent in 2050 (ChineseEducation and Society, 38:4, July-August 2005, p. 14).


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Impressive as they are, these quantitative changes tell very little about the quality of China's higher

education. Compared to other countries, China's higher educational system has one major disadvantage

and two major advantages. Its main disadvantage reflects the time-honored legacy of conformity,

discouraging innovation and lack of academic freedom. As much as Beijing would invest in higher

education, if it does not manage to overcome these obstacles and provide a climate for fearless academic

and scientific discussion, this revolution will be short-lived. At the same time, China has two formidable

advantages: one is its huge population and the other is its mobilization capacity that is not bound by

democratic values. Given that the ratio of talented people in the Chinese society is about the same as in

other countries (and some would say it is higher), the Chinese government can feed its higher education

system with millions of talented and even exceptional students for years to come.

Universities throughout the world have begun to appreciate the revolution in China's higher education and

to increase their academic cooperation with China, investing in China's private universitiesa new

phenomenonand forming partnerships with established Chinese universities.

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A Revolution