Evolution Of Canadian Higher Education Policy

Canada is one of the first countries in the world that experienced the transition from elite to mass higher education; meanwhile Canada has accumulated rich experience in making policy and legislation to construct and consolidate an effective higher education policy system for the higher educational structural reform and institutional development.This thesis is a research on the evolution of Canadian higher education policy in the three phases of Canadian higher education development:"elite","mass" and "universal". The first chapter provides that in the elite phase of Canadian higher education, Canadian government focused on establishing a public and autonomy university system with legislation to meet both the government's interest and the university's need. The second and the third chapters examine that in the mass phase of the Canadian higher education, the Canadian government implemented a series of federal funding policies to reflect the" expansion--crunch--adjustment" reform trends; and revel the problems when the government used various kinds of levers to transfer the Canadian student assistance policy to the market-oriented one,also the achievements by setting up the conditional financial transfer system to establish a higher education fiscal system in order to improve the accountability. The fourth chapter analyzes Canadian higher education innovation strategy and lifelong learning policy according to the twenty-first century innovation strategy and the lifelong learning society program in the universal phase of Canadian higher education. The fifth chapter dedicates to analyze the evolution of Canadian higher education policy from the human capital, new liberalism and lifelong learning theoretical perspectives. In the conclusion, the research summarizes the characteristics of Canadian higher education policy with policy making power dispersion, multi-objective and diverse stakeholders; sums up with the successful experience of the Canadian higher education policy and the existing problems.In the research on the evolution of Canadian higher education policy, we can not only learn how much they emphasis on education and the policy measures adopted for developing human resources, but also examine and review the existing problems of Canadian higher education policy. All in all, we can learn from their success as well the failures; the beneficial and useful policy experience can also provide us with reference and inspiration for our higher education reforms.