A Study On Level And Field Structure Of Higher Education

Quantity, quality, structure and efficiency are four basic elements to evaluate a country's development level of higher education, these four elements play important roles in the development of higher education. Optimizing higher education structures (including level and field structure)is an important way for higher education to adapt generally to the need of social development. Therefore, making an further study on the level and field structures of higher education and seeking for the common characters and principal rules of the evolution and adjustment of higher education structures have not only most important theoretical meanings ,but also practical meanings in allocating higher education resources efficiently, forming beneficial interaction between the developments of higher education and society, and solving the structural excess and shortage of higher education in cultivating persons. This thesis aims at studying level and field structures of higher education and their evolution processes in 42 countries during 1950-2000, reveals the principal rules of higher education structure adaption and its role in promoting social development, and seeks for mechanism and models of the harmonious development of those elements which constitute the higher education structures so as to supply experiences and theoriotical supports for solving the main problems existing in Chinese higher education structures performing the functions of higher education itself and its social functions and economical functions, and setting up suitable structure systems of Chinese higher education.This thesis is a basic research, it makes a systematic and further practical research on the level and field structure of higher education ,through using comprehensive and cross-principle research methods in the process of study, such as researching method of higher education, the science of systems, sociology, economy, history and statistics , borrowing the basic method of statistics to collect and analyze the historical data of 42 countries during the fifty years after the world war II.The main contents of this thesis is the level and field structures of higher education, including the structures and functions , the constitution of level and field structure of higher education and their historical evolution, the development of level and field structures and its types , the ways and methods of the adjustment of level and field structures and so on. Concretely, the research is divided into three parts: theoreticalresearch, empirical research and practical research. In the theoretical research, the structures, functions, and the bilateral adaptions between higher education structures and the need of social development ,and the process of creation and evolution of level and field structure of higher education in most western and eastern world, ancient and modern times are discussed. In the empirical research, by analyzing the historical higher education data of 42 countries, to make clear the fact of the development of higher education and its level and field structures in different countries, to analyze the different models and common rules existing in the adjustment of higher education structures of different countries. In the practical research, by studying two cases of UK and KOREA in their adjustment of higher education structures after world war II, tries to find the successful experiences of developed countries in the adjustment of higher education, to analyze the evolution history of our higher education structure during fifty years after the built of P.R.China, to analyze the macroscopic background and several problems we are facing at the present stage, to propose policy advises for optimizing the level and field structures of higher education ,and building suitable higher education structure systems. The contents of this thesis are divided into 6 chapters:The first chapter is an introduction to the study. It presents the purpose and meanings of this study, defines the main study objectives, reviews the related study achievements, and introduce...