A Study On The Development Of Upgraded Application-Oriented Undergraduate Colleges

Since 1998, a large number of the colleges for three years’study (without an academic degree) were upgraded by the Ministry of Education in China, hence become undergraduate schools, which were called "the Upgraded Application-oriented Undergraduate Colleges"(UAUC after here). UAUC is a new style of higher education. Since the "New Colleges" have just emerged in the past 12 years, how to develop such schools and how to achieve sustainable development is a major issue among the 240 (by the end of 2009) "New Colleges" and even the higher education community. This study focused on the definition of "New Colleges", the reason for their appearance and rising, the concept and features of "Application-oriented Undergraduate Education," and the characteristics of those well-developed "New Colleges". Based on literature analysis, this research adopted case study, questionnaires and other methods to explore the path and strategy framework of the sustainable development of China’s "New Colleges".The thesis first clarified and unified a series of vague definitions and confusing concepts of the terms such as "Undergraduate Colleges", "Upgraded Undergraduate Colleges", "Application-oriented Undergraduate Colleges", "Upgraded Application-oriented Undergraduate Colleges","Dual-ability-based Teachers", and so on, then the author defined the UAUC (or say, New Colleges) as the following:the schools which have been upgraded since 1998, in the popularization of higher education settings, mainly focusing on undergraduate education, for the regional economy and society, subject-based, application type of professional education, social talent and demand-oriented, training high standards of graduates. These undergraduate schools are upgraded primarily from single subject or occupational colleges, the normal colleges, or with the first two combined, the third type.In this study, the UAUC are regarded in a new sense, mainly based on three considerations:First, in 1998, China started at the national level to promote the popularization of higher education, which is a real education campaign practice, rather than test; Second, the UAUC are formally approved by the Ministry of Education, and are qualified to join the realms of undergraduate colleges; Thirdly, the UAUC are regionally-oriented, to cultivate application-oriented talent under completely new training programs, which is different from the traditional elite education.Through comparison with the new British universities and U.S. land grant colleges, and based on the case analysis of Hefei College and Xingzhi Union, it is found that first they share the common features that UAUC are all new forms of higher education which appeared in the context of higher education out of "ivory tower"; under the cities’management; for local service; and to train applied students. However, China’s "New colleges" have its distinctive characteristics:it is a "top-down" system under the direction of governmental policy, which is an enhancement of the original lower level of educational resources. Therefore, in its applied-oriented development, China’s "New colleges" have an innate "rejection reflex" in terms of educational mode and other aspects such as teaching staff.Second, to establish Applied-oriented Colleges Union is an effective strategy to lead them out of temporary plight, while the vitality of the Union depends on the policy support from government. "New colleges" should take the application type, be local and international, "New colleges" differ from the traditional elite education model in terms of replacing the subject-oriented for the specialty-oriented curriculum, and taking modular as the objective in the curriculum development. What’s more, the "New colleges" must attach great importance to the building of "dual-ability" teaching staff (teachers with both theoretical and practical teaching ability). The real sense of "New Colleges" also involves the orientation to the localization and training objectives to be applied-the curriculum should be professional, modularized and so on..This study adopted self-proposed "Questionnaire of the running status of UAUC", selecting 120 responsible persons of UAUC for the implementation of questionnaires. The statistical analysis showed that the main characteristics of the well-developed UAUC includes:(1) undergraduate colleges of applied-oriented on school orientation; (2) for local economic and social development; (3) appropriate in school size, as well as academic and professional development; (4) the distinction of "applied-orientation" should be fully reflected in aspects of its orientation and program in student training as well as its structure and content in course setting. In addition, it is also found in this study that the well-developed UAUC are in need of social support from both macro-policy and specific student training strategies.Finally, the study also put forward for the first time the developmental strategy framework of UAUC, which is reduced to three levels including the macro, the middle and the micro-strategies. Macro-strategic level involves sustainable development as its basic concepts; the middle includes connotative and ecological development; the micro is composed of seven aspects including educational philosophy, training, subjects and majors, school conditions, teaching staff, management mechanism and system, and social support. "New colleges" should adhere to external union, concentrating on keeping the inner flat management to fully utilize limited resources, condensing the core courses to strengthen flexibility in specialties; adopting modular teaching to increase "professional elements" in courses; and expanding the ratio of "dual-ability" Teachers as well.