Research On The Changes Of Chinese Non-Governmental Higher Education Policy

Education policy is the soul of education undertaking. Without appropriate guide of education policy, it is hard to develop education undertaking. Similar to the development history of the private higher education in the world, the issue and implementation of education policy is the sign of turning point as Chinese non-governmental higher education development. And the government manages and develops non-governmental higher education by means of formulating and implementing non-governmental higher education policy. It is crucial for the survival and development of non-governmental higher education. Non-governmental higher education policies are not only a history of policy development, but also a epitome of education development. They embody times characteristics, represent times trends and guarantee healthy development of Chinese non-governmental higher education.It is helpful to construct a complete dynamic process of policy change in a way of bringing policy change into policy research. Since Reform and Opening-up, the change process of non-governmental higher education policy draw the outline of a historical picture of non-governmental higher education development. The research on non-governmental higher education policy change is to comprehend the education development in accordance with the historical approach. Based on a historical angle, the research explores the non-governmental higher education policy in a view of historical retrospect, current introspection and future prediction. The research formulates a multi-angle, multi-aspect and comprehensive cognitive framework, which reveals "what have been changed", "how to change", more importantly, "why to change", "the effectiveness of changes" and "the future changes".Based on the three time dimensions of past, present and future, the research captures the sequence of non-governmental higher education policy from the Reform and Opening-up till now, specifically 34 years from 1982 to 2015, and compiles 42 policies in relation to non-governmental higher education. Foremost, the research retrospects the policy origin of non-governmental higher education, trims the policy contents, scans its characteristics and impacts so as to answer the questions of "what have been changed" and "how to change". Then, the research also explores the motivation of policy change and rethinks the accrued fruits and existed problems in policy development so as to answer the questions of "why to change" and "the effectiveness of changes". Finally, the research probes into the reform of policy development and forecasts the future trend of policy development so as to answer the question of "the future changes". Specifically, the research summarizes the policy environment of non-governmental higher education from multi-angles including politics, economy and society; illustrates the policy contents and characteristics of non-governmental higher education from multi-dimensions including policy subject, policy value, policy content and policy process; interprets the policy motivation of non-governmental higher education from internal and external aspects; reflects the policy achievements and problems of non-governmental higher education from static and dynamic levels; furthermore, explores the reform of policy development, and forecasts the future trend of policy development in non-governmental higher education.Specifically, the research adopts the periodization of history and divides the development history of Chinese non-governmental higher education policies after the Reform and Opening-up Policy into four periods, which include Beginning Period (1982-1993), Boosting Period (1993-1999), Extending Period (1999-2010) and Deepening Period (2010-2015). The characteristics of these four periods include ice-breaking, wander to move on, laws to abide by and march toward governance. Chinese non-governmental higher education can gradually redevelop owning to the implementation of Reform and Opening-up Policy, after undergoing the interruption period from the earliest days of the People’s Republic of China to Reform and Opening-up. However, the starting point of Chinese non-governmental higher education policy system should be the year 1982, in that, as the earliest policy related to Chinese non-governmental higher education; Constitution of the People’s Republic of China was issued and put into force this year. With the continuous emergence of non-governmental higher educational institutions, corresponding policies are gradually formulated and implemented. Among these Chinese non-governmental higher education policies, Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, formulated in 1982, explicitly stipulated the legality of running of educational resources with social resources, and provided the constitutional basis of developing non-governmental higher education. The first turning point of non-governmental higher education policy change is 1993, in that two closely-related policies were issued this year, which include Chinese Educational Reform and Development Compendium and Provisional Rules of the Establishment of Non-governmental Higher Educational Institutions. The second turning point of non-governmental higher education policy change is 1999, because the new orientation is indicated in Revitalizational Action Plan Facing 21st Century, which was issued in 1999. Then, Non-governmental Education Promotion Law, issued and implemented in 2002, became the milestone of Chinese non-governmental higher education policy changing process. Since then, Chinese government has been adjusting policy orientation, positively pushing on the policy of "Management by Law", while establishing the legality of non-governmental higher education. Gradually, Chinese non-governmental higher education legal system was build up effectively, and accomplished the conversion process from "’Wander to move on" to "Laws to abide by". Since the implementation of National Medium and Long-term Plan for Education Reform and Development (2010-2020) in 2010, Chinese government paid close attention to policy practice on the aspect of non-governmental higher education policy, used Governance Theory into non-governmental higher education management, and put the policy center mainly on policy implementation and their effectiveness. Thus, a brief conclusion of Chinese non-governmental higher education policy development status could be made as follows:diversification of policy subject, Win-win Principle between public benefit and profits of policy value, concreteness and feasibility of policy content, monitoring and assessment of policy process.Based on the comprehensive and systematic retrospection of policy change of Chinese non-governmental higher education, the policy motivation is probed, and could be categorized into external and internal motivation. External motivation affects policy change by acting on internal motivation; while internal motivation acts directly on policy change. The external impetuses include political restructuring, economical restructuring and societal changes since reform and opening up. The internal impetuses include the conflicts between policy demand and supply, the battle among policy multi-profits subjects. As for the policy system of non-governmental higher education, urgent development and policy barrier becomes the basis of policy change. The policy change happens after the government pays close attention to these realistic problems and seeks feasible solutions. Actually, the process of policy change is a dynamic process.As for Chinese non-governmental higher education policy, the direct effects are mainly embodied in the change and transformation of policy content, value and keynote; on the other hand, the indirect effects are mainly embodied in the effective promotion and regulated development of a series of policy reforms. Chinese non-governmental higher education policy has already achieved obvious effects, mainly including enrichment of policy texts, integration of policy value orientation from macro state value to micro individual value, favorable transformation of "legal-restrictive-normative-supportive" policy keynotes, adding legality policy content, reinforcement of policy implementation. Meanwhile, some problems exist in policy development, mainly including unclear policy content, inappropriate role definition of government, unsatisfied policy implement effect, slow transformation of policy model and so on.Faced with the severe challenge, such as current depopulation of higher education right age, stressed education finance condition, complex relational networks and benefit game, strong attraction of foreign higher education, etc., Chinese non-governmental higher education policy has to clarify thoughts of development and should stress emphasis on the following five aspects:rationally adjusting policy objectives to achieve stable scale and quality improvement; effectively functioning policy subject to achieve educational governance with multi-profit subjects involvement; increasing policy effects to boost classified management of profit-making and non-profit-making non-governmental higher education institutions; strengthening policy monitoring and evaluation to perfect the policy execution; reasonably choosing policy value to achieve the win-win between public benefit and profit-making of education. The future trends of non-governmental higher education policy will include the following four aspects as:maintaining the rational relationship between the government and non-governmental higher education institutions to coordinate the relations among policy subjects; insisting on open principle to well-construct policy system; enlarging education public value to integrate policy value pursuit; improving education justice to optimize policy environment.Consequently, the research formulates a comprehensive cognitive framework toward Chinese non-governmental higher education policy in the view of from history to future, from extension to connotation and from macro level to micro level. Although the methodology of the research is located on historical research, the research structure is from interpretation of history to probe of rule, to examination of achievements and problems, to confronting of challenges. It is in fact an integrated research process that combines history and theory. In other word, the research carries out analyses and elaboration in the "dynamic history of policy changes". In general, the research object is the policy changes of Chinese non-governmental higher education. The research makes great efforts to combine history and reality in order to seek out the discipline that can be the reference to later development. Through the historical understanding of Chinese non-governmental higher education policy, the research could not only comprehensively recognize this legal system and integrally construct dynamic process of these policy changes, but also provide effective references for current and future Chinese non-governmental higher education reform and policy decision.