Analysis On Correlative Scale Between Postgraduate And Undergraduate In The Process Of Popularization Of Higher Education

Popularization of higher education is a worldwide trend of the higher education development, which is the inevitable strategic option for both economic development and social progress. There are different opinions about the rapid development of higher education. Many are concerned about the expansion of undergraduate, especially the employment pressure brought by the increased enrollment; Some believe that it is impossible to settle the conflict between the increased number and educational quality; Some even think undergraduate education and graduate education contrary, suggesting the limited energy should be placed on postgraduate education rather than on enlarging the number of undergraduate education. I think that in China with a situation of limited resources and relatively weak economic strength, to achieve sustained, stable and coordinated development of post-graduate education will confront many difficulties and problems among which majority are connected with the size and speed of development. To understand these issues correctly requires a good understanding of the law of the education development and empirical analysis of education practices all over the world. No doubt a correct understanding of the Popularization trends in higher education and identifying the law of changes in the scale between undergraduate education and graduate education will be of important practical significance on educational policy.This paper includes four parts :Part One introduces the purpose, significance and status quo of the study. Part Two reviews the process in the history of the popularization of higher education in United States, Britain, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and so on and briefly explains the historical background of different development paces in different countries. Then it introduces a number of theories of the expansion of higher education by some experts, such as The Three-Stage theory of the development of higher education by American scholar, Martin Trow , "Mass Higher Education" theory by Japanese scholar Akira ARIMORO; "Transitional Stage" theory by Chinese scholar Pan Maoyuan . Akira ARIMORO believes that the stage right after the "Mass Higher Education" should be "lifelong learning" stage, rather than"universal"stage. Professor Pan Maoyuan believes that the 'quantum' of the higher education in China can not match the ' degree ' of the accumulation of Higher Education by the western scholars, that is to say, gross enrollment rate is less than 15%, but new qualitative change take place in the course of Higher Education. This change of Popular education from elite education is called 'transitional period'. This article explains the necessity of achieving the popularization of higher education in four aspects : Popularization of higher education is to improve the quality of citizens and higher education expansion is to realize the objective of building a well-off society; The strategy of the national development through science and education needs higher education expansion and the essential socialist system requires popularization of higher education .Part Three introduces the development scale of postgraduate education in the United States, South Korea, Japan, Britain and China.In postwar America, on one hand the government set up research centers for sophisticated scientific exploration in brand-name institutions; on the other hand, it strengthened postgraduate education. In 1955, there were 250,000 graduate students and the number up to 356.000 in 1960, bigger than the total number of 1,900 of college students nationwide. Compared with the figure in 1900, the number of college students increased by 15 times while graduate students increased by 52 times in 1960. From 1960 to 1977, graduate students increased by another four times, a total of 1320,000. In addition, in the 1955-56 school year, there were 59,258 students obtaining a master's degree, and 292,450 in 1974-75 school year . Meanwhile, in the 1955-56 school year, a total of 139,901 students were awarded doctorates and 34,083 in 1974-75 school year.In South Korea, the development of postgraduate education was very fast. Postgraduate schools are not only run by universities, but also by scientific research institutions and large enterprises. In 1981 there were 151 postgraduate schools, with 183,000 graduates and in 1990, the figure reached up to 298 and 86,900 respectively.In Japan, its main target for higher level of higher education is to develop the scale of postgraduate education. In November 1993, the check and approve group of the graduate faculty of the University firstly produced an advisory report on the development scale of the postgraduate education entitled "On the Whole Number of Postgraduate Students Preparing". In 2005, there were a total of 254,480 graduate students in Japan, of whom 164,550 were master's degree students, 74,907 doctoral students and 150.23 million for post-graduate professional degree.In Britain, the post-graduate education was slow and small in size in the beginning phase of the Popularization of higher education and not entered long-term and fast development scale until World War II. In 1991 the number of postgraduate rose to 169,073, and up to306,242 in 1995. In 1999-2003,China witnessed fast development of higher education. The number of college students increased from 108 million to 10.9 million; graduates from 70,000 to 640,000 with the number growing at 30% a year.Through the analysis of the scale of post-graduate education in the typical countries, it can be concluded that when the college or higher education of any country enters the Popularization stage , it will definitely pursuit the popularization of postgraduate education. Accordingly, the number of the postgraduate students will be increased. With the growth of the higher education, it is inevitable and worldwide trend that the scale of post-graduate education grows as well.The fourth part provides statistical and qualitative analysis of the scales of both undergraduate and postgraduate in the United States, Japan, South Korea and China. The analysis result shows the scale of undergraduates is an important basis for determining the size of enrollment for post graduate students, and their relation is direct proportion. Meanwhile, the analysis also shows that there is an intrinsic link between the various levels of higher education and attention must be paid to optimizing the structure of the higher education level when planning the overall development and annual enrollment for higher education .The number of higher education at all levels of training in a certain period of time can't be a subjective determination, as"supply"and"Demand"has to be put into consideration, especially for postgraduate level. The intrinsic link of Higher Education at all levels indicates the necessity of differentiating levels. Different internal levels of higher education should set different training objectives, standards and modes. Related analysis also need the inspiration and details of different majors.