A Study On The Classification Of Higher Education Institutions Based On The Diciplinary Organization

Classification of higher education institutions is a worldwide difficult problem. With the further massification of higher education in China, the problems which are caused by the loss of the value system of university classification is becoming more fierce, such as the loss of classified management, the similar strategies and development of different universities and colleges. The essence of university is disciplinary organization, which shows the level of a university or a college. To study on the classification of universities and colleges based on the disciplinary organization may help to make some breakthroughs for this problem.In this article, at first, the author creates the concept of"special college", and hypothesizes an analytic framework of the classification of higher education institutions based on the new concept. Then she compares the different modes of the higher education institution types in some countries and gets some references from the comparison. After that, she analyses the change of the structure of higher education institutions and the change of disciplinary organizations in China, and then classifies Chinese higher education institutions into three major types (discipline-oriented, profession-oriented, and vocation-oriented) and eight sub-types. Based on these studies, the author take 60 higher education institutions in Shanghai as a sample to classify and makes case study of three higher education institutions which is hard to classify.At last, the author draws his conclusions listed as follows: (1) A value system of classification with Chinese characteristics is strongly needed for the development of Chinese higher education institutions. (2) The theory and practice of classification of higher education institutions can be well connected based on disciplinary organization. (3) Currently while developing the discipline-oriented and vocation-oriented higher education institutions, China should also pay much attention to the development of profession-oriented higher education institutions, which accords with the national condition of China. (4) The concept of"special college"is suitable for three types of higher education institutions, and to develop special colleges is the key to the development of higher education institutions.