Study On Higher Education Quality Monitoring Mechanism: From The Perspective Of Different Agents

Quality is a key word of global higher education development in the 21 st century. In our country, a scientific and effective higher education quality monitoring mechanism needs constructing, in order to ensure the persistent and healthy development of mass higher education, fulfill the state's need of macro-regulation after adjusting the higher education administration system, and guarantee and improve the education quality of higher education institutions under the circumstance of socialistic market economy. From the perspective of four kinds of agents including government, society, higher education institutions and students, this study first differentiates and analyses higher education quality concepts and quality monitoring concepts as ideaistic foundation, then summarizes several representative international higher education quality monitoring patterns and the general trend as experiential reference, and finally focuses on the rational reflection and reconstruction of agent-based Chinese higher education quality monitoring mechanism.Upwards, certain quality concepts lead to relevant objective and behavioral patterns. Along with the three phases of quality concept, which developed from "up-to-regulation" to "up-to-need", and then to "up-to-progress", the purpose of quality management changes from "control" to "service", and then to "improvement" as well. Current higher education quality monitoring mechanism in China, which aimed at "serving" multi-agents, is supposed to fully consider the mass higher education quality concepts of expansibility, diversity, integrity and adaptability on one hand, and on the other coordinate and combine the multi value inclinations of government resource-and-efficiency-centered, society ability-centered, higher education institutions knowledge-centered and students consumption-and -return-centered.Outwards, rich experience from other countries is a valuable source in decision-making. Although diverse social political, economic and cultural traditions and higher education administration systems result in distinct foreign higher education quality monitoring mechanisms, no matter government control pattern in France, society leading pattern in U.S., or first university autonomy and then government-university cooperation patterns in U.K., they all change toward multi-agent balance pattern, characterized by mutually restrictive and balanced powers, convergent interests, and coordinative and collaborative agencies.Inwards, ideas and experience are both prepared for ultimate self-examination and improvement. Our actual higher education quality monitoring system is dominated by the government. The main problems existing are single monitoring agent, unbalanced power structure, absent social agencies. It is necessary to construct a agent-based higher education quality monitoring mechanism consisting of governmental macro-regulation, social multi-supervision and higher education institutions' whole-process control, especially to strengthen provincial government monitoring, establish and develop social agencies, and promote self-discipline of higher education group. Furthermore, students' rights to monitor quality should be realized by multi-forms including students' teaching evaluation, involvement in institutional evaluation and student communicators, student autonomic quality monitoring organizations, and authoritative and normative policies and regulations, all of which are further and required steps to improve agent-based higher education quality monitoring mechanism in our country.