Of course, the United States also has university rankings. American News and World Report magazine ranks the best universities in the United States every year, and this issue is usually very expensive in Luoyang, which has become the necessary information for American parents and high school students to choose schools. But their list is not only the ranking of these schools, but also the comprehensive consideration of professional list, research level and student quality. In addition, in addition to the well-known Ivy League schools in China, the majors of many colleges are far higher than those of Harvard, Yale and Columbia University. Although this ranking has become an important battlefield for the competition of prestigious schools and parents to choose schools, it is more like a guide for students to find their own interests and career orientation.
At least, in my opinion, Professor Gan Yang, Dean of College of Literature, Sun Yat-sen University, is not opposed to building a world-class university, but his path to building a world-class university is different from ordinary people.
In his book Universities in Civilized Countries, he not only expounded China's theory of "connecting the three systems", but also repeatedly demonstrated that the general education for undergraduates and the way to build a world-class university are topics.
In Gan Yang's view, at present, the construction direction of China University is not to be a world-class university, but to be a "third-rate, fourth-rate or even mediocre university". The main evidence is:
First, China's universities do not encourage and train domestic teachers in terms of system and evaluation criteria, but are keen to introduce graduates from famous foreign universities. This makes the whole teacher resources westernized, unable to establish an educational force belonging to its own system, and can only follow the ass of foreign education;
Secondly, the main evaluation criteria of China's current academic research achievements are only keen to publish in English in foreign academic journals. Due to the limitation of language ability and research objects, the level of academic research is low in the world. He advocated publishing in Chinese, constructing China's own academic periodical system, and forming academic evaluation standards independent of the West. Only in this way can we be independent of the western academic system and build a world-class university that belongs to China culture itself.
It can be said that Professor Gan Yang came back after killing an enemy camp, although he had a long experience as a foreign teacher. It has become a deep-water bomb against the western education system.
In the matter of education, I am a complete outsider, neither in the education management system, nor in the front line of education, and even have no experience in education. However, as a public who cares about the education system and its reform, I deeply doubt-both in theory and in practice-Professor Gan Yang's education system reform with a strong sense of self-reliance.
Of course, Professor Gan Yang is not a fundamentalist of educational localization. When he criticized the reform plan of Peking University in 2003, he once envisaged the employment standards of Peking University: "First, it is mainly for domestic doctors; Second, when recruiting doctors studying in the United States, we mainly recruit those who specialize in Western learning ... Third, under normal circumstances, we will not hire those doctors studying in China. " However, even so, I am afraid of Gan Yang's self-reliance system against western education.
As a member of the public, I have completely different standards and requirements for world-class universities in China from those of Professor Gan Yang, and I believe many people have the same aspirations as me.
One is that our university is an educational institution with independent thinking and academic freedom. I think this is the most basic element to become a world-class university. Of course, such educational institutions have a complete mechanism to ensure it. Their sources of funds are not all from state funds, their management institutions are independent of the administrative system, their principals are not appointed by the government, their teachers do not have to accept national projects, their professors are responsible for their own research, and their students have sound minds ... The school management system is thus separated from the administrative system, and principals and school administrators are responsible for the long-term of the school, not government agencies. Therefore, the long-term interests of the school can be guaranteed, and they must maintain the purity of the school instead of desperately expanding enrollment; The vitality of professor research is generating; Students get rid of the shackles of China's revolutionary history and Marxist journalism, and look for their own interests and careers.
Secondly, our university must cultivate students' souls and spirits. All our universities today, from Tsinghua's first-class Fudan University and Peking University, to primary schools that were not included in later plans, are only vocational training schools. Infinitely meticulous in the division of majors, completely lacking in the cultivation of humanistic spirit and social consciousness. Most of us have hardly read any famous books, whether abroad or at home; We don't care about the changes in the values and world outlook of this world; We have not cultivated the noble and kind spirit, whether it is the gentry ethics in China or the gentleman spirit abroad. In order to continue the most important temperament of human beings, universities let students explore by instinct and die. Professor Gan Yang is fully aware of this, and it is in this respect that he advocates general education. However, he also admitted that China's efforts in the past 10 years were all in vain.
Third, the educational achievements of universities should meet the needs of society. The bread here has two meanings: first, as the knowledge distribution center of the society, the university should provide the explanation and direction of social development for the society, which involves the actions of school teachers and researchers; Another meaning is that graduates should be able to adapt to and improve the current level of social development. In the book "The Rise of Modern American Universities", the author Weiser wrote: "(Universities) should be cautious again and again to ensure that the research of their learned people is devoted to promoting the common welfare of the people; It should organize its affairs in an effective way so as to reassure any industrialist or congressman who happens to walk into the campus; It should be the main place where you can't get abstract pleasure-for singing and cheering, for club life ceremony and' appropriate' speech; It should be a place where almost everyone stomps their feet with a low beat when the brass band plays relaxed and infectious music. " In other words, universities should become a part of the whole social system, not a part of it.
Fourthly, whether universities occupy a place in the whole national and even international education system and become a sacred place for the world to admire, the public to obey, the professors to return, and the students to be the first. Every world-class university is proud of its independent academic status, unique school culture, unique alumni glory and the cruel environment of social employment competition.
These standards I mentioned seem to contradict the question of "world-class universities" put forward by Professor Gan Yang, and are far from Qin Qiong, but I don't think so. Why does the current university education system in China cause such a dilemma? The bottom layer lies in its inherent "self-reliance" impulse and self, refusing and resisting the conventions and universal rules integrated into the world education system.
As for the English thesis system proposed by Professor Gan Yang, one is really the peripheral details, and the other is the system. If China's education system has the freedom and autonomy to set up an unaudited core periodical system, why don't professors in China express their opinions in Chinese? To tell the truth, on many issues about China, I talked to foreign experts as an outsider, and it felt like casting pearls before swine, not to mention those professors and scholars with unique skills? On the other hand, China researchers in China still have a long way to go in the methodology and logic formed in the United States over the past 200 years: Yuwen Suoan, who studies China literature, Shi Jingqian, who studies China history, Fei Zhengqing, who studies China politics, and Xie Henai, who studies Chinese society. How many China scholars have been compared?
I often think that China's intellectual elites are increasingly suspected of being behind closed doors and despising society (not the public). They usually think that universities and research are the model of a few elites and do not need to tell the public. But we should know that there is an essential difference between academic independence from society and academic separation from society. If college students who dominate the future of society are abruptly cultivated by a group of elites who despise society, how can they take the common welfare of society as their career and spiritual guidance?
(This article only represents the author's own views.