(A) the background of college enrollment expansion (internal cause)
Education is a complex social phenomenon, and the reasons for the introduction of the enrollment expansion policy in colleges and universities are also complex and multifaceted, which cannot be explained only from a single aspect. Therefore, the following is a concrete analysis of the social development background that affects the enrollment expansion policy of colleges and universities in China.
First, the inevitable trend of higher education itself. The expansion of higher education is determined by its own development, because educational behavior itself has its own unique motivation and logic of its own development. Popularization is the requirement and result of its own development.
The second is the result of economic constraints. The development of higher education is restricted by economic development, and its scale is balanced with the level of economic development. Higher education should adapt to the rapid development of economy. Before 1999, the government strictly controlled the enrollment of colleges and universities, and the development of colleges and universities seriously lagged behind the economic development, so it was imperative to expand the enrollment of colleges and universities at that time. With the rapid development of economy, the proportion of labor force has changed as follows: the proportion of highly educated labor force has increased rapidly, and the tertiary industry will gradually increase the proportion of intelligence-intensive economy and high-quality labor force. The scale of talents trained by higher education must meet the needs of the transformation of the proportion of technology-intensive and intelligence-intensive labor force to meet the needs of social and economic development.
Third, the demographic factor: a large population is a major feature of our country, and it is also an indisputable fact that poor countries run large-scale education. This not only brings a heavy burden to basic education and secondary education, but also brings great pressure to higher education. The influence of population on higher education is mainly manifested in: with the completion of nine-year compulsory education, people's demand for higher education is getting stronger and stronger. In recent years, although China has been expanding the enrollment scale, it still cannot meet the urgent requirements of students and parents.
Fourth, political factors: In the face of increasingly fierce international competition, many governments regard revitalizing education as a basic national policy facing the new century, and our government also takes rejuvenating the country through science and education as the top priority. 1999 In the first spring, the "Knowledge Innovation Project" of China Academy of Sciences, the national technological innovation system of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the "Action Plan for Education Revitalization Facing the 2 1 century" of the Ministry of Education were successively promulgated, which reflected the attitude of relevant state departments and fields to the challenge of knowledge economy and objectively contributed to the consensus atmosphere of Chinese people on key aspects such as strong economy, leading technology, basic education and talents. 1999 The theme of the national conference on education held by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council in June took improving the quality of the whole people and cultivating high-tech talents as an important task to meet the challenges of the new century.
(B) the direct cause of college enrollment expansion
The background of the enrollment expansion policy in colleges and universities is 1998 Asian financial crisis. Since the outbreak of the financial crisis, China's economy has been very depressed, and the social employment pressure is quite high. Under this economic background, out of the need of stimulating domestic demand, stimulating consumption, promoting economic growth and alleviating employment pressure (at least this is the most direct motivation), the policy of expanding enrollment in colleges and universities is launched in due course. 1June 199916th, the former State Planning Commission and the Ministry of Education jointly issued an urgent notice, deciding199 that China's higher education will expand by 337,000 students on the basis of the expansion of 230,000 students at the beginning of the year, so that the total enrollment of ordinary colleges and universities will reach1530,000 students. From 65438 to 0999, the enrollment of ordinary colleges and universities increased by 42%.
It can be said that the policy of expanding enrollment in colleges and universities was the necessity of social development and social background at that time, and the financial crisis of 1998 gave this policy an opportunity. The introduction of this policy at this time not only solved the long-term social and economic development problem, but also solved the economic employment problem at that time.
Second, the achievements and problems of the enrollment expansion policy in colleges and universities
(A) the effectiveness of the enrollment expansion policy in colleges and universities
Since the implementation of the enrollment expansion policy in Chinese colleges and universities from 65438 to 0999, the enrollment scale of colleges and universities has been expanding, and the number of students has increased sharply, which has met people's growing demand for higher education, provided a large number of talents for the society and promoted China's economic development. The expansion of college enrollment conforms to the development trend of the times, which makes China's higher education gradually popular.
1, mass education replaces elite education
The enrollment expansion ratio of 1999 is as high as 47%, and it will increase at the rate of 25%, 17% and 10% respectively in the following three years. In 2002, the gross enrollment rate of higher education in China reached 15%, which entered the internationally recognized stage of popularization. By 2005, the number of college students had reached 5.3 million. In 2006, the enrollment scale of higher education reached 5.4 million. At the same time, the enrollment expansion of colleges and universities has given rural children, especially those from poor groups, more opportunities to go to school, so that the desire of knowledge to change their destiny can be realized. The college enrollment rate rose from 5% to 15%, then to 20% and then to 23%. It took only five or six years for us to go from elite higher education to mass higher education, while it usually takes twenty or thirty years or more in western countries.
2. Relieve employment pressure and stimulate investment and consumption.
Since the expansion of enrollment, a large number of college graduates have entered the job market, which has greatly improved the quality of employees, accelerated the transformation of China from a populous country to a country with human resources, and further enhanced the international competitiveness of China's human resources. The enrollment expansion of colleges and universities has greatly increased the enrollment rate of senior high schools, eased the huge employment pressure, and actively and effectively played the role of higher education as a labor reservoir, which is a major event that benefits the country and the people.
In a word, the sustained and healthy development of higher education not only gives thousands of urban and rural youth the opportunity to go to college, but also provides a platform for tens of millions of ordinary families to develop and improve their lives. It is also of great strategic significance for implementing the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education and strengthening the country through talents and promoting the coordinated development of China's economy and society.
(B) Problems and causes of the expansion of colleges and universities
With the promotion of the enrollment expansion policy in colleges and universities, this policy has also brought a series of social problems.
1, the economic level of China is still relatively low, and the rapid expansion of colleges and universities exceeds the economic capacity. The improvement of gross enrollment rate of higher education needs a certain level of economic development as the foundation. The development speed and scale of higher education are in line with a country's economic development level. The scale of China's higher education is developing too fast, limited by the national economic level, the investment in education funds can't meet the development needs, and the facilities such as university buildings, canteens, classrooms and laboratories can't keep up. At the same time, colleges and universities are faced with the situation that the hardware facilities are not enough and the software facilities can't keep up, especially the growth of the number of teachers can't keep up with the growth of the number of students, which makes the quality of teachers and teaching not guaranteed. These lead to the decline of education level and affect the coordinated development of higher education. 2. The enrollment expansion of colleges and universities does not meet the social demand for talents. With the enrollment expansion of college students entering the job market, the employment problem of college students has become increasingly prominent, and a considerable proportion of graduates can not find jobs in time every year. Although the enrollment expansion of colleges and universities is not the fundamental reason for the difficulty of college students' employment, it has a certain impact on their employment. The enrollment expansion of colleges and universities makes the supply of college students increase rapidly in a short time. Under the condition that the demand does not increase in the same proportion, the supply exceeds the demand, which makes it difficult for college graduates to find jobs and the salary level drops. It has become a fait accompli that graduates with expanded enrollment lower their employment standards after entering the job market, which leads to "diploma depreciation", higher education threshold in the job market and lower employment choices for college students, and this phenomenon is becoming more and more obvious with the increase of the number of college students.
Third, policy suggestions on expanding the scale of China University.
Reflecting on the gains and losses of enrollment expansion in the past 12 years, in the process of enrollment expansion in colleges and universities in the future, the focus of the scale policy of enrollment expansion in colleges and universities in China is to adjust ideas and objectives and make careful decisions. Specifically, there are the following suggestions:
(A) improve the scientific nature of educational decision-making.
Judging from the development of China's higher education in the past 50 years, the decision to expand enrollment in colleges and universities is accidental and often lacks sufficient feasibility demonstration, which leads to some fluctuations in the development track of China's higher education. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the scientific nature of educational decision-making and avoid the ups and downs of the scale of colleges and universities. To formulate the enrollment expansion policy of colleges and universities, we should fully consider demand and supply, and make reasonable decisions according to China's actual national conditions and changes in international forms.
(2) Follow the law of higher education development and take the road of all-round development.
The development of higher education is not only influenced by external economy and politics, but also restricted by the development law of education itself, and its development is relatively independent. When dealing with the relationship between higher education growth and economic growth, and the relationship between higher education growth and political influence, we should strive to coordinate the relationship between quantity, quality, structure and benefit of higher education development. The increase of quantity is the primary factor, which does not necessarily lead to the decline of quality. As long as we avoid the bubble increase of quantity while expanding quantity, we should pay attention to the improvement of education quality. The structure should be reasonable, optimize the allocation of higher education resources, and give play to the scale benefit and structural benefit of higher education. Make full use of existing educational resources, tap the potential of existing facilities such as school buildings, canteens, classrooms and laboratories in colleges and universities, give full play to the advantages of socialization of logistics in colleges and universities, actively develop various forms of running schools such as vocational and technical schools and private colleges, and further improve supporting policies and measures such as scholarships, student loans, work-study programs and subsidies for difficulties. China's higher education must follow the law of its own development and take the road of stable, coordinated and healthy all-round development.
(C) to strengthen the construction of quality culture in colleges and universities
Higher education is a place to train high-level talents needed by society, and the quality of colleges and universities mainly refers to the quality of graduates trained. Therefore, colleges and universities must take the needs of social development as the standard, effectively combine talent training with graduates' employment, take social demand, market demand and employment demand as the guidance, do a good job of positioning themselves, establish a people-oriented multi-quality management concept, and build an employment-oriented quality management system around Socialism with Chinese characteristics's core value system to break the relatively closed and unconventional situation within colleges and universities.
(D) Good at learning from the experience of international higher education popularization.
A survey of the popularization process of higher education in major countries in the world shows that due to different national conditions and different political, economic and cultural backgrounds, the popularization process of international higher education presents different laws and characteristics, and the transformation of foreign higher education from elite to popularization has generally gone through a long period, and has been comprehensively influenced by many factors such as politics, economy and population. Therefore, when investigating the enrollment expansion policy of colleges and universities in China, we should also comprehensively consider various factors, learn from the experience of international higher education popularization, follow the law of higher education development, and improve the scientific decision-making of education.
Four. conclusion
Practice has proved that the rapid expansion of the scale of higher education has enabled us to go through the 30-year and 50-year history of other countries in 10 years, effectively promoting the improvement of China's human resources development level, promoting the sustained and rapid economic and social development, driving the multiplication of comprehensive national strength and international competitiveness, and also enabling China to seize the opportunities in the future international competition for science and technology, education and talents; Comply with the people's urgent desire to receive higher education. However, it is also necessary to strengthen and improve the government's macro-guidance and control means, so that popular higher education can better adapt to economic and social development, so that people can share better higher education resources and more equal higher education opportunities, and strive to run a satisfactory higher education for the people.