Higher education refers to professional education and vocational education based on the completion of secondary education, and it is the main social activity to train senior professionals and professionals. Higher education is one of the important interrelated components in the education system.
It usually includes all kinds of educational institutions whose main tasks and activities are high-level learning and training, teaching, research and social services. The second half of the 20th century is an unusual stage of expansion and qualitative change in the development history of higher education. The rapid growth of society's demand for senior professionals and the urgent need of individuals for higher education opportunities make higher education develop at an unprecedented speed, from elite education to mass education.
The National Education Development Research Center divides universities in China into four types:
(1) research university. It refers to a university that provides a comprehensive bachelor's degree course, puts research first, and is committed to high-level personnel training and scientific research and development (that is, a university with the same number of graduate students as undergraduates or a large proportion of graduate students).
(2) Teaching and research universities. The teaching level of such universities is mainly undergraduate and master students. Some professions with strong industry can recruit some doctoral students, but they cannot train junior college students.
(3) Teaching universities. The main body of such schools is undergraduate teaching, and there are a small number of graduate students or junior college students under special circumstances.
(4) College and higher vocational education. This kind of school embodies the most flexible part of higher education in school and specialty setting, mainly to meet the needs of local economic construction and social development.