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China Modernization Goals in the 1980s
The commitment to the Four Modernizations required great
advances in science and technology. Under the modernization
program, higher education was to be the cornerstone for training
and research. Because modernization depended on a vastly increased
and improved capability to train scientists and engineers for
needed breakthroughs, the renewed concern for higher education and
academic quality--and the central role that the sciences were
expected to play in the Four Modernizations--highlighted the need
for scientific research and training. This concern can be traced to
the critical personnel shortages and qualitative deficiencies in
the sciences resulting from the unproductive years of the Cultural
Revolution, when higher education was shut down. In response to the
need for scientific training, the Sixth Plenum of the Twelfth
National Party Congress Central Committee, held in September 1986,
adopted a resolution on the guiding principles for building a
socialist society that strongly emphasized the importance of
education and science.
Reformers realized, however, that the higher education system
was far from meeting modernization goals and that additional
changes were
needed. The Provisional Regulations Concerning the Management of
Institutions of Higher Learning, promulgated by the State Council
in 1986, initiated vast changes in administration and adjusted
educational opportunity, direction, and content. With the increased
independence accorded under the education reform, universities and
colleges were able to choose their own teaching plans and
curricula; to accept projects from or cooperate with other
socialist establishments for scientific research and technical
development in setting up "combines" involving teaching, scientific
research, and production; to suggest appointments and removals of
vice presidents and other staff members; to take charge of the
distribution of capital construction investment and funds allocated
by the state; and to be responsible for the development of
international exchanges by using their own funds.
The changes also allowed the universities to accept financial
aid from work units and decide how this money was to be used
without asking for more money from departments in charge of
education. Further, higher education institutions and work units
could sign contracts for the training of students.
Higher education institutions also were assigned a greater role
in running interregional and interdepartmental schools. Within
their state-approved budgets, universities secured more freedom to
allocate funds as they saw fit and to use income from tuition and
technical and advisory services for their own development,
including collective welfare and bonuses.
There also was a renewed interest in television, radio, and
correspondence classes. Some of the courses, particularly in the
college-run factories, were serious, full-time enterprises, with a
two-to three-year curriculum.
Data as of July 1987
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