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China Changes in Enrollment and Assignment Policies
The student enrollment and graduate assignment system also was
changed to reflect more closely the personnel needs of
modernization. By 1986 the state was responsible for drafting the
enrollment plan, which took into account future personnel demands,
the need to recruit students from outlying regions, and the needs
of trades and professions with adverse working conditions.
Moreover, a certain number of graduates to be trained for the
People's Liberation Army were included in the state enrollment
plan. In most cases, enrollment in higher education institutions at
the employers' request was extended as a supplement to the state
student enrollment plan. Employers were to pay a percentage of
training fees, and students were to fulfill contractual obligations
to the employers after graduation. The small number of students who
attended colleges and universities at their own expense could be
enrolled in addition to those in the state plan.
Accompanying the changes in enrollment practices were reforms,
adopted in 1986, in the faculty appointment system, which ended the
"iron rice bowl" (see Glossary)
employment system and gave colleges
and universities freedom to decide what departments, majors, and
numbers of teachers they needed. Teachers in institutions of higher
learning were hired on a renewable contract basis, usually for two
to four years at a time. The teaching positions available on basis
were teaching assistant, lecturer, associate professor, and
professor. The system was tested in eight major universities in
Beijing and Shanghai before it was instituted nationwide at the end
of 1985. University presidents headed groups in charge of
appointing professors, lecturers, and teaching assistants according
to their academic levels and teaching abilities, and a more
rational wage system, geared to different job levels, was
inaugurated. Universities and colleges with surplus professors and
researchers were advised to grant them appropriate academic titles
and encourage them to work for their current pay in schools of
higher learning where they were needed. The new system was to be
extended to schools of all kinds and other education departments
within two years.
Under the 1985 reforms, all graduates were assigned jobs by the
state; a central government placement agency told the schools where
to send graduates. By 1985 Qinghua University and a few other
universities were experimenting with a system that allowed
graduates to accept job offers or to look for their own positions.
For example, of 1,900 Qinghua University graduates in 1985, 1,200
went on to graduate school, 48 looked for their own jobs, and the
remainder were assigned jobs by the school after consultation with
the students. The college students and postgraduates scheduled to
graduate in 1986 were assigned primarily to work in forestry,
education, textiles, and the armaments industry. Graduates still
were needed in civil engineering, computer science, finance, and
English.
Data as of July 1987
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