文革後中国の高等教育機関をめぐる政策

While policies of how to offer opportunities for higher education in China are basically determined by manpower needs, two principles, puji (popularization) and tigao (raising of standards) are taken into account in the process of policy decision and execution. This paper reviews recent policies on the access to higher education with emphasis on the changes in balance between the two principles above.

In December 1977, the system of nationwide competitive college entrance examinations was revived. Since then, China's policy has been one of "trial and error", and it has carried out a policy of student recruitment for a couple of years. This paper scrutinizes the yearly regulations on student recruitment. In revising the requirements for college applicants, the raising of standards of quality was pursued exclusively. The policy that was initiated was intended to be compleately different from the policy pursued during the Cultural Revolution.

In order to increase the number of college seats, students were admitted of a previously non-existant, non-residential, commuting student status, to the point of exceeding the student quota "planned" in advance. However, such an effort cannot effectively resolve the problem of the small capacity of existing full-time institutions of higher education. Only about four percent of upper-middle school graduates can be admitted to these institutions. Moreover, with the present economic condition in China, it is not possible to predict a significant growth in educational budget, part of which is allotted to enlarging the scale of full-time higher education.

Accordingly, means other than full-time institutions of higher education had to be sought so that the enlargement of higher education might be realized. Such means or efforts include TV colleges, education by correspondance, evening colleges, and sparetime colleges. Self-teaching has been encouraged and the certificate examination system was introduced. This paper explains these efforts and describes the efforts by China through some analyses of the frequency in appearance and the content of newspaper articles related to the topic.