- Beth Holcombe, STIP Project Coordinator

March 6, 2008

Xue Lan Lecture

Professor Xue Lan of Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, spoke to our group last week Friday.  He was topic was Reform and Expansion: Challenges and Opportunities for China’s Higher Education System.  However, he touched on more than just educational reform.  Since the late 1970s, China has been overhauling its fundamental structure in many areas, including: education, government, and the economy.  As these areas are all intertwined and interdependent, they affect one another to a large degree. 

Xue began by addressing economic reform in China.  In the past thirty years, China's economy has undergone a transformation from a central planning to a market system.  This once mostly agrarian economy has moved into the manufacturing and service industries.  The figures Xue presented were astonishing.  China's economic makeup currently stands at: agriculture 12%, manufacturing 47%, and service 40%. That is an enormous change from the mid 20th century.

Likewise, the governance structure has also been undergoing a metamorphosis.  At village and township levels, local officials have experimented with direct elections.  There are been many administrative and legal reforms, including public hearings.  The government has launched several anti-corruption campaigns in an effort to clean house.

These changes, as well as overt educational reforms, have rocked the boat of Chinese education.  Before the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, there were about a hundred universities.  In the period directly after the PRC was established, leaders instituted widespread university reform on a Russian model, combing some existing universities and creating new ones.  The original intent was for the cultivation of politically reliable and professional competent students, who would, in time, see to the running of the fledgling nation.  Internal strife and national setbacks proved to be an insurmountable obstacle for a time and China's education system shut down for a time.  In the late 1970s, new leadership, re-forged international relationships, and the desire for quick, achievable progress worked together to reform Chinese education.

Modern Chinese universities  no longer make political reliability their ultimate goal.  The new goal is to achieve international standing, create new knowledge, and produce genuine scholars.  The result of these new aims has been a highly innovated system that generates tremendous research opportunities.  More advanced research feeds directly into the development of new systems and new technologies, and the new overall policy for research in China is to serve the needs of the market.  Direct university to industry linkages are creating scholar-entrepreneurs.

I found Xue Lan's talk to be very informative.  Having spent some time working at a school in China, I have seen the effects of educational reform with my own eyes, albeit on a different level.  Xue's insights into the future of Chinese education and, in particular, its universities, were very illuminating.  I was unaware the university scholars were so closely connected to leaders of industry.  All in all, a fascinating talk.

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Science and Technology in the Pacific Century

A joint research initiative of the University of Illinois and Indiana University

Coordinating offices:

Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Illinois

East Asian Studies Center, Indiana University

The STIP project explores shifts in the location of leading scientific research towards East Asian institutions, which is likely in this century to affect scientific practice and have significant impact on East Asia and the West.  the project objective is to build intellectual capacity and academic coordination on these topics.