Abstract
This article addresses the rapidly changing situation in higher education in the People's Republic of China. Although it is impossible to predict the nature of the final product, there can be little doubt that the present vibrant period of intellectual searching and questioning in China is having beneficial effects on Chinese higher education, and on educational exchange with foreign universities. The article examines the state of higher education in China today and investigates why, rather than just the “ten bad years” of a Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) for the entire country, higher education has suffered from a full “twenty bad years.” The effects of constant changes in the Party line and the use of class struggle to achieve objectives in higher education are examined as they relate to university administration, curriculum, the university structure, faculty, and libraries. The article focuses on the issues that are now being raised, and the parameters within which future changes in higher education will occur.
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Ogden, S. Higher education in the People's Republic of China: New directions in the 1980s. High Educ 11, 85–109 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00162801
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00162801