International Higher Education, Spring 2005

World-Class Universities and Chinese Higher Education Reform

Kathryn Mohrman
Kathryn Mohrman is executive director of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, in the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, at Johns Hopkins University. Address: 1619 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036 USA. E-mail: kmohrman@jhu.edu.

China’s leaders are eager to have a higher education system of international stature, in part to provide top-quality education for future leaders of the nation and in part to earn greater respect in the global community. In 1998, then President Jiang Zemin announced the goal of building world-class universities in China; subsequently, several top universities received special three-year grants for quality improvements under what is called the 985 Project. For example, Peking and Tsinghua Universities both received 1.8 billion yuan (U.S.$225 million) in the first round of special 985 funding, while Fudan, Zhejiang, and Nanjing Universities received 1.2 billion yuan (U.S.$150 million) each. These grants are awarded in addition to special support provided by the 211 Project, an effort to develop 100 top universities for the 21st century. The 985 Project reflects a conscious strategy to concentrate resources on a handful of institutions with the greatest potential for success in the international academic marketplace. Also, the 985 Project implies recognition that China will probably fail to develop 100 internationally recognized institutions, at least in the short run.

International Competitiveness
No agreed-upon definition exists of what constitutes a world-class university, although Chinese academics point most often to greater acceptance of research in international journals, especially in the natural and physical sciences. Other criteria for excellence parallel the wish list of American universities—more buildings, more publications, up-to-date laboratory equipment, star professors, and, always, more money.

The consideration of world-class status within China seems largely imitative rather than creative. In striving for international standing, top Chinese universities compare themselves with Oxford, Yale, and the Sorbonne, although they lack the centuries’ long history of Western universities. In addition, many European and North American universities enjoy financial resources that Chinese universities can only envy. Thus it is unlikely that even the top universities in China can compete directly in many areas of academic life.

At the same time, China has a long tradition of scholarship, albeit of a different kind than Western research, yet few Chinese academics today talk about areas in which Chinese scholars have a comparative advantage. The emphasis on the natural and physical sciences forces Chinese professors to play catch-up to Western research; greater attention to the humanities and social sciences could draw upon China’s traditional strengths. It would be quite interesting to learn of a new definition of a world-class university that is not simply an imitation of Harvard but a creative blend of the best of East and West.

Defining the World-Class University
The definition of a world-class university is a topic on which many university leaders have commented. Ambrose King, former vice chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, provides three characteristics of a great university. First, it has faculty regularly publishing their research in the top “defining” journals in their respective disciplines. Second, the graduate student body is truly international in origin. And third, the graduates are employable anywhere in the world.

A different perspective comes from Ruth Simmons, president of Brown University, in an article entitled “How to Make a World-Class University” (South China Morning Post, January 18, 2003). She believes that an excellent university system must be grounded in the culture of the society in which it is located. Universities, she believes, are important institutions to help societies further their specific goals. She emphasizes that “the bedrock of university quality in the United States is peer review, a system in which standards are set by leaders of the field and those leaders are themselves challenged and judged by this process.”

Simmons continues by looking toward the future. “Universities promote the capacity of scholars to develop original work that is not immediately applicable or useful. Great universities are not only useful in their own time but in preparing for future times. What allows a great university to do that is as little interference from the state as possible. The role of the state is to provide resources but to give wide latitude to universities’ leaders to decide how scholarship is to advance.” And, finally, she cautions that “education should never become an assembly line. Once it does, you may have a certain level of production, but you will never get the volume of creative thinkers that make a democratic society work.”

A third description of world-class universities is presented by Philip Altbach in “The Costs and Benefits of World-Class Universities” (Academe, January-February 2004). He lists a series of characteristics as benchmarks for an analysis of international competitive status: (1) Excellence in research; (2) excellent faculty with job security, appropriate salaries and benefits, and adequate facilities; (3) academic freedom and an atmosphere of intellectual excitement; (4) freedom to pursue knowledge; (5) a significant measure of internal self-governance; and (6) consistent and substantial public financial support.

In each case, these academic leaders are talking about qualitative and quantitative factors, an ethos of intellectual exploration and creativity, and a focus on the long-term role of universities as well as the short-term contributions that institutions can make to their society. An internationally recognized scholarly ethos, however, may take longer to develop than many academic or political leaders in China are willing to admit. Simply buying state-of-the-art laboratory equipment or pushing for more journal articles will not guarantee the kind of intellectual atmosphere that has developed over centuries on European and American campuses. A number of Chinese academic leaders acknowledge this reality when they say that it will take a generation to create truly world-class universities in China.

The Desire for World-Class Standing
The discussion of world-class universities has led analysts of Chinese higher education to ask about the long-term consequences of grafting Western academic practices onto a Chinese base. Will these changes also lead Chinese universities to adopt the highly individualistic ethos that characterizes American institutions, with all the institutional frustrations that ethos entails? Will those values spill over into the larger society with unintended consequences? Will government bureaucracies allow practices that promote academic freedom in the Western sense? Will Chinese academics continue to look outside their borders for standards of excellence, which would imply that Western educational norms are superior and that Chinese universities remain inferior? And, at the extreme, what will distinguish a Chinese university from its international peers once it achieves world-class status?

Note: This article is based on a chapter in the forthcoming volume, Bridging Minds Across the Pacific: U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978–2003, edited by Cheng Li, to be published by Lexington Books in March 2005.