The rapid growth of China's higher education has created a bunch of problems; an administration-oriented university system, poor quality universities, and a lack of creativity in many schools.
The key to tackling these problems, Wu Zhipan, vice president of Peking University, recently stressed, is establishing and improving a “modern university system." This system could define the relationship between university, government and the market, and design a better power structure inside the schools to further good management. Wu called for domestic universities not only to learn lessons from prestigious foreign schools, but also to make the most of educational resources with Chinese characteristics.
Wu highlighted three ideas that fit China's local conditions. One is that schools need to provide comprehensive benefits, including healthcare and pensions, for staff. Although subsidies have improved in the last decades, foreign schools with higher salaries are still much more attractive, making it hard to maintain talent.
Wu also stressed that collective decision-making and formal management mechanisms can still play a positive role in higher education, and that Chinese universities need to give unconditional support for schools, like the University of Tibet in China's underdeveloped western regions, in order to close the gap and help impoverished students and teachers there.
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