China, People's Republic of: Accelerating the Reform of Application-Oriented Undergraduate Programs at Local Universities in Yunnan Province

Education / Tertiary

The PRC's higher education system the largest in the world in terms of number of higher education institutions (HEIs) and students has been growing rapidly, contributing to remarkable economic growth. Yet as the economy undergoes fundamental transformation and its growth has slowed, structural issues with the PRC's higher education system have become more prominent. These include homogenization of colleges and universities, difficulties of graduates with finding employment, and insufficient capacity of HEIs for innovation and entrepreneurship. Against this background, the Ministry of Education issued guidelines for provincial governments to rationalize the higher education system by establishing a system for classifying HEIs, and to transform some local colleges and universities to offer application-oriented undergraduate programs which integrate discipline-oriented education and professionally oriented practical training through university enterprise cooperation and meet the needs of local socioeconomic development. At the same time, research universities were guided to enhance global competitiveness and state-of-the-art disciplines.

Bordering Viet Nam, Lao People's Democratic Republic, and Myanmar, Yunnan Province forms part of the PRC's poor and underdeveloped western region. Its higher education system, comprising 79 HEIs (77 colleges and universities, and 2 adult education colleges), has been unbalanced in their capacity to meet the needs of local socioeconomic development, and graduates face difficulties with getting employed. When Yunnan Provincial Department of Education (PDE) initiated the reform of application-oriented undergraduate programs in 2008, HEIs in Yunnan Province were undifferentiated from each other in programs they offered, particularly due to the upgrading of many three-year colleges to four-year colleges and universities (local universities) after 2000. Since then, Yunnan PDE has pursued a series of reforms to align the higher education system with skills needs in local and regional labor markets. For example, in 2014, ahead of the Ministry of Education's guidelines, Yunnan PDE started to pilot the reform of application-oriented undergraduate programs at nine local universities. In 2016, it introduced a HEI classification system to comprehensively reform the higher education system, while it has started to develop world-class universities in 2018. Moreover, Yunnan Province strives to promote international cooperation in higher education, with emphasis on cooperation with Southeast Asian countries (the Belt and Road Initiative).

At present, all local universities are guided to implement the reform of application-oriented undergraduate programs in Yunnan Province. Despite achievements, the pilot reforms indicate challenges and issues, including:

(i) difficulties with adapting professionally oriented majors and clusters (i.e., groups of majors) fully in line with the needs of local industries due in part to time lag between the pace of industry transformation and upgrading and that of curriculum, teaching force, and training materials and facility development and upgrading, and to insufficient university enterprise cooperation;

(ii) inadequate university entrance exam system based on discipline-oriented majors and graduation exam system based on thesis, as opposed to the emphasis on professionally oriented practical training in application-oriented undergraduate programs;

(iii) underdeveloped capacity for training human resources to promote cooperation with Southeast Asian countries and implement the Belt and Road Initiative;

(iv) limited public funds to develop practical training, innovation, and entrepreneurship facilities;

(v) constraints on the autonomy of local universities, particularly that of public universities to seek funding other than from the government;

(vi) unclear legal rights and obligations of the parties involved in university enterprise cooperation.

These challenges and issues are compounded by lack of policy frameworks at the national and provincial levels for different types of universities (public, private, independent schools and institutes subordinate to universities) which are coordinated with other policy areas, to accelerate the reform of application-oriented undergraduate programs at local universities.

Status of the reform of application-oriented undergraduate programs at local universities assessed

Good practices and lessons learned on the reform of application-oriented undergraduate programs documented and disseminated

Policy recommendations on accelerating the reform of application-oriented undergraduate programs at local universities in line with local industry transformation and upgrading plans developed

Methodology and tools for assessing the status of the reform of application-oriented undergraduate programs at 31 local universities were discussed with Yunnan Provincial Education Department (YPDE) and local universities in January 2019 and finalized in early March 2019. Data collection for the assessment was carried out in June-July 2019. The final assessment report was discussed with YPDE and accepted in June 2020.

Under output 2, extensive field work and a series of small workshops were originally planned for carrying out in-depth case study of local universities and identifying good practices and lessons in the reform of application-oriented undergraduate programs. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, the original plan to conduct extensive field work and a series of small workshops had to be revised. Together with the resource persons appointed by YPDE, field work and workshops to collect and analyze data for the case studies of local universities were conducted in March 2021. Case studies of universities in other province were also conducted in March 2021. The interim report 1 which includes the methodology and tools of case studies, case studies, and materials and summary of discussions at workshops on case studies is expected in April 2021.

The TA closing date has been extended to June 2021 due to the delays caused by the coronavirus outbreaks.