Enhancing China's Competitiveness Through Lifelong Learning ...

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22 Enhancing China’s Competitiveness Through Lifelong Learning But as the market required new skills, there was pressure to provide skills not being provided by traditional (and usually rigid) public education systems. Private formal educational institutions were more responsive to those needs. Some of these developed in response to concerns that formal public institutions were not providing the quality of education required. Others were oriented toward providing somewhat different values in education, such as religious schools or alternative schools. In addition, firms began to develop their own internal training programs. They also began to partner with formal educational institutions to provide specialized courses that met their needs. And in response to the demand for specific skills, all kinds of specialized training providers arose. Some were specialized public training institutions, but most were private, commercially oriented institutions. So both the demand and the supply of education and training markets have become more complex, making the governance and overall management of the system more important. In China, until the early 1990s, the government was essentially the only supplier of education and training. Now the system is much more complex, with thousands of nonpublic formal educational institutions and tens of thousands of nongovernment training providers. China’s lifelong learning system is seriously fragmented. The biggest part of the system is the formal education provided by the Ministry of Education. But many other ministries are still involved in the provision of education, including many sectoral ministries. Similarly, while training is provided primarily by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, many other ministries and organizations, such as the State Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Personnel, as well as trade unions, are also involved in training. In addition, there are multiple nongovernment domestic and foreign providers of education and training with their own standards and qualification systems. The government alone cannot build a lifelong learning system in China. It must involve multiple players and develop multiple pathways. This requires a broad partnership and a streamlined and effective governance structure. To this end, the government needs a major restructuring—from controller and provider to architect, coordinator, facilitator, integrator, monitor, innovator, and quality assuror. It will set the regulations, the rules of the game, the standards of quality, and the accreditation and monitoring system, making sure that the system works efficiently. Meanwhile, the private sector, intermediaries, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) need to be fully mobilized in the grand effort of providing lifelong learning. International experience suggests that a flexible and responsive education and training system should have fewer bodies involved in policy making and management, greater clarity in the roles of those bodies, and greater decentralization and coordination within the system. Revisiting the direct role of government Government provides such public goods as defense and basic education (substituting for markets), helping to regulate markets by providing clear rules of the game, transparency, accountability, and enforcement—and complements or creates missing markets (table 2.1). The government will have to do a better job providing universal compulsory education, which it is currently failing to do adequately. It will also have to set up the architecture for a comprehensive system of lifelong learning.
Table 2.1. Changing role of government in education and training for effective lifelong learning system Role of government Issues in education and training Current situation in China Proposed actions Public good (substituting for the market) Traditional justification when goods are not easily divisible Regulating the market Providing standards, rules of the game, and enforcement and accountability • Generally accepted that government should provide free basic education • Higher secondary and technical education have more elements of private goods so generally more open to private provision, but varies across countries • However, government still has role in public higher education in areas where it is too expensive and in important disciplines for which market demand may not be very high and there are strong externalities—for example, research universities • Setting core curriculum • Setting standards for advancing through different grades and graduation from different stages • Setting standards for certification of learners’ competencies, including vocational qualifications and national standards • Setting accreditation standards for formal educational institutions and training providers • Basic education through ninth grade compulsory but large regional inequalities in attaining goal • Government is not meeting public good function because decentralizing financing responsibility to provinces is very regressive because poor provinces cannot pay teachers • Government aims to expand public education to cover grades K–12 • Government has encouraged major expansion of higher education, which has been possible by charging tuition to public students • Private higher education has grown rapidly, especially in more remunerative disciplines, such as business, commerce, and information and communication technology (ICT) • Core curriculum is in many instances antiquated and needs to be modernized • Poor and incomplete student achievement tests • Incomplete national qualifications framework • Accreditation too focused on inputs rather than performance measures • Resistance to accrediting private education providers • Government should ensure it meets universal basic education; it will need some explicit transfer or subsidy policy for poorer provinces and townships • Government should encourage greater private and nongovernment provision of upper secondary and tertiary education; requires setting appropriate rules to provide sufficient incentives and transparency • Will also require putting in place more and better quality assurance mechanisms • Government will have to put greater attention on equity issues as private education grows • Revise and update curriculum • Improve assessment tests, including greater focus on functional assessments rather than standard achievement • Expand vocational qualifications framework, but do not do in isolation; instead, involve the employing industry in the development of qualifications standard • Include graduation rates and employment success in accreditation standards • Take more proactive role in accrediting private providers Developing a System of Lifelong Learning for China and the New Role for Government 23 (continued on next page)
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Instrument Description Main Variabl
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Annex 13 Tecnológico de Monterrey
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Tecnológico de Monterrey Virtual U
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References and Other Sources Adey,
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