Source: People’s Daily

On September 21, 2017, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance, and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly released a selected list of universities and colleges, which will participate in the country’s construction plan of world-class universities and first-class disciplines. The list has been highly anticipated across society, since two years ago when the Overall Plan on Comprehensively Advancing Construction of World-Class Universities and First-Class Disciplines was made public. Release of the list, that includes 42 universities which will be developed into first-class educational institutions and 95 universities which will focus on building their preponderant disciplines into first-rate ones, that marks the “Double First-Class” initiative finally enters a period of construction and kicks off a new journey for China’s higher education.

The“Double First-Class” Initiative Highlights Developing First-Class Universities with Chinese Characteristics

Worldwide experience in developing higher education shows that besides common traits, first-class universities have distinctive characteristics as well, which are what they exist on. The “Double First-Class” initiative is best characterized by the path of developing world-class universities with Chinese characteristics. Each university is encouraged to show its own features and contribute to the diversification of higher education. To adhere to Chinese characteristics and focus on construction of world-class universities, we must run universities based in China, vigorously explore a path suitable for developing world-class universities in China, and closely link the direction of China’s higher education with China’s development goal and future direction, so as to serve the people, serve the rule and governance of the CPC over China, serve the development of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, serve China’s reform, opening-up and socialist modernization move, and reflect the value pursuit of universities. The basic features of the path are right and are the core elements of the first-class universities with Chinese characteristics.

Since 1937 when Northern Shaanxi College was founded, the arduous process of the CPC’s development of new-type higher education has witnessed the critical transformation of its educational philosophy from class education to revolutionary education, national education, and finally to modern education. We shall be based on the historical process of the revolution, construction, and reform of the CPC, and always uphold the socialist direction of running schools and work to develop socialist universities with Chinese characteristics. At present, to build universities with Chinese characteristics, we shall make strengthening the Party’s leadership and construction the fundamental guarantee for college development, make the core socialist values the ideological cornerstone of college spirit, make the ideological and political work the unique advantages of training students at universities, make the president responsibility system under the leadership of the Party committee the core of the leadership system at universities, and make building the modern college system with Chinese characteristics the foundation for university governance. Those aspects differentiate Chinese universities from other universities in the world. Fundamentally speaking, Chinese universities must unswervingly adhere to the Party’s leadership and the socialist direction of running schools, comprehensively implement the Party’s educational guidelines and the requirements about “four serves”, earnestly shoulder the core mission of strengthening moral education and training people and actually address the fundamental issues about who will be trained, how to train them, and who they are trained for.

The “Double First-Class” Initiative Features Open Competition and the Change of Identity Concretion

Since the University of Bologna, the world’s first modern university, was founded in 1088 in Italy, the world’s higher education has undergone several development stages from knowledge instruction and talent training to scientific research, serving the society and civilization inheritance. With the expansion of its historical mission and functions, higher education has profoundly changed the history of human civilization. With the successive rise of several technological revolutions and industrial revolutions in history, the world’s center of higher education and scientific innovation has been successively transferred from Italy and the UK, to the US. Modern higher education has always been closely linked with the fate and revitalization of a nation. Behind the change of history always lies the competition among nations and rivalry about economy and culture.

Assessing the quality of running a university is a difficult issue, and the world has never seen a criterion or standard that can be recognized by all. Establishing a scientific assessment indicator system used to measure the level of running universities is a difficult problem, and to solve the problem, the principle of comprehensive assessment must be upheld. It’s noteworthy that the innovative ways, including competitive selection, expert evaluation, government assessment and periodic screening, were introduced in the selection of the universities for the “Double First-Class” initiative, and the list shows the universities and disciplines to be developed, and doesn’t mean that those universities and disciplines have already been recognized as first-class ones. Since the mid-1990s, under the support of key construction projects, including Project 211 and Project 985, a number of key universities have enjoyed notable improvements in comprehensive capabilities and international influence, which enhances the overall level of China’s higher education, makes great contribution to the sustained and healthy development of China’s economy and society, and paves the way for the further construction of world-class universities and first-class disciplines. To construct and assess the universities under the “Double First-Class” initiative, we must not negate previous efforts, but fully take into account the established achievements of higher education under Project 211 and Project 985. Meanwhile, we must stick to competition and opening-up, dynamic adjustment and quality improvements, and define the scope in the next round of construction. The universities to be developed into world-class ones are classified into Type A universities and Type B ones, and will be recognized on a dynamic basis rather than the lifelong system.

“Double First-Class” Initiative Targets at World-Class Universities

The Overall Plan for China’s “Double First-Class” initiative proposes three phased goals respectively for 2020, 2030 and the middle of the 21st century. That represents a new round of overall deployment and top-level design for Chinese universities that the CPC and government made, from the strategic perspective of building China into a higher education power and fulfilling the Two Centennial Goals, and provides a rare strategic opportunity for Chinese universities to launch a new round of comprehensive reform and connotation development. To meet the major strategic demand at home, serve economic and social development and catch up with frontier technological development in the world, China needs to develop higher education, science and knowledge and attract excellent talents more urgently than any time in history. Therefore, comprehensively advancing construction of world-class universities and first-class disciplines is a major strategic decision made by the CPC Central Committee and the State council, an important symbol of building China into a higher education power and a key support for accelerating modernization in China, and will lay a foundation for China to improve the level of higher education and increase core competence in the long term.

Connotation is what defines a first-class university. To support a first-class university, disciplines are the foundation, and talents are the key, which is the consensus of the world. As Mei Yiqi, the former president of Tsinghua University, said, “A university does not consist of buildings, but masters.” To build world-class universities, we must be based on disciplines and focus on talents. From Project 211 to Project 2011, China has planned and implemented construction of key higher education institutions for more than two decades, and made steady progress from laying the foundation and improving the level of construction to seeking for breakthroughs and building first-class ones. In 2016, China’s total input in higher education reached more than RMB1 trillion, including RMB600 billion of fiscal funds; A total of 24 universities in Chinese mainland were listed among the QS top 500 world university rankings, 30 universities among the USNEWS top 500 rankings, over 700 disciplines among the top 1% of ESI, and 60-plus disciplines among the top 1‰. In conclusion, we are closer than ever to the China dream about higher education, and are more capable of and prepared for building and realizing the world-class universities and first-class disciplines than any time before, and that lays a solid foundation for us to develop world-class universities and first-class disciplines.

(The author is a part-time researcher with Shanghai Academy, Vice Chairman of Shanghai Statistical Society and off-campus master supervisor in finance of the School of Economics, Shanghai University.)