XXX:
Improve quality, part of quality project. Started out with course construction. Before the entire quality project. To evaluate whether the teaching at a university is good or bad, you always come back to the course, and what the teacher teaches in the classroom. Therefore we began focusing on this very early, in 1987 we began the university keystone course evaluation. The contents of the course evaluation were: quality of teacher, academic level of teachers, teaching team composition, and teaching content, also teaching materials. At that time, it was quite a simple process.
In 1987 we began to evaluate the key courses in each discipline, the obligatory courses. We began in 1987, and in 1988 we regularized the process, and added a competition to become “excellent courses” (优秀课程). In 1989 we had already had some experience with evaluation, and decided to expand the process. In addition to the excellent courses, and the keystone courses, every course had to pass the “standard course” (合格课程）test.
The standard test was very simple, a course had to have a standard teacher (or teachers), a syllabus, standard teaching material. So we wanted to get rid of those courses without a syllabus, where a teacher went all over the map. This was standardization of educational quality.
We continued this evaluation system until 1992, then Guangdong province bureau of education began evaluating key point courses, and continued for almost ten years. In 2000, they began evaluating and selecting excellent courses, This was done for the first and last time in 2000. Our school had five courses that made the provincial excellent courses list. After this first round, they were planning to evaluate again after a year, but by that time, MoE promulgated the TLCP.
The biggest difference between the TLCP evaluations system, and the previously existing ones were: it put focus on educational technology, ie. Developing internet resources, that was something brand new. The concepts of teaching teams, teaching contents, teaching methods, teaching principles, academic level of teachers, etc were similar to the previous evaluation methods, but with the added idea of sharing resources, which had a very important part in TLCP.
{MoE, n.d.}
The former SEdC launched the "Reform Plan of Teaching Contents and Curriculum of Higher Education Facing the 21st Century" in 1994, formally ratifying the establishment of 211 big projects and nearly a thousand sub-projects with tens of thousands teachers participating. This plan covers all areas of teaching such as teaching ideology, teaching contents, curriculum structure and teaching methodology. A advisory group for the reform of teaching contents and curriculum consisting of domestic famous experts from all disciplines has been set up.
1997, the National Teaching Achievements Awards organized and implemented by the former SEdC all together offered 422 State Awards.
7 The establishment of macro management system on quality of higher education made stable progress
In 1993, the Department of Higher Education of former SEdC began to research the assessment plan and the practice of teaching assessment.
, the assessment of undergraduate teaching adheres to the principle of "promoting reform and establishment through assessment, combining assessment and establishment together with the emphasis laying on establishment".
There are three forms of assessment: the first is the pass level teaching assessment to the universities with comparatively weak basis and short history of undergraduate education￡?the second is the excellent level assessment to the universities with good basis, high teaching level and a comparatively long history of undergraduate education; and the last one is the random level assessment to the universities between pass level and excellent level.
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{HEEC, n.d.}
In 1985, Higher Engineering Education Evaluation started up as a trial.
In 1990, “Draft Regulation of Higher Education Institution Evaluation ”was issued by the then State Ministry Commission, which is the first regulation on higher education evaluation.
In 1995, separate types of “University Evaluation Standards Project” were issued for the evaluation of six different categories of institutions: comprehensive universities, industrial colleges, agricultural and forestry colleges, medical colleges, finance and economics colleges, and foreign Languages colleges. All new baccalaureate degree-granting colleges were required to undergo the Evaluation, with three evaluation outcomes: “Accepted”, “Accepted with Conditions” and “Not Accepted.” By the end of 2002, around 192 institutions completed the Evaluation.
From the end of 1995 to 2001,16 universities and colleges voluntarily applied to undergo the Exemplanary Evaluation, which had the following resultant categories: “Excellence,” “Conditional Pass” and “Not up to Excellence.”
From 1998 to the end of 2001, 26 universities and colleges underwent Random Evaluation, with four resultant categories: “Excellent,” “Good,” “Accepted,” and “Not Accepted.”
In 2002, the above two types of evaluation were combined into one: “Evaluation of University Baccalaureate Programs Project,” with four resultant categories: “Excellent,” “Good,” “Accepted,” and “Not Accepted.” The first three categories are good for 5 years. As of the end of 2004, some 116 universities and colleges completed this Evaluation.
In 2003, “Action Plan of Education Innovation 2003-2007” makes it clear that all higher education institutions undergo the quality evaluation every five years.
From 2003, MOE drafted an evaluation plan for tertiary colleges. The evaluation is implemented by each provincial education department, and the MOE will make periodical checks on the implementation work. By the end of 2004, about 107 universities and colleges have completed the evaluation.
The establishment of the Higher Education Evaluation Center (HEEC) of the Ministry of Education in August 2004 marks a new stage for the development of a systematic and professional evaluation system of higher education in China.
3. The Development of China Higher Education Quality Assurance System
In order to encourage higher education institutions to further improve teaching quality and to deepen the reform of education, we need to establish a quality assurance system and a monitoring mechanism with high efficiency and valid results, hence the following policy:
* Establish a five-year cycle of evaluating institutions of higher education in a systematic and standardized manner.
* Maintain a database to collect the basic institutional information concerning college infrastructure and other basic facilities; make such information available to the public to strengthen public awareness of the effectiveness of higher education institutions.
* Perform program evaluation with the help from both institutions and professional agencies (organizations) to gradually establish an evaluation system and practice that aligns licensure of qualifications with recognition by professional organizations.
* Combine both internal and external evaluation efforts to actively encourage higher education institutions to set up their internal quality assurance mechanism.
* Establish a pool of experts (expecting to maintain such a pool of over 1,000 individuals) to perform evaluation, and provide them with regular training.
* Develop a system that encourages non-governmental evaluation agencies and utilize such resources in the implementation of evaluation of universities and colleges.
4．The HEEC
The Higher Education Evaluation Center (HEEC) of the Ministry of Education (MOE), which was established in August 2004, is an administrative body under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. The main responsibility is to organize and implement the evaluation of baccalaureate degree programs and associate degree programs offered in institutions of higher education.
* Organize and implement the evaluation, based on the guidelines, regulations, and evaluation criteria of the MOE, of teaching performance of institutions of higher education, of other education organizations, and of specialized education.
* Conduct research in the areas of policies, regulations, and theories in higher education reform and evaluation, and provide data for the decision making body of the MOE.
* Develop international cooperation and exchanges with higher education evaluation (accreditation) agencies/commissions in other countries as well as in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, and enter agreement, as is authorized by the Chinese Government, with non-government agencies/organizations in the areas of evaluation in higher education institutions.
* Develop non-government cooperation and exchanges in the study of higher education teaching & learning.
* Conduct training for evaluators.
* Provide consultation and information service in the area of higher education evaluation and other related services authorized by MOE.
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{Xiufang Wang, 2003}
184 instructional reform
5 aspects:
- improving textbook and curriculum structure
- constructing training bases
- adjusting list of specialities
- establishin assessment system of teaching and research work
- setting regulations governing awards for instructional achievement
in 1996: State Education Commission "project of improving text and curriculum structure to meet the challenge of the 21st century in higher education". training bases in key universities, let instructional reform in some key disciplines and some key universities and colleges be carrid a step further so bases will become models for facilitating even more advanced new practies.
in 1995-1996 an experiment done in assessing model teaching work at unis and colleges. aim to put quality improvement efforts into key proets, successful. helped experimental universities and colleges pay more attention to the quality of taching and raised their management efficiency.
more satiscatory teaching awards have also been studied for their power to motivate teachers, administrators, and auxiliary staff members. "Regulations for the award for instructional achievement" State Council 1994. significantrole in motivating teachers to improve the quality of their teaching.
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{XXX, n.d.}
优秀教学 since 1989
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{Chang accountab high ed}
OCW as form of accountability - five year program. like review of all chemistry labs (Chang accountab higher ed, Yang Rui etc)
25% of research grants allocated to personal acct?
need 3 papers before graduate with PhD - some have to suspend degree for five years. many journals only publish articles by top universities. difference in disciplines - who can publish in English. if English is needed, int'l journals might not appreciate Chinese research agendas.
accountability in teaching! even in the past, teaching was highly valued within Chinese culture. every year since late 1990s, MOE randomly selects a few universities for teaching audit which includes teacher performance, portfolios, textbooks, student assignments,teaching records and examination papers. All levels of unis. Some provinces/cities (like Shanghai) also does this. Student evals by undergrads, collected by centralized office. Nothing for postgraduate levels. Lecturers receive feedback from administration - sometimes made public. Senior personell, attend lectures to make observation. Effect seen as negative by most respondents. Maintaining quality harder as workload/enrollment increases.
National and regional awards for teaching - national are very prestigious but limited. Also diplomacy involved, MOE tries to balance to different unis. NU: yellow cards and red cards. teaching incidents. 15 minutes late: t incident. Several incidents = trouble. Issue: difficulty of defining and measuring good teaching. NUST: scores given by students will be released, teachers feel more pressure. if students always give low marks, older teachers will listen in, everyone knows they have a problem.
not for postgraduate teaching - considered research. "within the family"