HO-hervorming essentieel voor China als kennisland
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9 augustus 2006 | Hoe wordt China een kennissamenleving? Weinig veranderingen op wereldschaal zijn zo revolutionair als die van dat grote land op weg van een agrarisch collectivisme naar een kenniseconomie. De Wereldbank heeft een indringende studie gedaan naar de vragen waar China nog voor staat. De grootste en ‘most critical reform’ ziet men daarbij juist op het punt van de kwaliteit van het hoger onderwijs want ‘ despite tremendous improvements, the average educational achievement in China is still low’.
De eeuwenoude tradities en de communistische planeconomie hebben bijvoorbeeld geen premie gezet op de ontwikkeling van creatief denken en initiatief, zo blijkt uit de studie. Hieronder vindt u de executive summary voor het deel over de HO- hervormingen in China.
De presentatie bij de recente discussie hierover vindt u hier en het baanbrekende, eerdere rapport van de Wereldbank leest u hier. Veel meer over China en andere landen in Azië in grote veranderingsfase vindt u op de speciale Azië-pagina van ScienceGuide onder R&D.
Higher education and greater skills are fundamental in a knowledge economy.
But despite tremendous improvements, the average educational achievement
in China is still low. This is perhaps the most critical reform for the medium
and long runs. China is endowed with a gigantic and growing population, the
raw material for a knowledge economy. But people must be educated and
taught to be creative, with the ability to learn through their lives.
Centuries of Confucian tradition, decades of planned- economy regime, and
emphasis on rote learning rather than creative thinking has shaped Chinese
philosophies and methods of teaching. Most government support has gone
to basic education, creating a very literate population. Now there is demand
for well-trained, state-of-the-art, business-oriented people. This demand is being
satisfied by a thriving private higher education sector, which, for ideological
reasons, is not officially recognized.
Some of the major initiatives needed:
• Modernize the curriculum at all levels to provide the new basic skills that
the knowledge economy demands. Beyond solid core skills in reading,
writing, and arithmetic are computer and Internet skills—and the ability to
think creatively to be able to adjust to constantly changing job needs and
skill mixes.
• Increase the efficiency of current spending by introducing better outcome indicators
• Integrate the private higher education system into the official system.
• Redirect the national and provincial ministries of education from primarily
providing education to assuring the quality of the educational system and
facilitating its proper functioning, particularly for higher education.
• Focus on equity and develop programs to ensure that talented but poor
students have access to education, especially to higher education.
• Renovate the training and vocational education system to make it more
responsive to local business needs and initiatives.
• Provide retraining programs for the millions of displaced workers so they
can find alternative productive jobs.
• Tap the enormous potential of Internet-based education to provide the
above-mentioned skills and to expand the outreach of formal education
at all levels, making use of an already well-developed distance learning
infrastructure.
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