A separation of "to guard" and "to teach"--An educational dicussion framework

04-30

There goes a stereotype with American to China: China is a combination of "Qing" dynasty and Soviet Union, in terms of its old style bureaucracy and ideology together with its authoritarian dictatorship. This seems to be a huge contrast with Chinas fast modernization, building the high speed railway networks, accessing the most advanced arm weapons. But it sounds resonated while the material advancement not necessarily indicates the system has modified in a same pace. As for the most development sensitive industry--education, the system itself has been fallen behind what this age demands given its institutional nature and the fast changing external environment.

Up to now, there are tons of papers and scholar works on the high education system in China. Several of them hit the points of the problem. In a state and society view point, the education is responsible for raising citizens serving for the state. It therefore comes "Science" and "Democracy" as the motto. In an era constructing communism is the priority, both "Professional" individual talent and "Red" political loyalty are highlighted. These values provide a common ground to think what the education system going to be in order to satisfy these demands. More broadly, as Prof.Zhao Dingxin argues, these values and system design should be placed in a state and society relations framework to examine various roles played in education.

My questions originated from the recent incidents in PKU: whether this is an isolated case at a micro scope or it brings a macro implication for the educational system? Applying the state society relations theory, the education system is now shifting from a gear of state to a public service provider but why it still maintains its old fashion Soviet Union style political control system and masking ideology decoration? My potential answer to it lays on the retard system design instead of the student nature of conflict between "Professional" and "Red".

A vacancy of "to guard" and "to teach"

Under the current education system, the "to guard" model is dominant for the education and campus governance. While the university can control the career opportunity for students and retain the power to permit the on time graduation, its a common and powerful weapon to regulate students behaviors. The problem is, the weapon is shared by too many bureaucracies. Failing a dissertation could be a reason of graduation suspension but at a same time those not satisfying the requirement of the "integrity" could also be disqualified. The university assumes it has a responsibility to nurse a good citizen rather than leaving it to the police or the society system to do it. Therefore, we would observe that even some student societies in China are not held by official, it has some compulsory nature because it attributes to the arena of "Moral education".