Private Higher Education and the Labor Market in China focuses on Chinese private higher education institutions and investigates their institutional management efforts in linking private higher education to the labor market. The dissertation firstly describes and analyzes how these mostly demand-absorbing institutions include elements aimed at meeting labor market demands in their mission statements, and how they improve student employability and bridge graduates and employers through job-oriented fields of study provision, educational delivery, career services, as well as networking and partnerships. It then examines graduate surveys on initial employment outcomes about employment status, starting salary, job and education match, and job satisfaction, while exploring the associations of these outcomes with managed institutional efforts. Finally, it builds a conceptual model with two dimensions that illustrates institutional variations in management efforts and initial graduate employment outcomes. This dissertation concludes that many of the demand-absorbing Chinese private higher education institutions have managed serious efforts in linking private higher education to the labor market and some of them are even semi-elite in their job-oriented institutional efforts and initial employment outcomes.

This book provides an overview of the growth of the private higher education sector in China and in addition provides an analysis of some of the key drivers of this growth and impediments to it. What is new about the book is that it combines the results of a series of interviews with work that is more quantitative in nature. The book is of use to not only those engaged in academic research but also those who more generally wish to know more about an educational sector that is growing in importance. The most obvious factors promoting expansion of this sector have been the growth in per capita incomes, higher levels of participation in secondary school education, the strong growth in demand for graduates and the inability of the public sector to keep pace with demand. All of these factors intermingled with the involvement of government regulation. This regulation, however, is not uniform across all of China given the different provincial government departments of education that are also involved in dealing with private higher education institutions. In particular, this book looks at the way in which the Chinese government’s regulatory framework (both national and provincial) influenced the development of the sector and the way in which it operates, especially the private higher education component of that sector. The analysis undertaken finds that there is a link between regulation and the private higher education sector growth and a link between the funding of the government sector. The more intense regulation was, and the more funds provided to the state sector, the less scope there was for the private sector to expand. Growth of the private sector, therefore, did not just depend upon rising demand for higher education overall, but also to a fair degree of tolerance on the part of government. Much of this work, in subsequent years, has been supported by the further changes that have been undertaken in the Chinese higher education sector. Over the years, the growth of the Chinese higher education sector has stabilised, as has the private segment of this sector.

In spite of the increasing attention attributed to the rise in prominence of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries, few studies have looked at the ways in which broader social expectations with respect to the role of higher education across the BRICS have changed, or not, in recent years. Our point of departure is that, contrary to the conventional wisdom focusing on functionalistic perspectives, higher education systems are not just designed by governments to fulfill certain functions, but have a tendency for evolving in a rather unpredictable fashion as a result of the complex interplay between a number of internal and external factors. In reality, national higher education systems develop and change according to a complex process that encompasses the expectations of governmental agencies, markets, the aspirations of the population for the benefits of education, the specific institutional traditions and cultures of higher education institutions, and, increasingly so, the interests and strategies of the private firms entering and offering services in the higher education market. This basically means that it is of outmost importance to move away from conceiving of "universities" or "higher education" as single, monolithic actors or sector. One way of doing this is by investigating a selected number of distinct, but nonetheless interrelated factors or drivers, which, taken together, help determine the nature and scope of the social compact between higher education (its core actors and institutions) and society at large (government, industry, local communities, professional associations).

Examines the transformation of education policy in China, with an emphasis on transformations in the post-1978 period. This title also emphasises on policy change and its subsequent impact on different aspects of education at various levels of educational institutions, particularly in areas of educational financing and curriculum reform.

This publication is the first from the Leverhulme program of study, which focused on the major strategic options likely to be available to higher education institutions and policy-making bodies in the 1980s and 1990s. It resulted from a specialist seminar on higher education and the labor market. The chapters are: "Employers' Perceptions of Demand" (Laurence C. Hunter); "Technological Manpower" (Derek L. Bosworth); "Response to Change in the United States" (Richard B. Freeman); "Higher Education Policy" (Maurice Peston); and "The Challenge of Market Imperatives" (Robert M. Lindley). Lindley notes that the British higher education system has never come to grips with the role it might play in economic development and examines some areas of need and improvement: the search for more students; the need to get the labor market more involved in the environment of higher education and to get education to respond to market need with qualified persons; the role of higher education in the screening and credentialism process; to encourage industry's role in funding and organizing higher education; and stabilizing the labor market environment. It is concluded that labor market issues have to be handled at a more sophisticated level than the debate about manpower alone. (LC)

This book assesses whether East Asian higher education is providing research and innovation for growth and delivering its graduates with the skills necessary for productivity in the labor market. It also seeks to determine how higher education systems could be improved in order to deliver these outcomes. It features new data and diagnostic material to better understand labor markets, what skills firms want, and what skills graduates have; shows how countries can become more innovative; and describes in detail the key areas of reform needed for higher education to be a larger engine of East Asian growth. It will be of interest to policymakers, governments, academia, donors, NGOs, students, researchers, and lower- and middle-income countries looking to break the middle-income trap.

Recent decades have witnessed the proliferation in China of huge numbers of private universities and colleges in response to a wide-ranging spectrum of socio-economic and political demands under the country's flourishing market economy and its wholesale pursuit of decentralization. This book explores the issue of property ownership, an area which is regarded as an essential element in the attraction into the sector of local private institutions and foreign partnerships, as well as in facilitating the future development of the country's existing institutions. The focus throughout this book is primarily on the legal, economic, managerial and financial aspects of the relevant issues, as well as other related topics, such as consumer protections and fund-raising activities. A feasibility analysis and discussion is also provided on 'for-profit' universities and their potential market niches in China, in recognition of the fact that the current regulations-which allow private universities to maintain a non-profit status whilst actually enjoying profit returns-clearly provides some legitimacy to the phenomenon of 'for-profit in disguise.' It is argued in this book that such quasi-profit regulations may further exacerbate profiteering behavior, whilst it is also noted that, in the short term, there is a clear need to provide adequate protections within the apparent hybrid version of an ownership system-a system characterized by a mix of capitalism and socialism-through the adoption of a definitive legal framework within which economic actors can coordinate their efforts through a mutually understood framework of action. Finally, it is clear that in the transition from the 'rule-of-the-people' to the 'rule-of-law,' legislation, practices and compliance do not always go hand-in-hand in China; thus the healthy development of the educational sector will undoubtedly require some time, as well as the introduction of complementary mechanisms, for such legislation to be fully enforced in practice. This book concludes with policy recommendations on the existing property ownership system in China to address both the profitability and altruistic concerns of private institutions, and provides suggestions for areas which might be explored to facilitate ongoing sector development.