Diversified Development of Higher Education and Its Resource

Allocation and Cultivation

Peng Bo

School of Education of Huaibei Normal University, Huaibei, Anhui, 235000, China

Keywords: Higher education, Diversification, Resources Allocation, Resources Cultivation.

Abstract: With increasingly further reform of higher education, the trend of diversity is becoming evident, bringing

significantly unfair and imbalanced allocation of higher education resource. The work analyzed the

diversified development trend of higher education, researching on solutions of irrational allocation of

educational resources. The method that higher education resource should be allocated by government and

market together was proposed, with some suggestions on resources allocation in all aspects of higher

education. Thus, the demand of growing economic and social development for higher education can be

satisfied, promoting balanced development of higher education reform.

1 INTRODUCTION

Higher education diversification is mainly reflected

in diversification of structure, school-running

system, and quality standards. The demand for

college talents directly result in diversification of

various private universities and tertiary colleges.

Most of junior or third-grade colleges cannot reach

basic requirements of colleges and universities in

teaching quality. They are established to meet the

basic demands for a university degree, charging high

tuition. These private higher institutions also become

ways for seeking interests for some people. With the

emergence of private institutions, there are more

institutions of higher learning in the society. In

recent years, China has increased investment in

university education, while the funds cannot meet

the basic needs of all institutions with the rising

number of colleges and universities. Meanwhile, it

presents imbalance of funding and resource

allocation. For example, schools in Beijing have

received much more funding than those in other

regions. This imbalance further hinders the

development of colleges and universities, which is

not conducive to the cultivation of talents.

2 DEVELOPMENT TREND OF

DIVERSIFICATION IN HIGHER

EDUCATION

In recent years, the demand for talent is growing

with the continual development of economy and

improving level of social development in China. The

cultivation of talents is mainly conducted in

universities; thus more attention from government

was paid to the development of colleges and

universities. The reform in college education is in

progress to better take advantage of talents training,

indicating obvious trend of diversification in higher

education.

2.1 Causes of Diversification in

Development of Higher Education

2.1.1 Conforming with the World Trend of

Development in Higher Education

After World War II, the world's population and

economy have undergone a rapid development and

growth, in which higher education developed with

fast speed. Especially in economically developed

countries, the importance of higher education to

economic development was realized, implementing

popular education to make more people be educated.

With development of economy, the formal sense of

original higher education system could not satisfy

the social needs, so higher education began to

274

Bo P.

Diversiﬁed Development of Higher Education and Its Resource Allocation and Cultivation.

DOI: 10.5220/0006024102740278

In Proceedings of the Information Science and Management Engineering III (ISME 2015), pages 274-278

ISBN: 978-989-758-163-2

develop toward the direction of diversification. This

trend becomes obvious with the economic

development and improvement of technological

level, which better meets the demands of society.

2.1.2 Influence of Education Situation of

China

Traditional higher education of China has been

implementing a unified philosophy of education:

uniform school-running requirements, management,

training mode of talent training, and united

evaluation standards. However, with the

development of market economy, the unified model

of higher education cannot flexibly adapt to changes

of market mechanisms, losing the vitality of

development, thus leading to constant emergence of

shortcomings. This unified model can benefit

government’s management, while it goes against

universities, students, and the demand of entire

society for talents. Firstly, the fixed and unified

education mode rigidifies students' thinking without

providing opportunities for students to develop

various abilities, which is not conducive to the

overall development of students. Secondly, students’

rigid thinking leads to the decline of innovation

capacity, which does not satisfy enterprises’

requirements for basic ability of students, so it

cannot meet the demands of society for talents.

Finally, college students cultivated under this

education system will be rigid and cannot adapt to

the development of enterprises. Thus, stagnation of

enterprise development will directly hinder the

development society and economy, influencing the

future of entire nation.

2.2 Development Situation of

Diversification

With the increasing efforts in higher education

reform in recent years, various achievements begin

to appear, and diversified development is an

important project for higher education reform.

2.2.1 Diversification of Structure, Quality

Standards and School-Running Forms

of Higher Education

Diversification of higher education structure mainly

reflects on more abundant levels, types and forms of

education structure. For example, the different

education levels of undergraduate, master, doctoral

degree can provide society with various talents.

Diversification of school-running system refers to

various and new forms of education. For example,

independent third-grade colleges, technical colleges

and independent institutions in cooperation with

elite schools, can enjoy teaching resources with their

associated schools. Colleges and universities in

collaboration with foreign universities offer

favorable conditions for undergraduate to study

abroad. Diversification of quality standards means

that standards of nation, individual, and profession

for students and teaching are no longer a fixed level.

Different quality standards should be made

according to the actual situation of students and

flexible management on physical and mental

development of students, implementing education

with diversified educational standards.

2.2.2 Financing Diversification of Higher

Education

Attention should be paid to the diversification of

financing channels in higher education. Before the

reform and opening up, the funding source of

Chinese education is mainly from government's

investment. The single sources of funding increased

the financial pressure to government with the

increase of universities, which was not conducive to

the rapid development of universities. Therefore, the

government widened financing channels of higher

education funding after the reform and opening up,

starting to absorb social capital. "Donated funds for

school-running" and "raising funds for school-

running" were encouraged to make private colleges

and universities become an important part of

education in China, thus playing a positive role in

compensating for inadequate education funding of

the government. In addition, China abolished the

system of college tuition at public expense from the

mid-1980s. Self-paying system began to be

implemented in some areas. Since then, college

tuition has become an important way of education

financing. This measure is also adapted to the

development of socialist market economy, becoming

a landmark move in the history of higher education

development.

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3 RESOURCES ALLOCATION

AND CULTIVATION

MEASURES OF HIGHER

EDUCATION

3.1 Status of Resource Allocation in

Higher Education

In recent years, with the development of economy,

higher education reform is continually accelerating

with more abundant education resources and

increasing utilization, marking a new level of

Chinese higher education. However, the resources of

higher education possess particularity—some

problems will arise with its rapid development due

to maladjustment with the whole current economic

and social situation. Moreover, no mature theories

provide guidance for the development of higher

education in the world. As a developing country,

China needs more professional researches to timely

solve the problems, hoping to promote better

development of higher education.

3.1.1 Less Funding of Higher Education

With the deepening of reform and opening up,

economic development level of China is

increasingly higher—the total GDP has been at the

forefront of the world. China is also engaged in

various aspects of reform towards the direction of

developed countries, and the reform of higher

education is a very important aspect. However,

while the fiscal expenditure on higher education in

China has been increased in recent years, it is still

lower than most of other developing countries in the

world. Thus, the level of funds necessary for

development of higher education cannot be satisfied

in China. In this case, major universities use various

means to compete to receive government attention

with more financial support, thus leading to more

waste of education resources.

3.1.2 Scarcity of Teacher Resource in

Higher Education

Excellent teachers are essential for the development

of higher education. However, the excellent faculty

becomes more limited with constant enrollment of

colleges and universities in recent years. Thus, the

growing demand for excellent faculty cannot be

satisfied, resulting in a shortage of higher education

teachers. Moreover, the proportion of teachers is

lower than that of universities’ needs, which is

relatively low compared with world average level.

Shortage of educational resources directly affects

students’ educational level, limiting the

improvement of higher education level. Meanwhile,

it is not conducive to diversification development,

indicating the shortcomings of resources allocation

in higher education.

3.1.3 Significant Regional Differences of

Resource Allocation in Higher

Education

Since the reform and opening up, China has focused

more on development of eastern region. Economic

policies are tilted to eastern region, including

investment in education funding. Funding of higher

education is obviously biased toward economically-

developed eastern regions and major cities such as

Beijing. In contrast to Midwest regions with lack of

education funding, these regions even have a lot of

surplus. Although the economic development of

central and western regions has also been benefited

from the reform and opening up, there is still a large

gap between these regions and the eastern regions.

Government invested significantly lower funding of

higher education to Midwest than eastern regions,

thus leading to imbalance of higher resources

allocation between regions. This imbalance is also

reflected in university enrollment and faculty, which

is another factor resulting in uneven geographical

distribution of educational resources.

3.1.4 Common Waste of Higher Education

Resources

In the application of higher education resources, it’s

common that resources cannot be fully utilized, thus

leading to shorter supply of scarce educational

resources. For example, many colleges and

universities have been keen to merger application

and blind enrollment of constructing school

buildings in recent years, resulting in waste of

educational resources. Lots of teaching resources

such as school buildings have not been fully used.

The waste has led to the lack of higher education

resources, which is the most important factor

restricting the rational allocation of higher education

resources.

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3.2 Status of Resource Allocation in

Higher Education

3.2.1 Increasing the Amount of Higher

Education Resources with

Government’s Help

The economic development level of China has been

constantly improved with the increasing

comprehensive economic strength. However, it

should be realized that the goal—obtaining a more

stable economic position in the competitive world

economy—needs to fundamentally rely on education

and technology. Therefore, the government should

increase investment in education with more total

education resources. Only by increasing the total

resources of higher education can the basic problems

in resources use be solved among major colleges and

universities. In addition to the increase of

government's investment, society and financial

companies should be encouraged to input donation

and investment in higher education. The fund of

higher education resources should be established for

long-term development. Thus, the investment

channel of higher education resources can be

expanded, compensating for the lack of education

funding.

3.2.2 Formulating Reasonable Welfare

Policies to Attract More Teachers

The lack of teachers in higher education resources is

a serious problem. In addition to the limited level of

higher education, the insufficient welfare of higher

education teachers fails to attract more people with

high quality to join the faculty. Therefore,

government should increase the funding of higher

education to expand the faculty while increasing

total resources of higher education. Appropriate

policies should be formulated to improve the welfare

of teachers, thus attracting more outstanding

teachers to expand higher education resources.

3.2.3 Improving Resource Sharing

Mechanism of Higher Education

It is necessary to improve resource sharing

mechanism of higher education under the situation

of imbalanced resource allocation in higher

education. Resource sharing mechanism of higher

education has created a basic policy specification for

resource allocation, providing an assurance for the

investment of higher education resources in the

Midwest. Meanwhile, various resources of the

eastern areas can be transformed to Midwest

regions, achieving resources sharing and integration

of faculty, thus promoting the optimal allocation of

educational resources.

3.2.4 Innovation of University Resources

Cultivation

The total amount of higher education resource is

very limited in China. Thus, higher education

resources cannot be increased according to

traditional methods. More innovative ways on the

cultivation of higher education resources should be

adopted for transformation and integration of

available resource, contributing to the development

of advanced resource in higher education.

Firstly, the resource allocation of higher

education should conform to development law of the

whole educational status, promoting balanced

development of entire higher education. Secondly,

all available opportunities should be seized to enrich

higher education resources. Finally, connotation of

resources, knowledge and culture should be

cultivated in the cultivation of higher education

resources, which is a very important step in the

development of higher education resources.

4 CONCLUSIONS

With continuous development of higher education

reform, diversified development of higher education

becomes more obvious. Diversified development, in

line with the development law of modern society, is

conducive to the development of higher education.

Thus, it should be strongly supported by

government. In addition, irrational allocation of

resources exists in the development of higher

education, greatly hindering the development of

higher education. These problems should be

recognized and improved with reasonable methods,

thus promoting the development of higher education,

making education become inherent power of

national development. Therefore, more energy can

be provided for the development of higher

education.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The work was one of staged achievements of Study

on Allocation and Cultivation of Higher Education

Resources from Ecology-Oriented Perspective

(CIA110149), the youth issue of National Social

Science Fund (Education).

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Li Tao, Zhou Yanqiao. Collaborative Development of

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Wang Fayuan, Liu Zaizhou. Principle and Measure on

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