Twenty Years of General Education in China: Progress, Problems, and Solutions

Abstract

General education is a subject with rich contents and that is highly contested in the field of higher education studies. It has been highly praised for its core concepts such as broad educational targets, liberating educational objectives, and balanced educational content. Looking back at the course of general education in China over the past 20 years we can find “top-down” cultural quality education (文化素质教育) and “bottom-up” general education (通识教育) have formed two stages with clear “characteristics,” with the first decade being mainly cultural quality education, and the most recent decade having had general education gradually enter the mainstream and reveal native qualityistics. This change has led the practice of general education to turn from being government led to university autonomy, and also reflects the increasing depth of Chinese exploration into general education. China’s practice of general education still faces problems with integrating major-based professional education and general education, and must adopt suitable solutions.

Keywords:

• cultural quality education
• general education
• higher education

Additional information

Funding

Funding was received from the Ministry of Education’s major entrusted project in philosophy and social sciences research: “Research on higher education thought system with Chinese qualityistics” (13JZDW004001).

Notes on contributors

Hongcai Wang

Hongcai Wang is a professor and PhD student advisor at the Xiamen University Education Institute.

Debo Xie

Debo Xie is a PhD student at the Xiamen University Education Institute.