ABSTRACT
In 1952, after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, a campaign of reorganization of higher education institutions took place. By combining and reorganizing all existing institutions, higher education came under the control of the central government. At that time, no private or missionary universities existed in China. Under the guideline of “learning everything from the Soviet Union”, Marxist-Leninism was taken as the guiding principle for all instruction and administration. Only a small percentage of people could be admitted to colleges or universities. From the beginning of the 1960s, the Chinese government stressed the development of higher education. But unfortunately, during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) all colleges and universities closed, and well-educated scholars were criticized and sent to the countryside or factories for re-education through physical labour. It was indeed a disaster. After the termination of the Cultural Revolution, in 1977 the central government saw an urgent need to put an emphasis on education, science, and technology as key areas for the modernization of the country. Thus higher education institutions re-opened and developed at a rapid pace (China Statistics Yearbook, 2000d) (see Figure 6.3).
