Introduction

China has the world's largest higher education system, growing from an enrolment of 1 million students in 1997 to over 5 million in 2009, and witnessing a doubling in the number of institutions offering degree programmes over that period. This unprecedented growth is due to an enormous investment in the higher education expansion and reform programme that commenced in 1999. China currently spends 1.5 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on its higher education system, with the aim of equalling the leading Western systems. On 2 February 2010, the President of Yale University, Professor Richard Levin, predicted that China's universities would be amongst the best in the world within one generation.