US-CHINA EDUCATION FOUNDATION

COMMUNITY COLLEGES IN CHINA PROJECT

INTRODUCTION

China's economic reconstruction over the past two decades has created an urgent need for an educated, skilled and flexible labor force. Entry and mid-level service and technical personnel in business, commerce, engineering, information technology, health and public service are especially in demand.

Technical/vocational colleges are springing up to meet these needs. These schools train students in technical skills, but are narrow and limited; they provide little or no general education in liberal arts and sciences, in critical thinking and problem solving.

We believe that schools comparable to US community colleges can provide education for career placement, personal development and social role expansion as well as a solid foundation for life-long learning. Of paramount concern is coordination of individual abilities and aspirations with local needs. Community colleges can provide access to education through flexible full- and part-time opportunities to students of all ages.

Local communities benefit most as students come from and subsequently serve them. Furthermore, trained personnel may fit only one immediate market slot, while educated people are better able to adapt to and actively participate in shaping an ever-changing economic environment. Community colleges often evolve into art and cultural centers that animate and educate the non-student population as well.

The time is ripe: This is a period of broad experimentation in education; in a nation gearing up for global competition, entrepreneurial efforts by educators are generally rewarded, and college presidents are eager for international partnerships to entice students, keep faculty, an bring in money from local businesses.

It is pragmatic to begin in major urban centers, but we believe that, once established, the concept will become popular in rural and even remote areas, and could become an important component of rural poverty alleviation programs, public health education, and women and minority development programs.

We believe that some forms of US community colleges, established in and geared to local traditions and conditions, provide an optimal, cost-effective means for China to simultaneously create a robust and flexible workforce and a well-rounded citizenry.

YEAR ONE PROGRAM

I. Purpose: To conduct professional development workshops and cooperative on-site and international programs for administrators and faculty leading to the creation of community colleges in China by altering vocational/technical institutions as well as creating new colleges within existing university structures.

II. Problems: For more than 2,000 years, study in China has been for an elite few. Confucian tradition mandates huge, prestigious, elite institutions. The concept of broader education (as distinct from job training) for larger numbers of people is not easily conceptualized or accepted. This is partly because few Chinese educators have been exposed to varied forms and models of higher education, and are naturally inclined to build on their own historical experience and personal expertise.

Instituting new degrees requires a new outlook on education. Several of the local education commissioners with whom we have worked are ready to experiment; the State Education Ministry is watching closely. We believe that as community colleges are formed and functioning, and as the value of articulation with four-year colleges becomes obvious, the need for associate degrees to supplement certificates will become apparent.

III. Activities (summer and fall '99)

1. opening ceremony and media event

Ceremony is very important in China. The opportunity for college presidents from the three regions, education commissioners, USCEF and Ford to jointly introduce the project in a ceremonial day and banquet could impact its success. (It is possible that we might hold this Project "opening" at the end of the five week summer activities so participant will be able to introduce the community college concept more concretely).

2. Seminars and Workshops

Overlapping week-long professional development workshops in Beijing, Taiyuan and Shanghai with nine colleges identified during our biannual conference and investigative excursions over the past twelve years. US community college experts will give talks and lead workshops in their respective fields including:

The Chinese colleges will choose their own delegates, but we will urge them t include men and women administrators and faculty at various professional levels and ages.

3.On-site follow-up

American participants will go directly to local colleges for periods up to two weeks to help implement what has been discussed at he workshops. They will observe, guide, help set up in-college and cross-college implementation teams, help formulate Action Grant proposals (see below), offer hands-on assistance and do preliminary evaluation of understanding of principles, flexibility, genuine interest, willingness and ability to make changes as appropriate for each institution. It must be understood that these people will not teach students as part of this Project.

At home, Americans will stay in touch by E-mail (or other means) with individuals at these colleges to continue their on-site work and provide guidance and materials as appropriate.

4. Action Grants

In fall '99, each participating college will submit grant proposals to USCEF requesting funding for activities it deems necessary to implement its transformation into a community college. We will look for proposals that foster stronger links between community and college, and encourage colleges in the same region to submit joint grants for cooperative work, e.g., faculty teams for curriculum development, creation of a community college website, etc.

While these grants are not for the purchase of computers or other major equipment, a post-conference activity might include our sending a grants expert to help colleges identify and write effective proposals to Chinese and international foundations and funding agencies to meet equipment needs

5. Chinese Board of Advisors

We will encourage the formation of a Chinese Project Advisory Board including the three Chinese Project coordinators, selected administrators and faculty and commissioners who have already played advisory roles in the development of this Project, and others they see fit to recruit.

The Board will help us to remain culturally sensitive, to overcome bureaucratic or other impediments to our work, to keep Project participants focused on a national concept as well as a local project, and to be the base for a transition when appropriate from USCEF to Chinese guidance.

YEAR TWO PROGRAM

Carry-over first year activities include: implementing and monitoring Action Grants, investigation into the efficacy of a website, continuing on-site consultation and troubleshooting.

The focus of the second year, however, will be on internships for a dozen Chinese administrators and faculty, and on-site visits to US community colleges by leaders from the nine colleges, the regional Education Commissions and the Education Ministry.

The internships will allow teams of two and three Chinese educators to spend one to three months at a community college; each intern will work with a mentor, "shadow" daily rounds and classes, participate in a range of college activities and committees from departmental curriculum revision to college-wide strategic planning, and have extensive and intensive discussions with a number of their counterparts. At the end of the internship, we will all meet in New York to evaluate their experiences and discuss the implications for Chinese colleges and for our project.

The three-week inspection and briefing tours will expose education leaders to a variety of US community college missions, structures and governance plans. They will meet with national organizations and experts to discuss community college history and current trends, significance of A.A., A.S. and A.A.S. degrees, transfer to and articulation with four-year institutions, college roles in local economic development and methods of assuring curricular flexibility in a changing economy, life-long learning and community cultural enrichment. We will have further discussions with State Education officials on the new degree issue.

USCEF encourages the establishment of long-term bilateral relationships and formal exchanges between guests and hosts. (Such a relationship already exists between Taiyuan University and La Guardia Community College of the City University of New York.) we have amongst us excellent community college contacts throughout the US, and will also speak with some participating colleges in Ford's Rural Community College Initiative to determine their interest and willingness to host some of the educators.

YEAR THREE PROGRAM

The third year will focus on summation, dissemination and national discussion in China. We expect that the conclusion of the Action Grants and the leavening experiences of the second year internships will culminate in plans for curricular, classroom, institutional and community change. These may be reflected in analytic or " how to" books (co-authored by Chinese and Americans or teams of Chinese educators) linked to transforming vocational/technical institutions into community college and to teaching non-traditional populations. We hope that plan for new textbooks and teaching methodology manuals will emerge. A half -hour video on the Project may be broadcast on Chinese TV and used for variety of publicity purposes.

We will convene a nation-wide conference to share the positive and negative experiences of the previous two years and consider the degree to which a shift has occurred in Chinese thinking about the community college concept. National leaders within and outside the education establishment will be invited to address the participants who will include representatives of the nine institutions and three Education commissions, and educators new to but interested in the Project's activities and methodology.

Together with our Chinese colleagues, we will explore how the community college concept and our experiences can be disseminated to public and private colleges in other regions of China, with particular emphasis on rural and ethnic minority areas; to teacher training institutions; to managers of economic development zones, regional economic planners, national decision makers and others. Dissemination methods will include site visits by Project teams; mini-conferences in other areas led by representatives of the original Project as well as attendance at non-USCEF initiated conferences; web-sites (our own or others) and Chinese TV. Our goal is to promote a national discussion of the roles of community colleges in the relationship between individual student aspirations and abilities and local economic and social needs, and in supplying China with an educated, skilled and flexible work force.

EVALUATION

Formative evaluation will take place immediately after each major activity. In the first year, at the end of summer activities, participants will be asked to respond to a brief questionnaire, and selected American and Chinese Project leaders will convene for two days to evaluate the workshops and on-campus consultations, help solve problems, clarify Action Grant issues and make next-stage plans.

In the Fall, we will scrutinize the Action Grant proposals to see how they correspond to Project goals and objectives communicated during the summer.

On the analogy of the Rural Community College Initiative, we assume the Ford Foundation will separately fund an impartial entity familiar with both community colleges and China to do its own evaluation throughout the Project funding period. The Project organizers will help highlight evaluation criteria for each of the nine institutions. As these colleges were chosen with an eye to diversity of mission and structure as well as local economic conditions, we expect outcomes to vary significantly.

SUMMARY OF PROJECT GOALS

USCEF hopes that the Community Colleges in China Project evolves from a project into a movement--increasingly guided by the Chinese side and increasingly involved directly with US community colleges.

Ideally, at the end of three years:

*Most of the original nine institutions will a) have grasped the distinction between education and training and be making institutional and pedagogical changes that reflect that dist6inction; b) be better integrated with the growth and development patterns of their local economies; and c) be more focused on life-long learning and community service.

*Other tertiary Chinese institutions will contact the Project wishing to participate, especially rural institutions in other provinces and autonomous regions, and we will feel prepared to contact still others.

*Chinese educators will undertake number of research and feasibility studies on the educational, economic, social and cultural issues that arise in the process of implementing the Project.

*Project-encouraged relationships among community colleges in the two countries will lead to mutually beneficial non-Project activities.

*There will be at least serious consideration at the highest levels of new degrees and the possibility of articulation with and transfer to four-year institutions.

*An educational model is emerging in China that is distinguishable from both a university and a vocational-technical institution, and the nature of and need for community colleges is hotly debated in China.

Please contact project co-directors:

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Web Weaver - Professor Sandy Feder