Opinions have been solicited for the Constitution Regulations for Charters of Universities, promoting to reform Chinese universities’ present administrative structures — both in procedure and in practice.

Peking University, Mar. 30, 2011: An academic seminar around the theme “Administration and Charters of Universities” was held by the Education Law Research Center of Peking University on March 27, 2011. According to an official, China’s Ministry of Education was making efforts to establish the Constitution Regulations for Charters of Universities so as to keep in pace with the progress of China’s education system reform. The regulations aim to guide the new charter constitution in all universities, emphasizing the participation of interested parties in procedure and embodying the requirements of education reform in practice.

The charter of a university is recognized as the basis of modern universities’ education autonomy and the core of modern education institutions. It not only defines the authority boundary between the university and the government, but also clarifies the administrative framework of the internal system. Although the Ministry of Education has long appealed to the universities to polish their charters in order to execute better autonomous management, the universities have not put much into effect. Statistics showed that less than 50% of colleges and universities around China had established their own charters before 2007. To make the matter worse, all the charters are quite similar and not democratic enough. As a consequence, they are never put into actual and effective practice.

Wang Daquan, an administrator of the Ministry of Education, pointed out that there were two reasons accounting for such a phenomenon. First, most colleges and universities were set up before 1995, when charters were not a prerequisite. Second, the role that a charter played in the university administration was not so conspicuous, so most universities lack the desire and motivation to establish a charter at all. Wang also said that it was necessary to specify the government’s rights and obligations, which was also the intrinsic momentum of colleges and universities to constitute charters.

For the sake of solving these problems, the Ministry of Education assigned 26 universities as pilot demonstrations to take the lead of the education reform at the end of 2010, PKU included. And now the constitution of  the PKU’s Charter is in process.

Advice and opinions are being widely solicited for the Constitution Regulations for Charters of Universities, which is supposed to be published this year and provide guidance for all universities. On the one hand, it puts stress on mediating their internal relationship university and highlights the democracy mechanism, guaranteeing the balance of different interest parties; on the other hand, it specifies the rights and duties of the government and universities relatively, which warrants autonomous administration of higher education institutions.

Translated by: Duan Ranjia
Edited by: Arthars
Source: Caing.com