【学术论文】A Study on the Evaluation System of ContinuingEducation in China

2012.08.03

WANG Aiyi

(School of Continuing Education, Tsinghua University)

   Abstract: Establishing the evaluation system is an urgent task for continuing education in China. It is also an important tool to regulate the training market, promote management efficiency and improve the education quality. The authors give a detail introduction about the current status of continuing education in China, analyze the existing problems, and summarize the significance of establishing evaluation system. Based on the analysis of DAETE self-assessment experiments carried out by 8 continuing education institutions, the authors discuss some key issues related to the evaluation system establishment in China and conclude that self-evaluation will be a feasible and effective tool.

Keywords: Continuing Education; Evaluation System

In the recent ten years, a new form of education emerged as an extension and complement of conventional degree education—continuing education. In the era of knowledge, continuing education plays an important role in improving the quality of our citizens.

Thanks to the implementation of “Science and Education Strategy” and the strategy of “Strengthening the Country on Talents”, continuing education has gained major progress in China since the beginning of 21^st century. Now, this type of education has more and more contribution to economic and social development, and becomes a sign for progress and a major force for social progress.

1.Continuing Education in China

The concept of continuing education has a long history in China. 2500 years ago, the philosopher Xun Zi instructed that “study cannot be ceased,” advocating learning for life; the proverb, “it’s never too old to learn” is also known to all. Since the debut of modern continuing education in 1979, the reform and opening up has nourished continuing education to grow, into a unique and effective type of education. This growth is in accordance with China’s situation, and it enjoys three features.

First, the demand of education is blooming, which stimulates the expansion of training scale. The economic transition and the reconstruction of industry is forging ahead in full swing, which gives birth to demands of pre-post, in-post, post-transformation, and re-employment training. According to incomplete statistics, in 2000, more than 70 million professional technicians, 90 million employees, 80 million adults in rural areas were enrolled in continuing education. Also, the training rate in communities is rising each year. Seen from these signs, a learning society is emerging.

Second, the whole society is taking active participation in continuing education, so the number of training institutions is rising. In 1991, there were only 4000 training institutions; in 2008, the number rose to 60,000. Universities, private institutes, corporations, government, army, organizations, associations, and news media all have their eye on the development of continuing education. Currently, an educational market regulated by the government and participated by all is more and more mature.

Third, the scope of training is stretching, and more subjects are introduced. The prevalence of learning for life has navigated continuing education into a multi-standard and multi-level career with various forms. The training subject moved from degree-oriented courses, to programs focusing on the updating and perfection of knowledge structure, the promotion of vocational competence, and personal interests like entertainment and health information. Also, the scope of training expanded from engineering to agriculture, manufacturing, energy technology, medical treatment, management, IT, education, culture, and many other fields. In correspondence with the extension of training scope, the trainees are more and more diverse, including technicians, managers, workers laid idle or retired, as well as residents and farmers. In a nutshell, continuing education is now covering more and more fields, and people benefited are becoming more diverse.

However, after years of high-speed development, more and more problems are emerging. For example, the quality of training institutes varied significantly; the management of institutes adopts a money-oriented strategy, which cuts the quality; or the training institutes develop without a clear target. Furthermore, the current scale and level of continuing education in China cannot meet the need of the economic and social development, as well as the demand of the people. Therefore, the prior problem of continuing education in China is to keep the balance between expansion and quality, to standardize the training institutes, and to clarify the direction for institutes.

2.Building an Evaluation System for Continuing Education

To build a well-developed industry and take it on the right track, a scientific and standard evaluation system is indispensable. In developed countries, great importance is attached to the construction of a standardized education, so the evaluation system in continuing education has been built in most areas, and remarkable achievement has been made thanks to the system. Now, as the quality of continuing education is under heated discussion, China is calling for an evaluation system that targets on exclusive problems and can assimilate the strength from abroad. To sum up, there are three reasons for building an evaluation system for continuing education.

1. Building an evaluation system is a vital approach to improve the scientific supervision over continuing education.

Based on the developmental laws and characters of the industry, a comprehensive and clear standard, workflow and system should be set up to elevated continuing education institutes from empirical training to step on an institutionalized, scientific, and professionalized direction. Thus, the supervision of the training institutes can be greatly improved.

2. Building an evaluation system is the key measure to strengthen the quality of continuing education.

An evaluation system is the key to assess and guarantee the quality of continuing education and impel the transformation from quantity-oriented to quality-oriented development. Moreover, through regular quality evaluation, the status, trend, character, strength, and problems of institutes would be clearly understood, so training institutes can make adjustments and improvements. Thus, a self-perfection and self-restraint mechanism will take form gradually, which may help the institutes to have a clear view on their target, update the facilities, reform the training courses, enhance training quality, and finally improve the quality and effects of the institutes.

3. Building an evaluation system is the demand of standardizing the training market.

Currently, the training industry is suffering from a sluggish growth due to poor organization. A rectified training market will benefit not only the progress of every institute, but also the whole industry’s prosperity and contribution to the society—whether they can educate more talents for the society. To solve the problem of poor organization, and construct a clean and fair market, building an evaluation system is of tremendous necessity, as well as establishing standard for admission and qualification, and setting up rules for the market.

4. Building an evaluation is the trend for international continuing education.

In developed countries, continuing education industry has already had a set of mature regulations. The common practice is to evaluate the qualification, training schedule, courses, and trainers of institutes by the government, official-involved agencies, or non-official agencies. For example, America has established registration and qualification system for continuing education institutes; in Great Britain, the institutes are under the supervision of the Office for Standards in Education; Australia has developed National Training Institute Registration Standards. These systems contribute to the healthy development of continuing education institutes. So actively yet prudently building an evaluation system is a critical step for China to catch the trend of continuing education worldwide. For one thing, this step will integrate China into the international trend, and line with international standards, so as to learn from the other's strength and their lessons. For another, this step is conducive for a more extensive international communication, which will extend China's influence on other countries in continuing education industry and take China's continuing education to the top.

3.Reflection on the Evaluation System of Continuing Education

3.1 Building an evaluation system relies on a scientific understanding on the essence of continuing education

Since continuing education and conventional education enjoy major differences in their essence and rules, the development roadmap for continuing education cannot copy that for traditional education, but to explore its own way. During the exploring process, a scientific and accurate view on the essence of the evaluated subject is the precondition and foundation, as well as a key to the building of the system.

As an extension of conventional education, continuing education is a higher level of education targeting on people at work who intend to improve their skills and update their knowledge. The difference between conventional and continuing education is listed in Table 1.

Table 1 Comparing Conventional and Continuing Education

1. If we compare the supervision and operation system, conventional degree-oriented education is more mature, with fully developed laws, regulations and rules, as well as a supervising system from the top to the bottom. Conversely, the supervision over continuing education is decentralized; in many areas, “one employee, several bosses” is normal. Also, the school facilities, admission, trainer employment, courses, and qualification are all lack of a unified supervision and regulation.

2. Conventional education stresses on academic training, while continuing education highlighted practice and the actual effects, namely “learn to meet practical demands.” Moreover, the courses of conventional education are more systematic, and are conducive to the building of a good foundation. Continuing education, on the other hand, is topic-oriented, so it may not choose a comprehensive, fundamental, and logical course-setting. In addition, the teaching system is more stable for conventional education, but since continuing education has to meet the demand of social, economic development, and the requirements from the talent market, it is more feasible.

3. The organization and methods for teaching are also different. The organization, students, teaching terms and schedule are fixed and preplanned for conventional education. Consequently, the teaching methods are not diverse. Conventional education, on the other hand, is loose and feasible in organization and teaching schedule. Also, their students cover all ages and education backgrounds, and the teaching methods are diverse. For example, there are all kinds of courses offered for continuing education, like short-term training courses, high-level courses, experts’ lectures, forums, supplementary courses, Self-Study Examination courses, undergraduate or graduate level courses.

4. The most obvious difference lies in their intrinsic attributes (last line in Table 1). Conventional education works for the commonweal of society, their priority is talent-training, so the education should be devoted to the benefits of the nation and citizens, which is its one and only intrinsic attribute. In comparison, continuing education carries a double-attribute. It devotes to he interests of both the society and the corporation. It serves the need of the nation and society: social and economic development, the building of talents, and the improvement of the quality of citizens. However, continuing educational institutes have no backup from the nation, so it has to consider the economic effects, which calls for the law of the market to allocate educational resources, and a sharp responding system to the market.

In conclusion, while the systematic and commonweal-oriented conventional education emphasizes on knowledge and foundation, continuing education is superior in practice, comprehensibility and feasibility, and it devotes to the interests of the society and the corporation. Continuing education is a new form of education for new theories, knowledge, skills and methods. Therefore, the evaluation system for continuing education should take all the features listed above into consideration.

3.2 Building the evaluation system should follow the four principles listed below.

The evaluation system for continuing education should cover three interdependent areas: evaluation targets, contents, and methods. To evaluate the three areas with the unique attribute of continuing education fully considered, the system building process should follow four principles.

1. The principle of development.

The evaluation system of continuing education bears two functions. The first is assessing and comparing different institutes, through which the state can strengthen the macro supervision and instruction over the market, and thus regulate the market. The second function is of more importance: to guide the development of the industry, since the ultimate goal of the evaluation system is to push the development of each institute, to propel reform and innovation, and to improve the management, quality and benefits by updating the ideas on management and teaching. Therefore, evaluation will not limit development, but can accelerate the speed of scientific development; it will not cord innovation, but can guide and encourage more innovation.

2. The principle of comprehensiveness.

Since continuing education is rich in content, vast in extension, diverse in form, the evaluation system should uphold comprehensiveness as the core value. First, the standards should cover every aspect of the development of institutes. For example, it should assess the “process” of development, such as the policy, strategy, vision, human resources, facilities, and teaching operation of an institute; and it also reflect the “results” of development, such as the customer and employee satisfaction, social and economic benefits. Second, the system should involve every participant into the assessment. For example, not only managers, teachers, students, and staff of the institute, but external interest-related partners, such as governments, corporations, and even competitors should be engaged as well. In a word, each member of continuing education should not consider evaluation concerns a minority of people, but bear assessment in mind and take an active role in quality evaluation.

3. The principle of scientific evaluation.

The evaluation system should adopt a grading system assessed by qualitative and quantitative methods, so as to accurately, objectively reflect the status and level of progress in an all-round manner. For items like number of students and course programs, facilities, and financial income, the system can qualify the items with specific numbers. For abstract and subjective items, such as vision, policy and strategy, we can choose subjective assessment, or require the institute to provide examples and illustrations, which will offer the evaluation a scientific and objective view, and make the assessing process easier to practice.

4. The principle of practicability.

To reflect and solve the most prominent problems in continuing education, the setting of items in the evaluation should be explicit and clear with major points highlighted. Also, the conductor can be either the institute itself or others, depending on the purpose of evaluation. Additionally, the evaluation process should be simple and easy, without vast paperwork and devotion of people, money and time, since the encouraging effect of evaluation can only be carried out with an simple, feasible, and economical system.

3.3 Building an evaluation system should keep the balance between three groups of factors.

Besides the basic principles listed above, building an evaluation system should be guided by “scientific development view,” and analyze problems and dealing with relations dialectically. In the process of building the system, three groups of factors are of vital importance, which calls for our attention.

1.       Scale vs. Quality

Considering the demand of learning and the responsibility of cultivating more talents for the society, the scale of continuing education should be expanded. However, this expansion should also be an expansion of high quality. The building of an evaluation system is beneficial to the balance between scale and quality, the “intensional development strategy” with scale, quality, structure, and benefits at its core, and a coordinated sustainable development of continuing education.

2.       Uniformity vs. Diversity

The evaluation system of continuing education should be multi-hierarchical and multi-classified, embedded with both uniformity and diversity, both standardized qualification and excellence qualification. The system is unified, since uniformity is the foundation of development: only by meeting the qualification, can institutes operate and offer training courses. However, diversity cannot be neglected since it is the goal of development; also, diversity under uniformity is the impetus for the pursuit of excellence and sustainable development. Therefore, uniformity cannot be paralleled with restraints and limitations, and diversity is not regulation-free. Building the evaluation system should seriously weigh the two factors, and pay more attention to the harmonious combination of the two factors.

3.       Standardized Management vs. Reform and Innovation

As the old saying goes, “no rules no shapes.” A standardized management is to operate and teach in a strict manner through rules and regulations, evaluation standards, inspections and supervisions, in order to keep the development of continuing education on the right track. In comparison, reform and innovation is the everlasting nourishment for continuing education. With the innovative, emancipatory, and diverse spirit, reforms on talent training model, course settings, and teaching methods are now taking place, guiding continuing education marching towards a higher goal. Therefore, standardized education and innovation are interdependent rather than clearly divided. Standardized management guarantees the fruits of innovation and reform, while innovation propels the standardized management.

3.4 The aim for the evaluation system is to guide the self-evaluation of each institute.

Self-evaluation is an evaluation conducted by the institute itself based on a fixed set of standards, which is “self-regulated, volunteering, self-valued, and self-conducted.” Different from external evaluation, the purpose of this evaluation is not to meet certain qualification or requirements, but to allow the organization to have a better understanding on itself: its strengths and weaknesses, and the room for improvement. This type of evaluation is helpful for institutes to upgrade management level, make timely adjustment, and achieve greater effects. Seen from these features, self-evaluation stimulates more enthusiasm and drives the institute to take the initiative and forge ahead unceasingly, which is superior to external evaluation. Thus, the institute will be more capable of adapting and adjusting to new situation, and fixing its own problems. Also, the self-management and self-restraint mechanism will be improved, which will gradually lead to a self-regulated industry, propelling the standardization process of continuing education.

In conclusion, due to the unbalancing development and diversity in educational institutes, building a unified external evaluation system in China will not be easy. So guiding self-evaluation within institutes is a possible breakthrough for evaluation system building. Learning from the strength of other countries’ standards, contemplating our own characteristic, can be of great help for the building of an evaluation system with international background and Chinese character. Under the guidance of this evaluation system, the training institutes’ self-evaluation can be conducted. Thus, evaluation will promote the construction of continuing education.

（The paper was published in the 12th IACEE World Conference on Continuing Engereering Education in October, 2010）