With the development of the time and the society, china’s higher education system is becoming more and more flawless, and China has benefited much from this. But, we can’t deny, there are also many problems still exist in china’s higher education.
In china, the higher education over focus on the knowledge itself, but ignore to cultivate students’ abilities, qualities, and even more important, the sense of responsibility to the society. Maybe this is because Chinese people reverence knowledge, love knowledge more than other things. This is not bad, but it must be under the precondition of not ignoring other things. We must admit, in the past ten years, with the development of china’s higher education system, this phenomenon has changed a lot, but this is still a very common problem in today’s higher education.
In my mind, the aim of university education should not confine its views in knowledge teaching, but it should help the students to increase their abilities, qualities, and the sense of responsibility to the society. That’s to say, it is training the good members of society.
In the article “The Aim of a University Education” the famous English educationist John Henry Newman expresses his opinion about the higher education: “it aims at raising the intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, at purifying the national taste ……and refining the intercourse of private life.” “It prepare him to fill any post with credit, and to master any subject with facility.” Here, John Henry Newman raises the abilities, qualities, and the sense of responsibility to the society to more important position.
In the reality, after graduation the students will become the average members of the society. At that time, the importance of their abilities, qualities, and the sense of responsibility to the society will be all shown. No matter how much knowledge one owns, if he can’t adapt the society, and contribute to the society, he will be washed out by the society. It is a waste of education recourses.
In our life, we can see a lot of examples. Every year, we can hear news that many university students or the persons who have higher academic qualification kill themselves. They have accepted the high education and have a lot of knowledge, but their qualities and the sense of responsibility to the society may not reach the level which they should have. At the same time, many university campuses in China are so dirty that makes people feel they are not in the campus but in the street outside, and we can see many students throw rubbish to everywhere they want. This may indicate there is something wrong with students’ qualities.
There must be a lot of other problems exist in china’s higher education, for example, the high tuition fee, the improper system, the ruleless manage, and so on. But because china’s higher education is in the process of change from “elite education” to “popular education”, the cultivation of students’ abilities, qualities, and even more important, the sense of responsibility to the society is becoming more and more important. This will affect china’s future society in a large extent. So we must do our best, and overcome all the difficulties to solve this problem firstly.
