我们是否迈向高等教育的自由放任主义?

Are We Marching Towards Laissez-Faireism in Higher Education Development?

多年以来,许多发展中国家对高等教育的发展漠不关心,忽视高等教育发展、缩减高等教育的公共投资,纵容自由放任主义,甚至采取了高等教育市场化的政策;结果在高等教育领域中市场变得十分活跃。然而大多数发展中国家的市场经济是“不完全”或“不完善”的,因此高等教育市场化改革的结果很不理想。事实上,市场力量在一些国家造成了灾难性的后果。这种“市场化”国家政策来自以下两个错误的假设:高等教育对社会的发展并不重要,国家可以为了市场而忽略其提供高等教育的责任。但是事实表明,我们已经为这些错误认识付出了昂贵的代价。国家在高等教育发展中的角色是至关重要、不可或缺的。

Over the years, many developing countries have showed apathy towards development of higher education, deliberately neglected higher education, reduced public investments in higher education, allowed laissez-faireism, and even adopted policies towards marketisation of higher education. Market forces have become very active; but since the markets in developing countries are ＇incomplete＇ and ＇imperfect＇, the outcomes are also far from perfect, and in fact, in some cases, the market forces produced disastrous consequences. The evolving state approach could be attributed to the faulty assumptions that （a） higher education is not important for development and （b） the State can as well withdraw from its responsibility of providing higher education in favor of the markets. But both assumptions are wrong, and have proved to be costly. The role of the state in higher education development is critical and cannot be reduced.