高等教育大众化与机会均等——理论分析和中日比较

Massification of Higher Education and Equity:Theoretical Considerations and China-Japan Comparison

当高等教育规模扩大时,高等教育机会是否会变得更均等一些呢?均等程度又如何测算?从这一视角来看,中国的高等教育到底是趋向于平等,还是更加不平等呢?本文试图通过理论探讨,以及对中日两国数据的实证分析来回答上述问题。首先,我们检验了几种用于标识不平等度的尺度,发现基尼系数等不适于检测类似于升学率这样的由百分率表示的指标。其次,在1992年与2001年之间,随着经济的增长,中国高等教育机会的地区差有了明显的扩大。第三,类似情况也发生在日本高等教育的大众化进程中(1960年至1975年)。理论依据和日本的经验告诉我们,要矫正迅速扩大的高等教育机会地区差,今后必须在调控高等教育的供给上多下功夫。

When higher education expands, does it make the opportunity of higher education more equitable？ How can it be measured？ From that perspective has Chinese higher education become more or less equitable？ This paper examines these problems by theoretical considerations and analyses on the data from China and Japan. In the first section, the properties of various indicators of equity are examined to show that some of them, for example the Gini Coefficient, are improper when applied to participation rate. The second section examines the change in equity in China from 1992 to 2001 to demonstrate that the degree of inequity has increased reflecting the widening gap in economic growth. The third section shows that similar development was seen in Japan over the course of massification period of 1960 through 1975-the expanded regional inequity had to be rectified in the following years by controlling the supply.