政策驱动高等教育改革的背后

At the Back of the Policy-Driven Higher Education Reform

40年来,我国高等教育改革的显著特征是"政策驱动"。虽然不是每一项政策都会驱动改革,但每一次改革背后毫无疑问都会有政府的政策驱动。政策驱动改革的背后,既反映了高等教育改革自身的路径依赖,也凸显了国家治理中"政令出于中央"的一贯逻辑。政策驱动高等教育改革的成功得益于行政权力的强制性、锦标赛体制以及对顺从的激励。但随着这种改革模式日益常规化,政策实施过程中"顾此失彼""制度区隔""目标替换""拼凑应对"等层出不穷。由于改革过程中经常政策贫乏与过剩并存,政策驱动改革的效果愈来愈受到质疑。要避免政策驱动改革的局限性,应以治理的现代化和改革的法治化为契机,以高质量的政策和创新的知识驱动高质量的改革,进而以高质量的改革驱动高质量的发展。

In the past 40 years, an outstanding feature of Chinese higher education reform is “policy-driven”, which means that each reform has been more or less influenced by government policies, though not every policy has actuated reform. At the back of policy-driven reforms are the path dependence of higher education reform and the consistent logic in nation governing, namely,“policy comes from central government”. The coerciveness of executive power, tournament system and stimulation to obedience have all contributed to the success of higher education reform driven by policy. Yet with the routinization of this mode of reform, problems emerge endlessly such as “catch one, lose another”,“system compartment”,“object replacement”,“make up and handle”, and so forth. Due to the coexistence of lack and surplus of policy in the process of reform, the effect of policy-driven reform has been increasingly questioned. Therefore, to avoid the limitation of policy-driven reform, we should take the chance of modernization of governing and legalization of reform and actuate a high-quality reform with high-quality policy and innovative knowledge through the reconstruction of the relationship between politics (national power) and administration (official power), so as to promote the development of higher education.