高等教育筛选功能缺失的表征、归因与重塑

Screening Function Deficit in Higher Education:Symptoms,Causes and Solutions

高等教育不仅具有传播知识、技能、思想与文化的社会化功能,还具有将不适合接受高等教育或某一专业的人才筛选出来的社会筛选功能。高等教育筛选机制的前提是获取教育文凭的学生要经历严格的筛选过程,教育文凭能够有效区分不同能力的学生。目前,我国高等教育在过程阶段和出口阶段并没有对学生的能力进行严格筛选和区分,最终导致不同能力的学生却获取了相同的文凭,劳动力市场出现了混同均衡现象。不仅如此,担负筛选功能任务的阶段还发生了“前移”和“后移”的状况:“前移”至基础教育阶段,导致教育竞争的不断提前,并且对优质教育资源的需求增加;“后移”至毕业生就业阶段,导致就业招聘“学历论”导向加剧,且产生了高校毕业生过度的教育现象,极大地浪费了高等教育资源。造成高等教育筛选功能缺失现象形成的原因是多方面的:传统思想的积淀与延续是价值前提,利益主体的理性选择是重要推力,制度安排与环境的不兼容是现实基础。破解此问题需要从以下几个方面入手:一是要革新认知观念,由“宽出”到“严出”;二是要转变价值取向,由“利益取向”到“责任取向”;三是要深化学分制改革,由“刻板教条”到“自由灵活”。

Higher education combines two basic functions:the social function of spreading knowledge,skills,ideas,and culture,and the social screening function of filtering out those unfit for higher education or a specific profession.A good screening mechanism for higher education presupposes that students obtaining an educational diploma undergo a rigorous screening process and that the educational diploma effectively differentiates between students of different abilities.However,there is currently no screening and differentiation of students’abilities in the process and at the completion stage of higher education,resulting in students with different abilities obtaining the same diploma and pooling equilibrium in the labor market.At the same time,the screening stage has been moved“ahead of time”or“postponed.”It is moved“ahead of time”to the stage of primary education,which in turn leads to the advancement of the competition for education and the increase in the demand for high⁃quality educational resources.It is“postponed”to the stage when graduates find jobs,which leads to intensified diploma⁃oriented recruitment for employment,as well as too many graduates from universities,which is a tremendous waste of the resources of higher education.There are many reasons for the screening function deficit in higher education:the lingering traditional ideas are the value premise,the rational choice of stakeholders is the driving force,and the institutional arrangements incompatible with the environment make the realistic basis.To solve this problem,we propose the following solutions:changing“lenient”control to“strict”control over university graduation;changing“interest⁃oriented”value to“responsibility⁃orientated”value;further reforming the credit system,changing the“rigid”system to a“flexible”system.