Changes in educational institutions in China: 1978-2020: Analysis of education policies and legal texts from a national perspective

This chapter reviews key historical documents and reform events and outlines China’s educational reform and development in the macro context of 40 years of social, political, and economic changes. Professor Elizabeth J. Perry (2014) noted the significance of studying contemporary China from the Reform and Opening-up in the field comparative politics and public policy, which marked the beginning of “a new era of developing socialism with Chinese characteristics” (Xi 2017). This chapter focuses on the process of education institutional changes and innovation and identifies the educational reform and opening-up as a predominant narrative, aiming at breaking through the obstacles of existing institutional structures and promoting sustainable development of education. A key challenge to reforming education institution lies in how to solve the Chinese governance dilemma of loosening control in chaos or tightening control in suffocation (“Yifang Jiuluan, Yishou Jiusi”). Solutions are suggested as exploring appropriate tensions among education institutional factors and stimulating the vitality of educational elements and institutions under appropriate tensions.