Cassidy Gong - Public Policy on Chinese Private Higher Education
The largest and arguably leading global scholarship on the development and functioning of private higher education (PHE) finds that most policy for PHE is privately made and that even public policy for PHE tends to follow "pluralist-market" (and even "laissez-faire" dynamics) more than statist dynamics. What then are the essential features of Chinese public policy for PHE? Looking at a range of specific policies in PHE, indeed across different component parts of PHE, and sometimes in direct partnership with public HE, this study illuminates both the comparatively extensive state role, seen in global perspective, but also limitations, seen in comparison to the state role in public HE and other policy fields. Legally registered for-profit PHE has been authorized in 2021 for the first time in Communist China, this radical shift in the HE landscape will be highlighted.
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About the speaker
Cassidy Gong
Cassidy received her PhD from OISE, University on Toronto where she is currently a course instructor and research associate. Cassidy is a member of the Program for Research on Private Higher Education (PROPHE), State University of New York (SUNY) Albany. Cassidy's doctoral research examines the subnational variation of the growth and development of private higher education (PHE) in China. She worked as a research fellow on a project funded by the Social Science and Humanities Council of Canada examining private universities in Ontario and how they have diversified the degree-granting HE sector from a policy perspective; comparing subnational variation in PHE development in Canada and China. Prior to joining OISE, Cassidy worked for a decade in higher education administration in various Ontario universities. Her other areas of research interest include higher education policy, East Asian higher education, comparative international higher education, sociology of education, student and scholar mobility and internationalization of higher education.