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Article

Education Partnership Assistance to Promote the Balanced and Sustainable Development of Higher Education: Lessons from China

by
Ruichang Ding
1 and
Zheng You
2,*
1
Institute of International and Comparative Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
2
Graduate School of Education, Beijing Foreign Studies University, 963 International Building, 19 Xisanhuan North Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100089, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2022, 14(14), 8366; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14148366
Submission received: 13 March 2022 / Revised: 26 June 2022 / Accepted: 6 July 2022 / Published: 8 July 2022
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Education and Sustainable Development Goals)
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Abstract

:
The Education Partnership Assistance (EPA) is an institutional arrangement that has played an important role in the balanced and sustainable development of higher education in China, in which universities of East China provide the paired universities in West China with various assistance. EPA is part of the political commitment made by the Chinese government to fulfil sustainable and balanced development. By applying a policy process framework and qualitative text analysis to the government and universities’ official documents, we find EPA is primarily based on the Communist Party of China (CPC)’s ideological cornerstones of “common prosperity”. Over the past two decades, by conducting leadership secondment, faculty and student training, and ICT and library development, EPA has improved the development of universities in West China, and the central government’s current emphasis remains on the continuation of EPA. However, this paper argues that EPA cannot be going on indefinitely and that true sustainability is contingent on the capacity building of the recipient universities, rather than on the endless assistance from supporting universities. EPA is a localized action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in China. It sheds light on the connections between domestic aid and the SDGs from a supplementary perspective.

1. Introduction

The 17 global SDGs initiated by the United Nations in 2015 unfolded a new era of common commitment by the world, which would subsequently stimulate actions over the forthcoming 15 years in areas of critical importance for humanity and the planet [1]. Education is identified as a key area of the 17 goals, “to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all,” referred to as the SDG 4. Although global goals for education in the period of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Education for All (EFA) focused on basic education, higher education is expected to play its driving role for the achievement of the full set of SDGs in addition to calls for equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality higher education in the SDG 4, through their contribution to human formation, knowledge production and innovation [2,3,4,5,6]. It is thus clear that the importance of the sustainability of the higher education system is two-fold: as part of the SDG 4; and as a power system for the realization of other SDGs.
Although the SDG 4 does not explicitly define what sustainability is in higher education, it is described using adjectives such as equal, affordable, and quality. They are seemingly different, and in many cases conflicting targets, but are essentially interconnected. After all, the ultimate vision is more than education for all, but quality education for all. From this perspective, the balance of educational resources distribution, not just schooling opportunity, is a key issue for the sustainability of higher education within the framework of the SDGs. Nevertheless, in contrast to the attention on the balanced development of basic education, the balance of higher education has gone unnoticed, despite its relevance to sustainability, and discussions on equity mainly concentrate on individual opportunity [7,8,9,10]. Therefore, reflecting on and promoting the international sharing of relevant practices have implications for the realization of the SDGs.
China is a relevant case when we discuss global goals for education, considering its population size and the achievements in education development, which have contributed tremendously to eradicating poverty and boosting prosperity in the past decades [11]. In recent years, both politicians and academics from different countries including China, and international organizations, have become increasingly interested in summarizing the lessons of Chinese education development. As far as higher education is concerned, there is still a gap for China compared its Western counterparts, but if we consider China’s history of modern higher education is just over 100 years, we may have to give its achievements a more generous rating [12,13]. Although China’s efforts in building world-class universities, from Project 211, Project 985 (Project 211 is a national strategy aimed at strengthening 100 higher education institutions and key disciplinary areas for the 21st century. The project was initiated in 1995 and 116 HEIs were selected. Project 985 is a constructive project for founding world-class universities in the 21st century. It was initiated in 1998 and 39 HEIs were selected.) to the current Double World-Class Project, and the expansion of higher education and its impact have received a lot of attention [14,15,16,17], in international publications, a limited amount of literature could be found directly on the Education Partnership Assistance (EPA) of China, one of the local actions to promote the sustainable development of higher education by promoting a balanced supply of quality higher education resources.
EPA refers to an education assistance model, rather than a specific project, initiated by the Chinese government to establish partnerships between higher education institutions in developed and underdeveloped regions, bringing in material and intellectual resources from the former to the latter. By doing so, China intends to improve education in underdeveloped regions, to optimize the allocation of educational resources, to promote educational equity, and to eradicate poverty. It is an institutional arrangement to promote the balanced and sustainable development of higher education in China, which represents a localized action of SDGs. This paper studies the policy process of EPA, specifically to answer the following questions: what political ideology framed and shaped EPA? How is EPA being implemented at the university level? What implications does EPA have on the realization of SDGs?

2. Literature Review

The issue this study concerned has been discussed, often indirectly, in three groups of literature. Although all of these studies do not directly address this article’s research subject, they shed useful light on our research in different aspects. In the first group, studies have mostly focused on international education assistance and its role in achieving SDGs. Even the most severe critics acknowledge aid successes, and many of those have been in the education sector. Recent studies suggest that aid has contributed to positive educational achievements over the past decades [18]. However, effectiveness and sustainability of foreign aid in promoting education development in developing countries still remains questionable. Heyneman and Lee are particularly dissatisfied with policy-based assistance education, and they assert that it has developed a reputation for being invasive in the sense that the conditions are often set by a process characterized by unequal access to information and methods of analysis between lender and recipient [19]. There is also research pointing out the considerable gap between what aid does and what it could potentially achieve, especially in relation to its contribution to improvements in educational quality [20]. These critiques resulted in increased attention on new partnerships and domestic resource mobilisations that are to complement foreign aid in achieving SDGs [21,22]. It implies the significance to pay attention to domestic initiatives like EPA. Moreover, in view of Niño-Zarazúa, for aid to be effective at improving the quality of education a system-wide approach is required, but this is challenging as donors are driven by the desire for quick and demonstrable results, which oftentimes leads to the heavy reliance on short-lived projects that limit the capacity of aid agencies to build sustainable institutional capacity. This insight makes sense equally when we reflect on EPA’s effectiveness in promoting sustainability of higher education.
The second category related to this study, accordingly, are those centered on domestic assistance for higher education. The current literature has provided commentary on higher education grant and tuition policies, student bursary and loan systems, and their impact on the access of disadvantaged groups [23,24,25,26]. There are also studies that explore potential solutions from a fundraising perspective, based on increased domestic resource mobilisation to fill the growing financing gap to achieve SDGs [27,28]. These studies recognize higher education as a quasi-public good and thus emphasize the indispensable role of the government in providing and redistributing resources for higher education, while also arguing for leaving a necessary place for the free market. It reminds us to carefully examine whether both the government and the market are playing their rightful role in the operation of EPA.
The third group features studies centered on partnerships at the institutional level. Although it is common to develop partnerships among universities within a country, academic commentaries cannot be found proportionally. Woldegiorgis found that although African universities have been working in collaboration with universities outside of the continent for decades, since the 1940s, recently a slight shift in trends with diversifying partnerships among African universities can be seen. Such a shift is a significant new paradigm in higher education cooperation that facilitates regionalization and harmonization of higher education systems within Africa. Woldegiorgis warned, however, that the partnership should avoid developing into a donor-recipient kind of relationship, which eventually creates dependency of one institution towards the other [29]. This assertion touched on the key to sustainability of partnerships themselves but implied a pessimistic view on assistance relationships. It makes sense if the ultimate goals of a partnership are to cut down operating costs and to gain competitive advantage in the higher education’s marketplace [30], though Woldegiorgis recognized the terms of partnership in higher education are more comprehensive and diversified than in business. Inspired by these insights, although EPA can be seen as a partnership that emphasizes social responsibility with the goal of a balanced development of the higher education sector as a whole, rather than a win-win benefit-based exchange relationship, while analyzing the role of EPA in promoting the sustainability of higher education, we should not neglect the sustainability of EPA itself.
Although we acknowledge the contribution and relevance of the sources described above to this study, evident knowledge gaps can be identified. International education assistance discussed in the first type of literature is fundamentally different from the EPA we discuss in this article. The latter, as a domestic aid, at least does not have as many sovereignty concerns as international aid. Therefore, the discussion of international aid to education cannot fully explain the entirety of EPA. Although the second type pulls the view back to the domestic context, EPA is not a direct government support to universities by transferring payments or leveraging tax policies, but a government-driven initiative expenses borne by universities. Moreover, EPA is not only about financial aid, or more precisely not mainly about financial aid. Lastly, the partnerships examined in the third category of studies are based on reciprocal cooperation, whereas EPA is more of a type of one-way assistance, although discourses like cooperation are always literally mentioned in Chinese policy texts, the obvious division between donor and recipient has determined that they are not reciprocal in an actual sense. This makes the sustainability of EPA even more questionable.
A chapter contribution published in 2014 did pioneering work by overviewing EPA as an attempt to promote balanced development in higher education between eastern and western China [31]. Nevertheless, they mainly give a description of EPA, without the application of a specific analytical framework, and present some main findings of a survey on the effect of EPA done by the Ministry of Education in 2007. Therefore, the underlying logic and recent development of EPA have not gained attention, let alone discussions on its implication to promote the SDGs.

3. Conceptual Framework

To explore the under-researched EPA, we intend to investigate the policy process and its implications regarding the SDGs. The policy process analysis will further develop the pioneering EPA study in 2014 by tracking the political context and latest development of EPA (research questions 1&2). The implications discussion will make contribution to international literature on the SDGs (research question 3). We adopt a perspective of policy process that focuses on key stages of the policy reform plan. The Stages Heuristic (Stages Model or Textbook Approach termed in other literature) in policy analysis was firstly introduced by Harold Lasswell with seven steps, and proponents have since developed this framework into five steps during the 1970s to the 1980s: agenda setting, policy formulation, legitimation, implementation, and evaluation [32]. This framework is insightful to explore EPA due to its focused attention on the context and development of a policy. Considering both the fact that EPA is still being implemented as well as the Chinese context, this study mainly draws on “agenda setting-policy formulation-implementation” to analyse the policy process of EPA. As a sub-division of a greater national strategy, the legitimation process of EPA has been predetermined, which will be explained in the policy formulation section. Based on the limited formative information regarding the results and the outputs of EPA in previous evaluative studies, this study presents some basic facets of policy evaluation in the sections of policy formulation and implementation.
To better understand the policy process, a more recent and localized framework proposed by Xu is insightful. Based on reviewing the political reform in China since the 1980s, Xu believes that the following issues are of significance to explore: (1) the role of ideology on the rationalization and legitimacy of reform policy; (2) the role of political leadership; (3) the bureaucratic and organizational policy preferences; and (4) various levels of social group participation [33]. Thus, this study presents findings in a three-stage sequential manner in accordance with the Stages Heuristic framework. In each stage, the role of political leadership and ideology, social group participation, and the policy preferences Xu proposed were integrated. Within the Chinese background, the conceptual framework of this study can be graphed as below:
In Figure 1, the horizontal (left to right) arrows represent the three stages of policy process. The dotted box in the middle represents the policy factors that deserve exploration in the Chinese context as Xu proposed. The longitudinal arrows (up to down) indicate how the conceptual framework guides us to locate the main topics in different stages.
Specifically, in the stage of Agenda Setting, we explore the partisan ideology and key leadership ideas that may have influenced EPA, namely the CPC governance idea, Deng Xiaoping theory, and Xi Jinping thought. In the policy formulation stage, we analyse the bureaucratic and organizational preferences that shaped EPA at the transition from the 20th to the 21st Century, especially the CPC Central Committee, the State Council, and the Ministry of Education. In the next stage, universities are the protagonist in policy implementation. In fact, the central government did not specify what kind of assistance universities should carry out in EPA. Therefore, the practical measures of universities further demonstrate how the policy works, and also explain the participation and organization preferences of universities.

4. Methodology

We took a thematic qualitative approach to deal with the text data [34]. Government and universities’ documents comprise the data source for our study, so the qualitative text analysis is appropriate. Firstly, in an open-coding similar way, we generated a new topical category by reviewing the CPC government documents, which is labelled as the political ideology of “common prosperity”. Then, using “common prosperity” as the previous knowledge [35], we present how the political ideology affects EPA in different stages by coding the specific EPA-related policy documents.

4.1. Data Collection

Data collection is based on reviewing official policy documents and universities’ practices. The policy documents this paper has reviewed are listed in Table 1. University working documents are mainly presented as news articles and were retrieved from their websites, as Table 2 shows.

4.2. Data Analysis

To lay foundations for the understanding of EPA agenda setting, we introduce the national background of regional imbalance and its unsustainable consequences in higher education. We then discuss the political ideology of “common properity” the CPC put forward and the consequent “East-West Pairing-off Cooperation” policy since Reform and Openning-up in 1978. These national and political contexts explain explicitly the agenda-setting background of EPA. In the analysis of the policy formulation stage, we use the idea of common prosperity (and its homologous concept “national balanced development”) as a main topical category to code the policy documents in Table 1, so as to illustrate how the political ideology affects EPA. Table 3 shows some examples of our coding process, the whole coding process is conducted in Chinese. Through coding the documents, it turns out that the Western Development Strategy (WDS) is a strategic decision under the idea of common prosperity, which also sets a foundation for the policy formulation of EPA. The coding process also reveals a key characteristic that the policy documents are with a single-partisan value. Therefore, we focus on how the political ideology has been conveyed in the policy documents, instead of creating new topical categories based on coding.
In the analysis of the policy implementation stage, we raked over the university news reports (it should be noted that the number of this sort of data is limited), and we summarize the major paths of implementing EPA by universities. We found four major paths to carry out partnership assistance, which also represent the universities preferences and cognition of EPA policies. Based on the policies and practice facts, we move to the discussion of the EPA implications on the SDGs.

5. Findings

5.1. Agenda Setting of EPA

As the biggest developing country with the largest population in the world, China has been facing substantive challenges of unbalanced development. A prime example is that all 832 poverty-stricken counties identified by the government in 2013 were located in western and central China [36]. With regard to the development of higher education, the picture is rather similar. In terms of the per capita public spending for higher education, the majority of regions where spending was lowest are also in western and central China. Meanwhile, approximately half of the 211/985 projects universities are located in eastern China. The regional disparities are clearly showed in Table 4.
To narrow this wide gap is a political commitment made by the CPC. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the CPC has been making political commitments to achieve common prosperity, despite the many detours taken in the early three decades. At the beginning of Reform and Opening-up in 1978, Deng Xiaoping, the then paramount leader of China, formally put forward the concept of common prosperity, and marked it as the fundamental principle of socialism with Chinese characteristics. In 1988, Deng affirmed that Socialism is characterized not by poverty but by prosperity—the common prosperity of all [37]. Unlike the egalitarian approach of People’s Commune Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, Deng believed that common prosperity should be achieved gradually, and advocated allowing some regions with viable conditions to develop first, and they would then help the lagged ones to catch up, then China will eventually achieve common prosperity [38]. In 2017, the CPC held its 19th National Congress, President Xi Jinping strengthened the idea of common prosperity by announcing that socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era. He also stated that the principal contradiction facing Chinese society now is the disparities caused by unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life [39].
Since 1978, various policies have come towards a policy package for the goal of common prosperity, one of which is the “East-West Pairing-off Cooperation” that links provinces at different levels together for more equitable development and resources distribution [36]. From 2015 to 2020, nine eastern provincial regions have invested more than 100 billion yuan to their paired provincial regions in poverty alleviation areas and mobilized more than 22,000 local enterprises to invest 1.1 trillion yuan. Additionally, the exchanged officials and technical personnel amounted to 131,000 [40] (p. 56).
Education, as Dewey put forward, is fundamental for social progress and reform [41]. The CPC also highly values the role of education as a fundamental facilitator when designing its national balanced development strategy. Education assistance is part of Official Development Assistance (ODA), defined by the OECD Development Assistance Committee as government aid that promotes and specifically targets the economic development and welfare of developing countries [42]. Improving education in impoverished areas has been identified as one of the five measures (The other four measures include: boosting the economy to provide more job opportunities, relocating poor people from inhospitable areas, compensating for economic losses associated with reducing ecological damage, and providing subsistence allowances for those unable to shake off poverty through their own efforts alone.) for poverty eradication by the CPC [40] (pp. 37–43).
As Deng explained, common prosperity is more than material affluence, but also includes spiritual and cultural enrichment as well as the improvement of people’s civilization [43]. President Xi also described the common prosperity as “a general concept that involves all aspects of the society, … is for all, affluence both in material and spiritual life…” [44]. Therefore, achieving quality and balanced education for all would be regarded both as an important approach and an indispensable goal for achieving common prosperity. Furthermore, EPA, an initiative of “East-West Pairing-off Cooperation” in education, has been valued and promoted by the CPC and became a complementary redistribution arrangement to the national public education resource allocation system.

5.2. Policy Formulation of EPA

5.2.1. Policy for EPA

The origin of EPA can be traced back to the 1950s, and it continued to grow significantly in the 1980s and 1990s [45]. At the turn of the century, with the implementation of the WDS, EPA has been systematically integrated into the national framework of sustainable and balanced development in China. The WDS was officially approved in 2000 by the National People’s Congress (NPC), and its adjustments were repeatedly reinforced by the NPC as well in the following decades. Approvement by the NPC is a major mechanism to gain legitimacy for any national policies in China. Since the approval of WDS in 2000, the central government has been able to issue EPA policies without consultancy with the NPC.
In 2000, the central authority initiated EPA by issuing the 2000 Notice. In the beginning of the 2000 Notice, it read that the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have decided to carry out EPA. Then, the 2000 Notice elaborated on the rationale underlying the EPA projects: the successful implementation of the WDS depends largely on the improvement of the quality of the workforce and on the quantity and quality of education and training of various types of talents [46]. The necessity of putting higher education in a key position of WDS is self-evident. Without substantial talent resources and intellectual support, the strategic plan of the WDS is likely to be difficult to implement. Considering the direct connection between WDS and common prosperity, EPA as an educational component of WDS resonates such a political ideology.
According to the 2000 Notice, EPA is comprised of two sub-projects. The first pairs up schools of the Western provinces vs. schools of the Eastern provinces throughout China; and the second focuses on schools in large- and medium-sized cities vs. schools in poorer, more rural areas within a single Western province. This study focuses on the former. The 2000 Notice set out a blueprint for EPA. Thereafter, according to the logic of Chinese governance, the primary responsibility for EPA implementation rested with the Ministry of Education (MoE). Two weeks after the 2000 Notice, the MoE issued the 2000 Guiding Opinions. It is noticeable that the 2000 Guiding Opinions represents multi-participation of bureaucratic organizations, which reflects the complexity and difficulties in carrying out such an ambitious plan. As it stated, the national EPA is led by the MoE, assisted by the State Council Leading Group for Poverty Alleviation and Development, with the participation of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, the National Development Planning Commission, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Personnel. In terms of policy content, the 2000 Guiding Opinions specified that EPA should be centered on compulsory schools. In addition, the supporting parts are encouraged to assist in vocational education and higher education as much as they can [47]. Although the 2000 Guiding Opinions has focused its attention on basic education, it has also provided a basic framework for the later development of EPA in higher education.

5.2.2. Policy for EPA in Higher Education

The first specific policy for EPA in the higher education sector was the 2001 Notice issued by the MoE. According to the academic expertise and willingness of recipient universities in the western region, 13 universities in the eastern region, including Peking University and Tsinghua University, have been designated as supporting universities. Supporting universities take a one-to-one approach to build up all-round cooperation with the recipient universities and implement assistance. Responding to the 2000 Notice rationale, the core task of EPA is to educate various types of talents. Other key tasks are subject and discipline construction, personnel building, as well as management and administration system establishment [48]. Through selecting the pairing universities and setting out assistance principles, the 2001 Notice has marked the official launch of EPA in higher education.
The 2001 Notice set five years as the time frame for the first round of EPA. Five years later, the MoE issued the 2006 Opinions to continue EPA. On top of affirming the positive results gained, the 2006 Opinions was highlighted with three new clauses. First, the 2006 Opinions advocated for the use of modern information and communications technology in promoting EPA; second, the recipient universities were encouraged to expand international exchanges and cooperation; and third, the central government stressed the sustainability of EPA by pointing out that establishing a long-term mechanism to realize the long-term, stable, and healthy development of partnership assistance is necessary [49]. In 2010, the MoE issued the last specific policy on EPA in higher education—the 2010 Opinions. Compared to the 2006 Opinions, developing faculty professions and educating various young talents were further emphasized [49], otherwise the new policy imparts the old policy without big breakthrough.
Up through 2020, initiated by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, mainly driven by the MoE, EPA has established a policy system with Chinese characteristics. With the top-level government as the leader, the distribution of higher education resources has been gradually optimized, which reflects the superiority of the socialist system [50]. In the exploration and practice of more than a decade, EPA has become a model that is suitable for China’s national conditions, which has strongly promoted the leapfrog development of universities in the western region and improved the higher education system in China as a whole [51]. In a word, the “Chinese characteristics” and “the superiority of the socialist system” stated above refer to as the east–west pairing-off development in education, and then to accelerate the realization of common prosperity.
More recently, although EPA is still being implemented, the central government has not issued specific policies. However, as shown in Table 1, the three pertinent policy documents issued in 2013, 2016, 2020 have all emphasized the significance of EPA in higher education. For instance, in the 2020 Guiding Opinions, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council pointed out that China will continuously promote the partnership assistance in higher education between the eastern and western regions [52].

5.3. Implementation of EPA

Established by the 2001 Notice, the first batch of universities in EPA is as shown below in Table 5. Just a few years later, an increasing number of colleges and universities had joined the project, and there has been a steady trend of gradual increases. From 2001 to 2007, the total number of EPA participants included 25 supporting universities and 31 recipient universities [53]. In 2013, nearly 20 higher education institutions of Beijing took part in the project, and the total number of supporting vs. recipient universities hit 99 and 73, respectively [54].
The four milestones (2000 Notice–2001 Notice–2006–Opinions–2010 Opinions) have set up an agenda for EPA. Student cultivation has always been the core of assistance, and in addition, other key tasks comprise academic facility construction, faculty and staff team building, administration system establishment, and internationalization. The paired universities would first stipulate the assistance fields by signing an agreement. Leadership exchange, faculty and student training, and ICT and library development are the most common approaches.

5.3.1. Agreement Signing

To lay the foundation for assistance, leadership exchanges of paired universities is usually the first step, which includes the university leaders visiting the partnership university, assistance agreement signing, and so forth. A more detailed assistance to-do-list will be confirmed in the agreement. For instance, according to the agreement between Beijing Normal University (BNU) and Northwestern Normal University (NWNU), each year, BNU offers a number of graduate enrolment places for NWNU young faculty to pursue higher-level degrees, hosts a number of visiting scholars from NWNU, sends professors to work at NWNU for a short period of time regularly, opens online resources and laboratories to NWNU, and supports NWNU in applying for national research funds and other key research works when necessary [55]. The BNU–NWNU agreement covers the most common assistance fields in EPA. Other forms of assistance may include the exchange program for faculty and the direct donation of education equipment and facilities.

5.3.2. Leadership Secondment

To better implement the assistance project, the supporting university would usually send a leader or a professor to hold a temporary leading post (one to three years) at the recipient university. Tsinghua University and Qinghai University, Zhejing University and Guizhou University, Peking University and Shihezi University, and Southwest Jiaotong University and Tibet University, have all consecutively sent and hosted the exchanging leadership. Some are administrative posts at university level, and others include academic leadership posts at school level, which have made noticeable contributions to the administration and academic research of the recipient universities [56]. The leadership secondment is also an effective approach to help the recipient universities improve administration and management.

5.3.3. Faculty and Students Training

As the above BNU–NWNU agreement shows, faculty professional development of recipient universities might include upgrading degrees and collaborations in teaching and research. For the core task of student cultivation, the supporting universities open positions for visiting students and offer joint-degree programs for undergraduate students. Fudan University and Yunnan University started the joint degree program in ten academic areas from 2010. In the past decade, more than 400 students were beneficiaries. The employment rate of students participating in joint programs reached 100%, of which more than 50% were recommended to Fudan University, Zhejiang University, and other well-known universities for postgraduate study [57]. EPA has also helped the recipient university attract students. According to Shihezi University, Peking University’s support made itself a desirable destination for Chinese students. Shihezi University’s freshman enrolment covers 31 provinces every year, among which 58% of students not native to Xinjiang choose to stay upon graduation [58]. Attracting a group of talents originally from other regions for the western provinces is a sustainable contribution made by the universities through EPA.

5.3.4. ICT and Library Development

In the implementation of EPA, internet technology plays an increasingly important role when eastern universities open resources to western universities, be it joint-degree operation, scholars exchange, visiting programs operation, or academic resources sharing. With the issue of the 2006 Opinions, the use of information and communications technology (ICT) has become a key field in assistance, for library-network in the western universities play a critical role [59]. The significance of ICT is two-fold, and ICT is first an integral part of the assistance. For instance, in 2001–2006, Tsinghua University and Peking University had donated 41,834 and 7846 books each to their paired universities. Librarian workshops and training programs among the EPA universities have also become routine [60]. Second, with the support of ICT, other approaches of partnership assistance can be largely accelerated. In the end, when reviewing studies with regards to EPA, library has been an explicitly emerging sub-field.
Before the 2006 Opinions advocated using modern information and communications technology in EPA, the digital divide between western and eastern regions were underlined by academia. In prospect, facing the goal of modernized Chinese education in 2035, promoting the common sharing of high-quality digital education resources is an important area for the development of higher education [61]. Such an orientation will thus influence EPA as well. Since building E-campus, E-classroom, and E-education services have become EPA components, the functions of the university library and the ICT will be more fundamental and multidimensional.

6. Discussion

EPA is part of the policy package made by the Chinese government to fulfil the political commitment of sustainable and balanced development in education. It is primarily based on the CPC’s ideological cornerstones of common prosperity put forward by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s, which permits a certain range of asynchrony and disparity among different regions and groups for a period of history but requires the more developed help the less developed ones. Taking the WDS as a starting point, EPA has been preparing and implementing in China for more than 20 years. The less developed regions have received substantial developmental assistance both materially and intellectually through EPA. China has thereby enhanced the overall development of higher education as well as socio-economic balance.
The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) in the United States and the merger and reorganization in universities in France used to hold a similar intention to the Chinese EPA. However, neither relying on legislative guarantees nor following any market mechanism, the EPA model of “universities to universities aid” in China is characterized by political mobilization and free assistance [62]. EPA is essentially an unconventional political task given by the government to supporting universities [63,64]. On the summary conference of the 20th anniversary of EPA between Peking University and Shihezi University, a Xinjiang political leader stressed that assisting Xinjiang is a major strategic decision of the CPC Central Committee in his address [65]. Peking University has always taken this as an honorable and significant political task, mentioned the president of PKU too. The representative of the MoE required all the supporting universities to hold a higher and stronger sense of political responsibility and continue to do a good job in supporting the western counterparts [65]. These discourses vividly reflect how the political ideology and forces have influenced the formation and implementation of EPA. The practice of relevant universities shows how this policy is implemented. EPA is a Chinese localized action to achieve the SDGs. It sheds lights on the connections between domestic aid and the SDGs. When it is widely believed that foreign aid is important for the SDGs, China’s EPA generates implications from a supplementary perspective.
Despite concerns about the policy durability, there is no sign that EPA is nearing its termination. No matter how we extol the Chinese government’s ambitions and efforts to promote balanced development, it is a fact that imbalance still plagues the country. Although President Xi declared that China triumphed in the battle against poverty in 2021, EPA will continue for a foreseeable period. However, the sustainability is predictably still one of, if not the most, disputable issues. Political mobilization rather than inner cooperation intention between paired universities drives EPA, and could immediately produce visible effects, especially in the Chinese context. However, it is at risk of lacking stamina for long-term development, given that supporting universities need to pay out of their own pocket to finance the EPA. Moreover, if the university leaders lack sufficient sense of national responsibility and only see EPA as a political task, they will likely muddle through without putting forth the extra effort to make the project sustainable. Much of the literature has stressed this concern, and policy makers are aware of this problem as well. As mentioned above, the importance of EPA sustainability has been clearly emphasized in the 2006 Opinions and reinforced again and again in the following policies. Nevertheless, instead of offering advice on how to make EPA more sustainable, we argue that EPA cannot continue forever and that the true sustainability depends on the capacity building of the recipient universities, rather than on the endless assistance from supporting universities.
A fundamental question in the implementation of EPA is how to define the sustainability of EPA. At present, the central authority still emphasizes the sustainability of the EPA assistance. In the long run, a traditional Chinese philosophy is probably insightful to redefine sustainability. The old saying goes, “it is better to teach a man fishing than to give a man a fish.” Chinese educators have always believed in this ancient motto. Fishing is sustainable whereas a single fish is not. As the EPA projects move on, the definition of sustainability is likely to be shifted.

7. Conclusions

Based on the analytical framework of Policy Process, this paper reviewed three stages of EPA in the Chinese higher education sector. In the stage of agenda-setting, the political ideology of common prosperity with Chinese socialism characteristics promoted the development of “East-West Pairing-off Cooperation” and WDS. To better achieve the ambitious goals of balanced and sustainable development coined in WDS, Chinese central authorities have selected education as a facilitator. In the stage of policy formulation, the central authority has provided a clear framework for EPA in compulsory education and encouraged the higher education practitioners to create similar projects. Thereafter, a series of more specific action plans of EPA in higher education were issued by the central authorities. Human resources related tasks including student cultivation and faulty professional development are at the heart of EPA, which reflect the policy preferences. In the stage of policy implementation, the paired universities usually legitimize cooperation by signing agreements. Leadership exchange, faculty and students training, and ICT and library development are the most common approaches. The implementation stage indicates the multi-participation with various levels of bureaucratic departments and social groups in EPA. However, universities are the responsible entity, other bureaucratic and social groups participation is symbolic. The common cooperative areas also demonstrate the organizational preferences at university level. Although the central government has announced that they will continue EPA without a set time limit, this study suggests that the sustainability of EPA is the internal ability of the recipient university rather than the continuous assistance of the supporting university.
When international aid prevails current research on SDGs, this study provides a supplementary perspective by presenting domestic aid within the Chinese Mainland. In addition, the existing literature enlightens us to examine the government’ role in EPA and the sustainability of EPA itself, to which our study makes contributions. Findings from this study hold policy implications for the Chinese government, especially the realization from fish to fishing deserves political and professional attention, in terms of sustainability. There are some limitations of the study. Our analysis is mainly based on policy documents and university official news posts. Since EPA is still being implemented and its attributes of political tasks, we have not yet touched upon the stage of evaluation, namely the actual effect and effectiveness of EPA, which merits more research. Future research is advised to investigate the paired universities’ covert recognition on EPA through rigorous qualitative field study, for instance, to collect various assistance artifacts and to interview relevant staff.

Author Contributions

Writing—original draft, R.D. and Z.Y.; Writing—review & editing, R.D. and Z.Y. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2020QD18).

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

As Table 1 and Table 2 showed, publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. Please see the following links. (1) 2000 Notice: http://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2000/content_60165.htm (accessed on 8 February 2022). (2) 2000 Guiding Opinions: http://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2000/content_60420.htm (accessed on 8 February 2022). (3) 2001 Notice: http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xxgk/gk_gbgg/moe_0/moe_7/moe_16/tnull_145.html (accessed on 8 February 2022). (4) 2006 Opinions: http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A08/moe_744/200609/t20060911_79456.html (accessed on 8 February 2022). (5) 2010 Opinions: http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A08/moe_744/201002/t20100222_87832.html (accessed on 8 February 2022). (6) 2013 Plan: http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A08/s7056/201302/t20130228_148468.html (accessed on 8 February 2022). (7) 2016 Opinions: http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A09/s3082/201701/t20170112_294684.html (accessed on 8 February 2022). (8) 2020 Guiding Opinions: http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/s5147/202005/t20200518_455633.html (accessed on 8 February 2022). (9) 2008 Beijing Normal University (BNU) and North-western Normal University (NWNU): https://xiaoban.nwnu.edu.cn/2008/1212/c3068a58526/page.htm (accessed on 8 February 2022). (10) 2021 PKU and SHZU 20th anniverary: http://www.shzu.edu.cn/2021/0513/c2a157314/page.htm (accessed on 24 December 2021). (11) Yunnan University (YUN) and Fudan University (Fudan): http://www.yn.xinhuanet.com/edu/2021-02/09/c_139732922.htm (accessed on 8 February 2022).

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Sustainability 14 08366 g001 550
Figure 1. A policy process conceptual framework of this study. Source: authors make by integrating Lasswell [32] and Xu’s [33] frameworks.
Figure 1. A policy process conceptual framework of this study. Source: authors make by integrating Lasswell [32] and Xu’s [33] frameworks.
Sustainability 14 08366 g001
Table
Table 1. List of the Major Policies on EPA.
Table 1. List of the Major Policies on EPA.
Year.Issuing AgencyPolicy TitleAbbreviation
2000General Office of the CPC Central Committee & General Office of the State CouncilNotice on Partnership Assistance for Schools Between the Eastern and Western Regions2000 Notice
2000Ministry of EducationGuiding Opinions on Partnership Assistance for Schools Between the Eastern and Western Regions2000 Guiding Opinions
2001Ministry of EducationNotice on the Implementation of the Partnership Assistance Project for Colleges and Universities in the Western Region2001 Notice
2006Ministry of EducationOpinions on Further Carrying out Partnership Assistance for Colleges and Universities in the Western Region2006 Opinions
2010Ministry of EducationOpinions on Further Promoting Partnership Assistance for Colleges and Universities in the Western Region2010 Opinions
2013Ministry of Education, National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of FinanceHigher Education Vitalization Plan in Central and Western China (2012–2020)2013 Plan
2016Ministry of EducationOpinions on Strengthening EPA to Tibet and Tibetan Areas in Four Provinces during the 13th Five-Year Plan Period2016 Opinions
2020the CPC Central Committee, the State CouncilGuiding Opinions on Promoting the Western Development Strategy and Forming a New Pattern in the New Era2020 Guiding Opinions
Source: authors.
Table
Table 2. List of Universities Document.
Table 2. List of Universities Document.
YearUniversitiesDocument Title
2008Beijing Normal University (BNU) and North-western Normal University (NWNU) EPA Agreenment between BNU and NWNU *
2016Peking University (PKU) and Shihezi University (SHZU)Peking University and Shihezi University: 15 Years of Continuous Friendship #
2021PKU and SHZUThe 20th anniversary summary meeting of Peking University’s counterpart support to Shihezi *
2021Yunnan University (YUN) and Fudan University (Fudan)The Joint Degree Programs of YUN and Fudan #
Source: authors. Notes: * are retrieved from university websites; # are retrieved from news media.
Table
Table 3. Coding Examples.
Table 3. Coding Examples.
Policy AbbreviationMain Topical CategoryText Coding [Identifying Statement that Reflect the Catoegory]
2000 Noticecommon prosperity
(//national balanced development)		Due to historical reasons, the educational level in the western poor areas is relatively backward and the educational foundation is relatively weak, which is difficult to meet the WDS.
2000 Guiding OpinionsThe eastern region and large and medium-sized cities in the West should contribute to the development of education in poor areas in the West.
2001 NoticeActively developing higher education in the western region and accelerating the training of senior professionals are important tasks for the implementation of the WDS.
2006 OpinionsPartnership assistance is the concrete embodiment of striving to realize the comprehensive and balanced development of higher education. It is an important measure to implement the WDS in higher education.
2010 OpinionsSupporting universities should recognize that partnership assistance is not only a political task, but also their own social responsibility and historical mission.
Source: authors.
Table
Table 4. Regional Disparities in Higher Education Development in the Chinese Mainland.
Table 4. Regional Disparities in Higher Education Development in the Chinese Mainland.
Number ofCentralWesternNorth-EasternEastern
provinces612310
population proportion (%) ★25.8327.126.9839.93
provinces with per capita public spending for higher education below the national median *6422
universities selected for 211 project17251163
universities selected for 985 project67422
provinces without universities selected for 985 project3802
Sources: National Bureau of Statistics, 2021; MoE, 2016. Notes: ★ According to the Seventh National Population Census. * Data for 2015.
Table
Table 5. List of the Start-up EPA Institutions in 2001.
Table 5. List of the Start-up EPA Institutions in 2001.
Supporting UniversityRecipient University (Location #)
BeijingPeking U, Tsinghua U, China Agricultural U, Beijing Normal UShihezi U (Xinjiang), Qinghai U, Inner Mongolia Agricultural U, Northwestern Normal U (Gansu)
ShanghaiFudan U, Shanghai Jiao Tong UYunnan U, Ningxia U
JiangsuNanjing UNorthwest U (Shaanxi *)
ZhejiangZhejiang UGuizhou U
GuangdongSouth China U of TechnologyGuangxi U
Anhui ★U of Science and Technology of ChinaSouthwest U of Science and Technology (Sichuan *)
HubeiHuazhong U of Science and TechnologyChongqing Medical U
Sichuan *Southwest Jiaotong UTibet U
Shaanxi *Xi’an Jiaotong UXinjiang U
Source: MoE, 2001. Note: ★ Anhui is a central province. * Sichuan and Shaanxi are western provinces, but the two supporting universities from which are leading ones in their academic fields. # Without indications in parentheses, the recipient universities are named after their respective provinces.
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Ding, R.; You, Z. Education Partnership Assistance to Promote the Balanced and Sustainable Development of Higher Education: Lessons from China. Sustainability 2022, 14, 8366. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14148366

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Ding, Ruichang, and Zheng You. 2022. "Education Partnership Assistance to Promote the Balanced and Sustainable Development of Higher Education: Lessons from China" Sustainability 14, no. 14: 8366. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14148366

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