Chinese University Rankings which are in view of strengthening students

Chinese University Rankings in View of Strengthening Students’ Main Position

Abstract: from the perspective of students’ main position, this essay compares and analyzes the index system which comes from the famous university ranking home and abroad.It finds that Chinese University Ranking cannot fully reflect students’ situation, because the system is affected by the traditional individual rank and opaque information, data and index design are simple. Chinese assessment institutions should improve university evaluation index system based on strengthening students’ main position .

Key words: students’ main position evaluation of the university

ranking index system

1. raised issues

University is both educational institution and research institution. The main reason why it exists can not be that teachers impact knowledge to students or research opportunities to its faculties. [1] Cultivating talent is the basic task of the university education,which puts students in the main position. The basic aim of university education is to promote the development of students .It should be combined the social need and students ' individual development need . Meanwhile, the university ranking is based on students' learning and living environment--the university, as its research object.Throughout the course of ranking

students are always in the ranked object environment and exist as absolute body [2]. In addition, university comprehensive ranking is used to evaluate a university and its index to provide reference for the direct audience. On the evaluation index system of university, students are the main factors to reflect education investment, education process and education output.For example the education investment index involves the quality of enrolled freshmen,average student’s fee,average books per student and the quality of teaching staff etc.The education process index includes proportion between teachers and students,class size,special majors etc .The education output is concerned with graduation rates, the number of graduates and donation of alumni, which are closely related to the students.In the system of university ranking which is closely related to the students are mainly the quality of enrolled freshmen ,verage books per student,average equipental fee per student ,proportion between teachers and students, class size,graduation rate,educational budget,schoolarship, student satisfaction and donation of alumni, etc. We can see that students’ main position occupy an important position on the university evaluation. 2 Comparison and analysis of students’ main position in university ranking home and abroad.

The research compares abroad magazines involved U.S News & World Report university ranking and Canadian Macleans university ranking index system with Chinese four nonofficial rankings involved Chinese

Universities Evaluation annual ranking of Guangdong Institute of Management Science Research Group , NetBig (China) limited company’s Chinese Universities Ranking , Chinese Alumni’s Chinese Universities Evaluation and the evaluation index system of Chinese university evaluation report from a institute called Wuhan university’s Chinese Science Evaluation Research Center . It’s to compare the differences between middle school students’ main position and international universities evaluation index system.

2.1 Comparison between domestic and international universities ranking index system

The setting of domestic and international universities ranking index system is made basically according to each country’s higher education , and I get two indexes “student’s average budget expenditure” and “graduation rate” from the systems as indexes which can reflex students’ main position directly to compare and research . Meanwhile, I get three parts: educatin investment , education process and education output to reflect the percentage of student situation’s index and compare domestic and international universities ranking index system. Finally, I collect the proportion of research index in the comparing several domestic and international university ranking index system to compare and analyze.(see table 1)

Table 1 domestic and international university ranking’s comparison

(%)

Research Content Students Average Graduation Research Education Education EducatiInvestmenProgress t BudgetExpenditure Rate Output UniversityEvaluation 0.00 Studying Group NetBig Chinese Alumni 0.00 0.00 0.00 42.05 17.05 10.04 72.91 0.00 0.00 0.00 48.00 46.66 32.75 61.00 50.21 32.28 2.00 0.00 28.00 37.00 49.79 39.72 Wuhan university’s 4. Chinese Science Evaluation Research Center Macleans 6.00 0.00 7.50 46.00 22.50 40.00 36.00 10.00 9.00 50.00 55.00 U.S News & World 10.00 Report Seen from the table, Chinese four nonofficial rankings are a lack of index to reflex students’ situations in different degree. The classfication methods of international university rankings are varited , but a few key points are necessary.Such as the quality of students , education investment university puts in and the development after students graduate etc. They all modify or add the index system around students’ main position. The most common point international system showing all force

on education quality and emphasize talent cultivating is the basic function . The varied indexes in their new system caring for students show the emphsis of students’ main position.

In the international universities evaluation index system , the evaluation of graduates’ quality takes of 20% . While domestic universities’s systems are a lack of the evaluation. Since starting the item of “Select a Job for Oneself” ,the future of graduates and graduation rate become hot sopts to students, parents and society. The ranking is not complete without the index of graduates’ quality. Seen from the table 1 , U.S News & World Report system gives a rather high proporation for the “graduation rate”. Graduation rate is a necessary index to reflex a university’s study situation and education quality, and it can be better compared with freshmen’s quality ( It can reflex a university’s attraction to students).And then getting to know a university better . Most of our universities don’t think about these. For example the University Evaluation Studying Group’s system ueses the amount of cultivating talents to take place of students’ quality . It totally doesn’t take graduation and the future of students which can reflex the quality of talents into consideration [3]；Wuhan university’s system although doesn’t have the index of “graduation rate”, it has graduation employment rate at one time. In some degree , it reflexes the quality of graduation. The NetBig and Chinese Alumni’s evaluations totally egnore the graduation’s quality,

which make students’ main position weaker. Though the NetBig trys to imitate U.S News & World Report paying attention to freshmen’s quality ,out of different comprehension of education , NetBig cannot reflex thequality in index selection and proporation distribution. U.S News & World Report according to The Carnegie Classification of the Higher Education classfies and ranks ,it has 7 first level indicatiors and 16 second level indicators . The year before 1993 , the system hadn’t the two indexes --graduation rate and students retention rate . Then it added something and gave high proporation to them. These show the ranking attaching importance to students’ main position. American universities evaluation index systems on the purpose emphsize on the amount and quality the service universities providing to students.They not only have high proporsation on the quality of teaching staff but also set “ less than 20 people’s class size proporation” and “more than 50 people’s class size proporation” in the second level indicator. In the evaluation form, they force more attention to the summative evaluation, United States higher education attaches importance to students ' evaluation of the results, most of the index systems of U. S news &world report university rankings involve content of teaching quality in universities, graduate quality. So does the Macleans. In the selection of index it attaches importance to the input of education , library , student financial assistance and financial , and the three items take as large as 40%. It puts student financial

assistance in the magazine in 2008 , which indicates students become an important part of new system.

On the other hand , school funding is as the backbone of education activity . Analysis from the perspective of tarlent and mertiral producing : education investment-cultivating talent-joining material production- producing economy effect , university provides necessary resources them though the process of teaching , finally output qualified talents . During this period , fund per student is the material guarantee of taking into practice .How much a university invests to cultivate a student and the graduates quality are in contrast with fund per student . Seen from the table 1 , international universities systems all give certain proporation to fund per student , and the amouts are all over 5%. Internnational rankings attach importance to education quality , so most of the indexes are emphsized on education resource that is the expense on the investment of students . This is a indication of students’ main position. But in our China , there is only Wuhan university has this item and it takes only 4.%. Other rankings are lack of this . Our rankings mostly just reflex on the books amount , area per student etc .So they are worth improving.