Chapter II: Graduate Employment--From Manpower Planning
to the Market Economy
Summary: The objective of this discussion of China's
human resource development is to set the policy
context to which the Shenzhen University innovation
was a response. The state's abandonment of job
allocation responded to certain widely held
concerns. The new system was expected to fit in
better with the market economy and to bring better
efficiency through more flexibility, increased
responsibility through accountability and improved
equity through fair competition.
Introduction
As China moves away from a socialist redistributive
economy and towards something that resembles a market-
driven system, many aspects of central planning are being
replaced with market mechanisms. For most of the past 25
years, a continually evolving planning process controlled
the placement of university graduates into jobs with
state-run firms and governmental bureaux. Now, as a
consequence of a general trend toward marketization,
graduate allocation (biyesheng fenpei) is being rapidly
phased out and replaced by a system that allows students,
schools and employers more choice. Such a system is
usually labelled two-way choice or mutual selection
(shuangxiang xuanze).
This chapter employs the term manpower planning in
its broad sense to refer to macro-economic planning at
the national level where the objective is to change
employment patterns toward desired goals.1 Here,
manpower planning includes inter alia a body of
literature, quite prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s, that
advocated hooking together education with employment
needs. These theories were applied in a number of
countries over this period; its chief proselytizers were
several well-funded multi- and non-government
organizations.2 While other countries attempted to plan
for their manpower requirements, China went a step
further: it allocated individuals to their places of
employment. This feature makes the China case special,
if not unique. Now, China has followed most of the rest
of the globe in abandoning manpower planning in favour of
more market-oriented forms of human resource development
that involve less state control.3
After a brief description of the history of manpower
planning around the globe, this chapter describes China's
fenpei, relying heavily on the opinions of Mainland
academics, planners and policy makers. The final section
discusses the continuing relevance of certain manpower
planning issues in the quasi-market economy China is
developing.
Manpower Planning--the Global Perspective
There seems to be broad agreement around the world that
the human resource aspects of education need some degree
of planning. This is because "various imperfections in
the economic system, and the lack of a pricing system in
education, prevent the educational system from reaching
the point of maximum efficiency without some external
interference."4 The bottom-line question here is rather
basic: how many graduates, in what fields, does/will the
economy need? Over the past 30 years, various
perspectives and strategies involving economic theories
have been developed to answer this question.5 The major
approaches to educational planning include: manpower
planning or the manpower requirements model, social
demand (or demand-for-education), and rate-of-return.6
All these are found to have severe limitations, both
theoretical and practical, which lead educational
planners to arrive at a "synthetic" model that includes
aspects of all three theories.7
Manpower planning puts forth a reasonable
assumption: since education precedes employment, for the
sake of efficiency the two activities should somehow be
linked. Yet, when one starts collecting data from the
past and projecting them for the future, the planning
process breaks down. Moreover, when planners attempt to
control the school-to-work process by ensuring that
talent is being trained for future jobs, problems occur
especially when these future jobs fail to materialize.
Thus, in its implementation stage, manpower planning
generated considerable criticism and became a favourite
whipping boy of educational economists.
It is no wonder that manpower planning got bad press
in the academic community, as well as among manpower
planning's practitioners.8 It was doomed to failure. In
the process of forecasting labour needs, a projection of
a current trend (e.g., for number of engineers) is linked
with certain assumptions to form a forecast. UNESCO
materials for training future manpower planners list
seven key assumptions:9
Estimates of growth rates during period
Estimates of the distribution of growth by sector
Assumptions on the evolution of productivity by
sector
Assumptions on the evolution of the employment
structure by sector
Assumptions on the evolution of training-employment
relations
Productivity functions by level of training
Assumptions on manpower replacement (mortality,
retirement)
Even if the planner were able to assume and estimate
correctly, the data collected are likely to be far from
perfect, due to imperfections in the data collection
process. Nevertheless, the planning process was
elaborate, as illustrated by the 764-page manual that the
World Bank prepared for users.10 Although such semi-
futile exercise can taint the overall desirability of
planning, this is not to say the exercise was totally
worthless. It forced on decision-makers an awareness of
the need for rational educational planning. Much was
gained from the process, even if the products themselves
were destined for the rubbish bin (or the bookcases of
government planners).
One economist11 suggested that manpower planning is
useful for developing countries because it can straighten
out manpower and educational "bottlenecks" that result
from rapid economic growth and educational expansion.
Manpower planning is also seen as relevant to countries
where "the basic purpose of education is to prepare
people for quite specific jobs in order to meet the needs
of the economy...and individual choice is secondary to
meeting the needs of the economy..."12 Most importantly,
...manpower-oriented educational models are more
appropriate in countries with planned economies,
where manpower objectives are designed to be
consistent with other objectives of the plan, than
in economies in which consumer choice is expected to
be the major determinant of the composition of
production of goods and services.13
Thus, it would seem that manpower planning fitted the
needs of China in 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) came to power and started to introduce the concept
of a centrally planned economy.
Critical Historical Overview of Manpower Planning in
China
The following detailed survey of China's manpower
planning program will identify certain themes: concerns
over geographical imbalance, anxieties over the mismatch
between education curriculum and the needs of the
workplace, constant changes in policy design and in
administrative authority over policy implementation, the
use of experiments in designing programs, and the mix of
plan and market.
Starting in the 1950s, the most populous nation on
earth rose from millennia of feudalism and a recent half
century of destruction from war and revolution to create
an industrial base, a viable national political
framework, a transportation network, and a socialist
economy. The prc was helped by Soviet models, technical
assistance and financial support, in education as well as
in other fields.14 The centralized graduate job
placement scheme reflects this help, and it was retained
long after Soviet planners were sent home. Then, during
the 1960s and 1970s, while planners for multi- and non-
governmental organizations were assessing manpower needs
around the globe, the prc was undertaking socialist
reconstruction, a stop-and-go process that moved forward
despite interruptions by political mobilizations and
movements. For such a large country, China's rapid
development in a relatively short period is unrivalled in
the history of mankind. This progress can be attributed,
in no small part, to the fact that China was able to
produce skilled manpower. China's educationalists
acknowledge that fenpei "did play a certain role in
meeting the special need of the country's key
construction projects and the remote regions".15 It was
seen as suitable for China's development at that time.16
In addition, the importance of manpower planning also
lay in its value as one of the key tools the state used
to guide an individual's career17 and control his/her
behaviour.18
Government issued documents on employment
allocation,19 an official history of higher education20
as well as an account edited by individual
educationalists21 suggest that China's manpower planning
policy was characterized by almost annual revisions.
Before 1949 China's economy stood in such a mess that,
according to a popular saying of the times, college
graduation meant unemployment.22 Shortly after the
founding of the prc, a placement planning committee was
set up in 1950. For that one year, job assignment was
not compulsory; the 18,000 graduates were merely
encouraged to accept the state's recommendations. But
Regulations on the Reform of the Schooling System,
promulgated in October, 1951, stipulated that 90-95% of
all graduates "should be assigned to work by the
government."23 Thus began China's unified system of job
assignment.
Geographical Criteria
The earliest form of manpower planning, in 1952
after the CCP had sufficiently consolidated its power and
established its rule over China, focused on geographical
needs in the distribution of educated personnel. Thus,
the northeast, where heavy industry was concentrated, got
the biggest group of graduates (7,179), then Beijing
(5,901), the rest of Northern China (2,950), the East
(4,925), the southwest (1,990), mid and south China
(3,082), northwest (1,467) and finally Inner Mongolia
150.24 At this time regional criteria were also used in
student admissions policy.25 In addition, a basic
principle in manpower planning was established: that
educated manpower would be concentrated in the state's
hands and that key projects would be given priority.
The official report for 1953 abandoned the regional
perspective and clarified the decision-making process.
First, the State Council would give a lump sum
allocation, which the central personnel ministry would
put into a plan that addressed the individual government
department's needs.26 Provincial level personnel
departments were reminded that they did not initiate the
plans, and educational institutions were given the
responsibility for assigning graduates according to local
needs. The regulations for that year stressed
cooperation between the different levels of bureaux in
plan implementation and ideological work to persuade
students to accept the plans. Higher education bureaux,
education bureaux, personnel bureaux, municipal or
provincial personnel bureaux all were instructed to tell
schools how to implement the plan. Before 1954,
placement was done cooperatively by the ministries of
Education and Personnel.27 When the Personnel Ministry
was abolished in 1954, responsibility for placement went
to the Ministry of Higher Education. In that year,
employment needs by sector were set and this remained
effective for four years, that is, until the Great Leap
Forward. In 1956 planning responsibilities were given to
the State Planning Committee, and the Higher Education
Committee was made responsible for the actual allocation
and for collecting data on students and resources. As
Table 1 shows, heavy industry was emphasized.
Table 2.1: Percent graduate distributions, 1954-1957:28
year by economic classification
1954 1955 1956 1957
heavy industry 34 29 25 23
education 13 16 24 17
trans. & light indus 12 15 14 8
other (incl. military) 5 2 3 2
localities 38 39 34 50
A new way of thinking appeared. Instead of considering
regional needs, planners adopted the centre-locality
criterion--a certain portion of graduates would be
absorbed by the central government and the remainder
would go to lower levels of government or workunits
(danwei) under their control.
The Great Leap Forward, an economic boom period,
altered the central government/locality distribution. In
1958 and 1959, localities received, respectively, 81% and
77% of the graduates.29 The policy to distribute
graduates to localities rather than to central agencies
made a college degree "a ticket to the countryside,"
something not desired by most graduates.30 Indeed, by
1956 the college admissions age limit had to be raised to
35 in order to draw more students. After the Great Leap
came down to earth, the central allocation returned to
40%.31
The focus of discussion during this period also
changed. In the earlier years, the mismatch between
school curricula and the skills needed on the job was a
grave concern, but now inadequate supply dominated the
discussion. An extreme example occurred in a particular
chemical specialization where demand for graduates was 71
times the available supply.32
Administrative Control
The general planning procedure went like this:33
The year before students were to graduate,
university and colleges reported to the provincial
departments that were in charge concerning the
number of graduates and other relevant information.
[For example, schools under the Ministry of Mines
would report to the local branch office of the
Ministry.] Provincial departments then reported to
the departments in charge at the central level.
They, in turn, gave information to the national-
level planning department which then sent it back
down to the provinces. At the local level the work
units reported to their overseeing department on
their needs for students and these data got reported
up to the state planning department which developed
draft for state council approval. When settled,
plans were distributed to local level. The
university decided assignments according to the plan
and reported the list to local government for its
approval. After the approval, the school sent
students to the work-units.
This up-and-down-the-hierarchy type of decision-making
was probably characterized by negotiations which resulted
in modest revisions in the plans as they were handed from
office to office. The top agency for planning frequently
changed. In 1950 the State Council and Education
Committee were in charge. Responsibility shifted in 1951
to the Personnel Committee. The Higher Education
Ministry took over in 1954, the State Planning Committee
in 1955, the State Economic Committee in 1957, and the
State Council's Personnel Bureau from 1959-1961. The
constant changing may reflect the bureaucratic jockeying
for position one would expect to occur in a newly
established state. Each year, the State Council made the
final political decision on whose turf manpower planning
should be placed. If one assumes that manpower planning
was a prestige assignment, coveted by bureaux, then
officials from different bureaucracies probably lobbied
State Councillors long and hard for what would have been
considered a plum assignment. The constant changing
affected not only which office took charge at the central
government level, but also where power was vested at
lower levels, as power drifted down the hierarchy via
departments affiliated with the top Ministry or bureau.
For example, when the Education Ministry officials in
Beijing had power, so did their counterparts at the
provincial and local level. Given the different central
government offices that at one time or another were in
charge of manpower planning, one might expect that during
this period a sizable number of bureaucrats at various
government levels participated in some aspect of manpower
planning.
The year 1962 marked an administrative turning point
for manpower planning. For the first time, a key
apostle, Zhou Enlai, head of the State Council,
personally addressed the manpower planning issue.34
Concluding that education and job assignment were not
being properly coordinated, Zhou, on behalf of the
Council, ordered the Ministry of Education (MOE) to take
charge of both manpower training (education) and job
assignment. They were also made responsible for work
transfers and giving information on graduates to the
Planning Committee (PC). The following four-step
procedure was established:35
1./ MOE gives students application forms to fill in
their three to five desires about their future jobs.
This was compiled by MOE. At the same time the PC
determines the needs for graduates.
2./ The PC balances supply and need based on this
information. It then devises a draft allocation
plan, and consults each ministry, province and
central level bureau.
3./ The PC in cooperation with culture and education
office of the state council coordinates the plan and
submits it to the Central Committee and State
Council for approval.
4./ The MOE implements the plan. Within 12 months
of allocation, any mismatches are to be adjusted by
the MOE. After 12 months probation, if a mismatch
is discovered, responsibility for making adjustments
rests with the personnel departments. All previous
responsibility for job allocation in the home
ministry is given to the MOE. An ad hoc allocation
commission is set up by state council.
The issue of mismatch continued to be the hot topic in
manpower planning circles to the point where one policy
document even bemoaned the fact that schools were
concerned only with educating people, not with the needs
of society.36 In addition, the problem of students'
refusing to obey their allocation became a worry to
policy makers. In the first ten years or so of
allocation, about 2,000 graduates refused their
assignments. Just for 1962 the figure stood at 1,300.
In a sample survey that year, 10% said they preferred to
emphasize their own needs and their own geographical
preference and 1-2% reported they would choose to disobey
allocation if their personal needs were not met.37 This
concern prompted the MOE, State Planning Commission, and
Home Affairs Ministry to issue in 1963 joint regulations
calling for ideological work and detailing how to deal
with those who do not want to obey the state's
instructions.38
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution severely
affected manpower planning just as this ten year period
of chaos had an impact on all Chinese people and systems
except some in the most remote areas. The government's
official history of job allocation skips the years from
1966-1976.39 There was activity, however. Although
placement ceased for 1966,40 in the following year, the
government assigned the 1965 and 1966 graduates.41 In
1968 the Central Committee of the CCP ordered all
graduates to go to the countryside, the frontier or to
the "grassroots" areas where they were to work with
peasants, workers and soldiers.42 This policy broke the
pattern that tertiary graduates found their way into a
state workunit. Only a few graduates for whom the state
had an urgent need were allocated.43 Most went back to
their home communes instead, a policy that continued
until 1971. From about 1972 to 1979, students were
recommended to schools (tests were not given) and upon
graduation they also went back to where they had come
from--she lai she qu.44 All university graduates at this
time were from politically correct heritage: peasant,
worker, or military families. In this period the state
assigned only a small number. In 1977, for example, of
1.8 million graduates, the government assigned only 880
to jobs requiring they cross provincial boundaries.45
The corresponding figure for 1979 was 4,000 out of 1.6
million. At this point the policy returned to what was
in place before the Cultural Revolution.
Advent of Reform
The years following the Cultural Revolution saw the
beginnings of Deng Xiaoping's reform policies. In 1977
the state reintroduced the competitive college entrance
exam. When these students graduated four years later,
they would be the first group in the reinstated uniform
planned allocation program.46 Little time passed before
state policy addressed the shortcomings of the Cultural
Revolution's emphasis on an individual's correct
political attitudes and heritage, "virtuocracy,"47 when
it said that those students not meeting graduation
requirements should not be allowed to graduate. Instead,
these "commune graduates" were given certificates,
allocated jobs, but given salaries slightly lower than
the more qualified graduates. Those graduates who were
not qualified for specialized work should be assigned
other work and it was left to the provinces to sort out
assignments for the peasant/worker/soldier students.48
In 1980 placement emphasized the junior college (zhuanke)
students who were given uniform treatment and mostly
handled by the localities.49 The new allocation
procedure is summarized in a 1981 document issued jointly
by the MOE, PC and State Personnel Bureau:50
MOE took responsibility for reporting a profile of
the graduating class. Each province will apply to
the state planning committee for the type of
personnel needed; Planning committee will then
consult with departments in charge of schools about
number of students to be taken by state. It will
then coordinate and release a uniform state
allocation draft. After comments are collected from
higher bodies, it will be promulgated to the lower
bodies. For certain key universities and key work
units, students fill out applications stating their
preferences. Prospective employers give
examinations. Schools recommend.
The document expressed concern about qualifications:51
Graduates are given 1-year probation before they can
become a full employee. An extension is possible.
If still not considered qualified, they will be
given salary one rung lower. If there is a
mismatch, adjustments can be made. Personnel
departments can make reassignments. Those who
choose not to obey the state's needs, cannot be
admitted to state-run workunits for five years.
While still emphasizing ideological work,52 the system,
at least as described in official documents, seemed to be
decentralizing. Most graduates in 1982 were assigned to
localities, with the state taking only 62,000 of 311,000.
By this time the central government was taking "first
refusal" of the graduates. In other words, the state had
first choice and would "take a proportion from the whole
and redistribute the remainder to jobs at different
administrative levels under the unified state plan
(guojia tongyi jihua xia chou cheng tiao ji fenji
anpai)".53
Mismatch
Concerned over the inefficiency of fenpei, in June 1983,
the MOE organized 20 survey groups in 21 localities and
provinces.54 It took more than a month to conduct survey
data on the use of students' talents. Some 172 workunits
and 5,473 graduates were interviewed, producing 5,206
valid questionnaires. The study concluded that 1981 and
1982 students satisfied their employers. There was
severe mismatch (yongfei suo xue, you use what you didn't
study) among 12.3% and for about 20-30%, their talent was
not fully displayed (zhuanye bu duikou, used for what
you're not good at). Because of these findings, the
mismatch issue continued to get attention (although
mismatch of a lighter degree seemed now accepted as
inevitable), and exceptionally good students were
permitted to choose within a certain range of units, or
their cases could be referred to a state department for
special allocation.55 Still, public statements inveighed
graduates against turning their backs on the Four
Modernizations and inveigled them into working in hard
condition areas.56 Several official circulars criticized
parental interference in the placement of graduates.57
One told parents to "let your children go wherever the
Motherland needs them most to put their abilities to good
use, praising the attitude "I love my child, but I love
my motherland more."58 The MOE also stressed that
graduates should go into teaching, in a direct response
to a concern over teacher shortages expressed by Henan
Province educationalists.59
From 1983 onwards the job allocation system came
under constant reform. In the late 1980s general
criticisms of manpower planning first started appearing,
criticisms from both government officials and academics.
Before the introduction of reforms, however, manpower
planning received no public criticism in China. Several
reasons explain this lack of critical public comment.
First, discussions over policy, and especially criticism,
are generally not aired publicly. Of course, this does
not mean there is no dissent, but rather that dissent
takes place in an arena that is closed to the public. In
China's system of "democratic centralism" and "people's
dictatorship," the public are involved through their
Party representatives, not through participation by
ordinary citizens. The policy process involves
negotiations at various levels and these meetings are not
often reported in the press. Second, in the early days
of the prc manpower planning had the overwhelming
approval of both academics and practitioners. It was
considered to be a system that worked well.60 Qualified
graduates were assigned to jobs, and this resulted in
national economic development. Notwithstanding the view
that manpower planning was "far from flawless and it
proved virtually impossible for the state to make
accurate plans and to satisfy the demands for educated
people,"61 the system allowed the post-Liberation economy
to emphasize heavy industry and permitted China to move
from a feudalist agriculture economy to a somewhat
industrial state. Then, what about the criticisms that
started to appear once policy dictated that a new system
was necessary?
Experiments
The manpower planning reforms that culminated with the
1989 issuance of a policy document, discussed below, had
their origins in a rather favourable 1983 review of a
local experiment. The review is mentioned in a Jingji
Ribao newspaper account in which a reporter interviews a
"responsible concerned person of the Education Ministry"
who criticizes the misemployment of college graduates.62
The report was then repeated in an official joint report
by the MOE, Ministries of Personnel, Labour and Planning
and a follow up in documents for each of the subsequent
four years.63 The local experiment was being carried out
initially by Shanghai Jiaotong University (JiaoDa), Xian
Jiaotong and Shandong Marine Institute and later by other
schools, including Qinghua.64 The experiments, which
called for a greater role for schools, allowed students
and workunits to contact each other in a "demand-meet-
supply" arrangement. In 1988, after five years in the
experiment, Shanghai Jiaotong reported the results
indicated in Table 2.2 for the 1988 graduates. 65
Table 2.2: Shanghai Jiaotong 1988 graduates' next step
To continue post-graduate 300
Recommended to job by school 200
Hired through zhaopin
(recruit and take) 700
Jobs through teachers,
parents, self 400
Other (return to home
area, no jobs,
unaccounted for) 100
Total graduates 1,700
The experimental procedure at JiaoDa for getting a job is
described like this:
Workunits send in a needs description; schools form
an opinion on allocation, then present a plan to
higher bodies or allocating units for reference.
This calls for examination of some graduates by
prospective workunits for jobs. Employing work
units give a twelve month probation; they can return
some students, who can then find jobs by themselves,
if approved by relevant departments.66
Reforms Gear Up
In 1983 the general process was changed or "reformed"
(gaige), a term used for the first time in this context
and one which would shortly become part of the manpower
policy vocabulary.67 Universities were given more
autonomy and allowed to give suggestions about job
allocation. They now had authority to prepare a list of
graduates and for graduates who were found to be
mismatched, schools could take them back and then
reassign them. Also, at the school's discretion 20% of
the students could be assigned out of the plan. At this
time the state was still taking a certain percentage of
the graduates and all the rest would be assigned at the
local or provincial level.68 The following year the MOE
called on all schools to have closer contacts with
prospective employers and to pay special attention to a
new group of students--those returning from study
abroad.69 Graduates were still urged to serve the needs
of socialist modernization and be willing to go to the
countryside and grassroots units in backward areas.70
Party league members who served as cadres and "three
good" students (san hao xuesheng: students in good
health, who do well academically and hold proper
moral/ideological bearings) were encouraged to volunteer
in the task of "facing the future, facing the world and
facing the modernized construction."71 The goal was to
send out graduates who were both "Red and Expert" as well
as "uniting with and serving the masses in arduous
struggle."72
At this time, it should be noted, the Education
Ministry was aware of a "considerable blindness"
associated with a dire lack of long-term manpower
planning.73 To address this problem, China decided in
1983 to undertake a nationwide survey to forecast future
educational needs.74 Each central governmental
department was to survey the personnel in its own system
and forecast its human resource needs for the next 17
years (to the year 2000), using computers for tabulation.
A total of 83 educational specialities were covered.
This was not a successful undertaking and was quickly
abandoned, partly because of the general difficulties
associated with labour forecasting.75 Also, in
attempting to be comprehensive, the planners were open to
opposition from many parties. Given all the problems
associated with this type of manpower forecasting in the
West, as discussed above, one must conclude that China
was indeed fortunate to start thinking about such an
endeavour just as job allocation was reaching its greying
years. The time and effort wasted in gargantuan data-
gathering was thus kept to a minimum.
1985 "Decision"
The important educational "Decision" issued in May 1985
devoted several paragraphs to tertiary job allocation.76
According to this carefully developed and politically
massaged policy,77 enrolment should be designed in
accordance with the state plan and "[a]fter-graduation
job placement for students so enroled will be made under
a system which takes into account the graduates'
inclinations, the recommendations of colleges and the
employers' requirements." In giving limited autonomy to
schools, the reforms moved toward establishing an
educational market, and indeed, self-supporting
university students and those sent by employers or other
clients such as municipalities,78 were excluded from the
state job allocation plan. Students from vocational high
schools were also not subject to rigid job planning.79
The state would no longer attempt to solve the problem of
mismatch through job allocation or the vague connection
between enrolment and employment. However, a state
allocation plan was still in effect. The goal of policy
was "to rationalize, not eliminate, fenpei... [not to]
retreat from planned allocation..."80 Nevertheless, for
university students, the calligraphy was starting to
appear on the wall. In the actual 1985 plan, the state
made assignments for only 10-20% of the graduates covered
by the state plan. Assignments for the remainder were
made by schools.81 Concerning admissions, some schools
were being allowed to "recruit independently" of the
state plan;82 many were encouraged to try out "contract
training" as a substitute for the recruiting system that
fostered mismatch.83 This avenue allowed for companies
to contract directly with schools for the training of
their employees.
Some schools, following the Qinghua and Jiaotong
experiment, were already using the supply-demand
approach, although students still had no right just to go
out and find their own jobs, outside of the plan. In
March a widely distributed MOE directive praised the
experiment.84 The MOE had direct charge over only a few
dozen key universities, but its circulars to the more
than 1000 schools not under its control are taken quite
seriously. Not all pilots lead to policy. While the
Qinghua and Jiaotong experiments proved worth
replicating, according to official views, other trials
did not fare so well. A number of schools supervised by
ministries attempted compensated allocation, discussed
below, but this did not receive a favourable review.
Also, three technical institutes allocated their
graduates based on the students' class rank, taking into
account academic standing, health and morality.85 This
pilot, also, seems not to have been generalized.
Finally, Shenzhen University, the first school in China
to abandon job allocation, received little press
coverage86 and its experiment never received official
endorsement, save for a reference in two Beijing Review
articles.87
The nexus between input and output was addressed in
a Guangming Ribao article.88 It advocated a withering
away of the state's role in resource planning which is
described as "used by schools affiliated with various
state organs in deciding how many students to recruit
based on the projected local needs so that the resource
and the purpose are integrated." It explained that "[i]n
view of the experience we acquired [the previous year]
the state Educational Council will not make unified
resource planning for various departments and schools to
observe in recruiting; instead, it will only see that
approximate balances are achieved in various localities
and that the overall economy is well structured." This
"resource planning" sounds remarkably similar to the
manpower requirements planning that had been attempted
elsewhere on the globe. In China, 1985 marked the end of
the short-lived attempt at forecasting, if it had ever
actually begun. Rather, the emphasis would be put on
"enterprise planning," for personnel needs of state-run
projects.
In 1985, while the State Education Commission (SEdC)-
-which had replaced the Ministry of Education in that
year--was encouraging schools to move into the direction
of supply-meets-demand, it was dealing severely with
students who refused to abide by their allocation:89
Graduates must obey the state's allocation. After
patient persuasion, if they still resist, they will
be deprived of their allocation eligibility and the
schools can ask the student to pay all scholarships
given to him during his course of study, and even
some tuition [peiyang fei or cost of development].
If they are employed, the workunit must pay ¯10,000-
20,000 for each employed out-of-plan graduate.
Previous regulations had called for job mobility within
the workunit at least for post-graduate students.90 For
the first time, regulations asserted that job mobility
(presumably between workunits) was possible, while
suggesting a new system of "fixed service period." After
students had passed their basic evaluation--probation was
set at 12 months in 1981 and 198391--they should work for
five years. After this period, they could change jobs.92
In order to make the remote regions seem less
unattractive to new graduates, an eight-year rotation was
put forth for Qinghai and Tibet, areas where Chinese
holding jobs were already given numerous subsidies,
allowances and benefits as forms of inducement. In
addition, graduates of Qinghua and Shanghai Jiaotong who
went to work in ten specified outlying areas would be
able to maintain their officially registered residence
(by retaining their hukou, or residence permit) where
their family worked.93
Now, with allocation being handled exclusively by
the SEdC (as it so boldly informed the State Council in a
memo dated August, 198594), administratively at least job
placement appeared to become more an education than a
planning function. Giving itself overall control, the
SEdC was also distributing more decision-making authority
to the schools and taking away authority from other
governmental units.95
In making the assignment, the State Education
Commission should first start from the top by
working out a plan itself that spells out assignment
quotas for the various departments and areas. Under
the guidance of this plan, the schools will submit
specific plans for assignments based on the
different specialities and the needs of the various
units. In doing so, the schools should first,
acting in light of the needs reflected by the
employing departments and localities and considering
both the specific conditions of the individual
graduates and the requirements for their
specialities, consult with the departments,
localities, and employing units and adopt the method
for arranging meetings between the supply and demand
sides.
For masters' graduates, the SEdC set up three principles:
graduates in SEdC schools could work anywhere in China;
students under ministry-supervised schools were to be
employed within their functional systems; jobs for
graduates from locally run schools would be arranged by
the localities.96 Newspaper stories recounted how
thousands of students, dedicated to China's economic
construction, volunteered to work in the undeveloped
Northwest.97 Still, students, especially those who had
tasted the good life of the city, were apparently not
very willing to return to their less developed hometown
regions. This prompted Jiangxi officials to dispatch
seven work teams of cadres to visit students from the
province studying at 139 higher education institutions in
22 provinces and municipalities around China and invite
them to come back to work in Jiangxi after competing
their studies.98 It is unknown how many, if any,
accepted the invitation.
In addition to incorporating a geographical
component, the SEdC began relating jobs more closely to
subjects studied. This was applied to the 1986
graduates:99
Five percent of humanities and science majors of
comprehensive universities run by localities will be
given to the state for comprehensive allocation.
Ten percent of normal and medical graduates will be
given to state. Fifteen to twenty percent of
ministry-related schools' graduates will be given to
localities.
The movement away from planning prompted a Renmin Ribao
commentary on upholding the direction of reform.100
Some people set enforcement of plans in opposition
to reform. They consider that since there must be
reform, it is no longer necessary to talk about
planning. They suggest that the state drop any kind
of control, giving schools full authority and
freedom in the matter of assignment, or that
students be allowed to find work themselves. This
is obviously a wrong idea. It is incompatible with
the spirit of the economic reform and the reform of
the educational system and incompatible with
national conditions.
While encouraging local and provincial schools to set up
pilots modeled on the Jiaotong experiment,101 in 1986 the
SEdC addressed a new problem that arose from the system's
liberalism. Certain workunits were "cutting in" and
taking graduates before they could be allocated. Rather
than interpret this as a manifestation of supply-meets-
demand, in several directives the SEdC disapproved of
what it construed as a breach of allocation protocol.102
It also rejected future experiments with compensated
allocation (youchang fenpei) for state plan students,103
although the concept is related to commissioned enrolment
that was encouraged for non-plan students in the previous
years' document, discussed above. In compensated
allocation, employers are billed for the students
allocated to them so as to reimburse schools for the
costs of training. The SEdC was addressing apparent
abuses in compensated allocation, where schools
themselves were using the funds collected rather than
turning them over to higher educational authorities.
This schizophrenic approach--market for some, plan for
others--was setting the stage for a future policy on
payment of tuition that was addressed in the 1988/1989
reforms.
Sixty-nine percent of the 1986 graduates are
reported to have taken state-assigned jobs, compared with
only 23.6 percent the previous year, when 64 percent took
jobs through the supply-demand mechanism which, according
to China Daily, "gave universities more leeway in placing
their graduates, and enterprises could contact schools
with their requirements."104 This newspaper article
suggested that policy was deliberately changed to address
the shortage of graduates who were choosing to go to
underdeveloped areas. Policy schizophrenia was evident
when, for the first time on record, a high official
called for abolition of job placement. Hu Qili, then
member of the Political Bureau and member of the
Secretariat of the CCP Central Committee, said that
allocation contradicted the general structure of the
planned commodity economy and must eventually be
abolished.105
Back to the Grassroots
The 1987 allocation plan, coming on the heels of a
nationwide student protest movement in the previous
December, saw the central government taking only 12
percent of tertiary graduates.106 Regulations, which
were subsequently omitted from the official document
compilation published in 1992, required graduates to
spent one probationary year at the grassroots level,
rather than be directly assigned to state organs.107
Here, the term grassroots perhaps may be liberally
interpreted to mean all workunits except those high in
the central government. The word grassroots also
connotes jobs where graduates "directly participate in
productive labour and come into direct [contact] with the
working masses."108
A young person just graduated from a college is
merely an "unburnt brick" and he or she must go
through the temper and test of social practice and
productive practice before really becoming a
qualified and competent professional.109
Sending graduates to the countryside can be seen as the
way the state took revenge on the students for having
protested the previous December.110 Newspaper articles
continued to encourage students to volunteer to work in
remote areas.111 Advising students that jobs were
available only at the grassroots, the media--in 1986 as
well as in other years--warned them against having
unrealistic expectations.112 One article suggested that
an astonishing 75 percent of Qinghua University graduates
from the past four years had worked in grassroots
units113 while another report suggested that Qinghua
graduates in 1988 were reluctant to work in small
institutions.114 The article cites a People's Daily
account showing that while Beijing graduates wanted to
work for big government departments, university graduates
in Guangzhou were willing to work in township enterprises
where they were needed. A report for Shanghai indicated
that in 1985 29% of graduates were assigned to
enterprises. This figure rose to 44% in 1987.115 About
40% of Beijing University's and 30% of Qinghua's
graduates in 1988 were reported to have taken jobs with
state departments and bureaux while the remainder
returned to their home areas.116 An overwhelming
majority (80-90%) of graduates from the poorer provinces
of Shanxi and Hubei took work at the grassroots.117 A
similarly high figure, 75-80%, was reported for Sichuan
graduates working in grassroots, mostly rural, township
enterprises.118 Overall, in 1988 68% of Chinese
graduates went to work for locally-administered
workunits, and this figure increased by 7% for 1989.119
Rejections
Another concern relates to graduates being rejected by
their workunits. There seems to have been a rising
opposition to fenpei among workunits who did not want
what was ambiguously called "unsuitably qualified"
graduates.120 A Xinhua press report disclosed an
"unprecedented" rejection of Beijing college
graduates.121 Calculating from the figures provided,
this comes to 563.3 (sic!) graduates, or a bit under 3%
of graduates from the capital. Despite the faulty
arithmetic, this concern over students' low
qualifications and abilities would reappear over the next
few years. The 1987 figure for Shanghai rejections was
400.122 The nation-wide 1987 figures for rejection was
under 1.5% (5,500 graduates), but this minute percentage
still generated concern.123 It is interesting to note
that in the following year only 100 graduates were
rejected by their workunits.124 Another report put the
figure at 3%.125 Given the controversy the previous
year, it is not surprising that workunits in 1988 were
reluctant to reject assignees, although the media
attributed less rejection to better supply-demand
negotiations.
Two-way Choice and Labour Marketplaces
The year 1988 marks the first appearance of the term "two-
way choice/mutual selection" (shuangxiang xuanze).
Addressing the January 1988 National Higher Educational
Conference, Li Peng said:126
...graduate placement systems need to create certain
opportunities for employers and students to select
one another. We need to gradually establish a
system whereby students select employment and
employers select the best students--a "two-way
selection" approach.
The catch-phrase appeared shortly thereafter in a
February document, in the type of statement that had
become annual praise for the Qinghua and Shanghai
Jiaotong experiments: "We should establish a system by
which graduates can choose careers and workunits choose
good students, a two-way choice system."127 Meanwhile,
cities around China had been establishing labour
exchanges and job markets. These were quite literally
where supply meets demand, in other words, where students
discussed job prospects with prospective employers.128
In these supply and demand interviews (gongxiao
jianmian), students and employers entered into a standard
job contract (tersely worded and non-negotiable). The
school then reviewed (and almost always approved) the
arrangement and "allocated" the student. Not only in
Beijing and Shanghai, but in cities as varied as Xi'an,
Shenyang, Guiyang, and Wenzhou, large turnouts of
graduating seniors checked out jobs. A job fair in
Guangdong, for example, attracted 42,000, with 20,000
coming from outside the province. In addition, the
rapidly developing southern Guangdong was planning to
develop a labour market service network by 1993.129 As
local governments started setting "rules for governing
and legalizing the markets," one Ministry of Labour
official was suggesting further reform. The labour
market itself was too tightly under government control,
he contended, which made it somewhat bureaucratic and
ineffective. There were even calls for reform of the
cadre system.130 Regardless of the problems in
developing new labour marketplaces, many developed. In
Shanghai, for example, markets have been organized along
different lines: by geography (Shanghai, Pudong new area,
outside Shanghai), by type of student (graduate, post-
graduate), by type of school (SEdC-controlled,
provincial, municipal).131 Within only a few years after
the 1989 reforms, the job fairs had been
institutionalized and continued to be the major success.
For example, in Chengdu over a two-day period in 1993,
300 hiring units signed contracts with more than 8,000
graduates.132
Regardless of the reforms contemplated for the
future, the government was still prepared to offer jobs
to all in 1988's graduating classes, according to a
People's Daily report around the time of graduation.133
The SEdC also outlined the new administrative
procedure:134
The SEdC will send profiles of the graduating class
to localities or concerned employing departments.
Each department/locality should present their annual
needs for graduates to SEdC. They will devise an
allocation plan on this basis and decide on what
percentage should go for inter-departmental use.
Then each local level department will try to realize
the allocation plan through a supply-meet-demand
system by holding meetings.
This procedure stands in sharp contrast with the 1986
plan that started with the SEdC's developing assignment
quotas for lower-level units, both functionally and
geographically. The earlier plan was central government-
based, the revised version locality-based, giving schools
more authority.135 The new plan starts with supply of
graduates and fits it into local needs. The previous
plan first took lower-level demands into account. The
change was made necessary by China's growth economy.
From 1949 the supply of tertiary graduates was always
been small and the demand has been more or less constant.
Since the late 1970's economic reforms, demand for rencai
(talented people, which means anyone with skill or
education) skyrocketed. It was no longer politically
feasible to start the planning process with demand in
mind, so central government planners chose an option
which can be seen as an avoidance of responsibility: push
the problem at the lower level.
On the public relations front, the state was
preparing the public for a wide range of changes that
would comprise the intended educational reforms. In
early January 1988, the press reported that by 1993 most
Chinese college students would have to pay tuition and
find their own jobs after graduation and would no longer
automatically become state employees.136 China's most
prestigious school, Qinghua, was presented as a model
because 3,000 graduates from 1985-1988 had found their
own jobs.137 Job assignment reform was being tied
closely with educational reform, and rigid manpower
planning was linked to an over-specialized curriculum
that once well suited graduates who took jobs in higher
education and research institutes. By then, according to
one official, these jobs no longer needed to be filled.
It was the provincial and county level workunits that
badly needed graduates.138 Supportive articles started
appearing in the education journals and other
intellectual publications such as Guangming Daily and
Liao Wang.139 The Jiaotong pilot program was often
praised in the media, and a survey (N=303) produced an
81% approval rating among students.140
Students, of course, had mixed attitudes toward
reform. A Xinhua report based on a small non-randomized
sample (N=100) found that 59% of university students in
Beijing favoured the abolition of job assignments, 4%
were opposed, and the remainder had no opinion.141
Another survey (N=1,369) at a Wuhan technical institute
found that nearly 70% of the students liked the newly
developing system. Of companies, which were also
surveyed, 82% expressed satisfaction with the graduates
they received, a figure which was 21% higher than for the
old system.142 In contrast, a survey (N=460) of Beijing
University students in 1988 found that only 44% favoured
the reform of the job assignment system and that 16
percent were opposed.143 A later survey of students
(N=1,500) from schools in Hubei Province was taken when
the mid-term reforms had been in effect for several years
and would have been presumably well understood by
university students. It continued to show a combination
of enthusiasm and indifference: 40% of the students
approving mutual choice, 18% disapproving and 38%
indifferent.144
The Draft Mid-term Reform of 1989
The reform process that had been building for most of the
decade culminated with policy that was approved by the
State Council in March 1989.145 In this document, known
as the draft mid-term reform scheme (zhongqi gaige
feng'an) because it fits conceptually between immediate
short-term actions and long-term goals, the government
offered the strongest statement to date, what it called
an "open-minded approach" to job allocation. The
document is a re-editing of previous policy statements
including one the previous month that summarized previous
policies.146 For SEdC-administered schools, the job
allocation process would now be initiated within the
university and then a plan would be submitted to the SEdC
for approval. This model "may be used as a reference by
relevant departments under the State Council and various
local governments." In addition schools in Guangdong
started experimenting with two-way choice.147
The draft mid-term report declared that the state
would not play an important role in assigning jobs.148
Companies, instead, would choose the best students for
the available jobs.149 Students not hired through this
method would be sent back to their hometowns to find
their own jobs.150 The term "two-way choice" was used
liberally in the documents, while the term youchang
fenpei (compensated allocation) was abandoned for its
negative connotation that "students are commodities."151
Instead, another term, weituo peiyang (contract
training), was introduced. Compensated allocation had
been used in schools operating under various
ministries.152 The replacement is slightly different
from youchang fenpei in that the original concept allowed
for retroactive billing. In contrast, payments in weituo
peiyang, with its emphasis on admission, are up-front and
less subject to extortion and other corrupt practices.
Despite the official reason for the policy changes,
ridding the system of corrupt practices is more likely
what prompted the change. A Hong Kong newspaper article,
for example, had suggested that schools were trying to
extort "education fees" from private companies who
desired to hire graduates, but that the extent of this
phenomenon was unknown.153 Schools, often hard-strapped
for funds, were in an advantageous position when
allocating graduates who were in high demand. Youchang
fenpei provided a legitimate cover for an illegal
practice: demanding an allocation fee from recipient
workunits. The revised system was considered less prone
to corruption, so the general concept of employers'
paying for employees' (or future employees') educational
costs was thus approved. The issue was even addressed in
an appendix to the mid-term report which included a
discussion of adjustable enrolment policies and fee-
paying students.154
Another significant feature of these reform
documents was their continued groping for the appropriate
system. A wide range of approaches was being suggested,
including "assigning jobs a year before graduation...and
step up lateral adjustment [changing jobs] to promote
exchange of talented people."155 During this time, the
first six months of 1989, experiments and suggestions for
change characterized an open intellectual environment in
many areas of Chinese life. This extent of open debate
and dialogue had rarely occurred to such a degree in the
prc's history. It was a time when politicians were
holding open and frank discussions with the public. Zhu
Rongji, then mayor of Shanghai, had one such meeting with
a group of Shanghai natives who studied in Beijing.
Calling themselves "abandoned children," these students
complained that Beijing employers would not hire them
because they were not Beijing natives and that Shanghai
employers would not hire them because they did not go to
local schools.156 Job placement, just as other elements
of the political economy, was subjected to much critical
and creative thinking. Policy experiments and
innovations reflected this.
June 4th Events
Then came the events of June 4, 1989. Even before this
day, when footage of PLA armoured tanks ploughing their
way over the makeshift campsites of demonstrators was
broadcast on TV screens around the globe, rumours were
adrift that student demonstrations would cause job
allocation to be postponed.157 In fact, assignment was
carried out more-or-less on schedule.158 The "6-4"
events had caused some difficulties in processing and,
according to official reports, some politically active
graduates were undergoing review as late as October.159
Another SEdC document recommended the strengthening of
students' ideological education and also that students
should take a year long job in a good grassroots unit
where working conditions were better and leaders had
sufficient authority.160
SEdC documents after June 4 showed a noticeable
change in rhetoric. Whereas in the years leading up to
the 1989 reforms, policy writers had enthusiastically
called for expanding the system of two-way choice, the
November document detailing the next year's plan fails to
even mention the term161 although the description is the
same. It repeated a call made in earlier documents for
provinces and localities to choose one or two schools to
replicate the Jiaotong/Qinghua model. Also, penalties
for students who disobeyed allocation were increased.
Previously, students who refused assignments could be
asked to pay back all scholarships received and even some
tuition, peiyang fei (cost of development). Now, such
students, "will be denied eligibility [for future
allocation] and must pay back scholarships and all
tuition costs [italics added]."162 This change typifies
the negative attitude the establishment and bureaucracy
were now holding against students, as also illustrated in
a large student-bashing piece in Renmin Ribao.163 It was
as if the students themselves must take the blame for the
post-Tiananmen economic recession caused by Western
disinvestment.
Students (excluding foreign language, accounting and
archaeology majors as well as those working below the
provincial level) who had graduated since 1985 and wanted
to work in party and government departments above the
provincial level were now required to undergo one or two
years in low-level "grassroots" jobs.164 Graduates would
have to transfer their hukou165 to the local area and
those already assigned to party and government jobs would
have to give them up and take lower-level work providing
more "practical" experience. One of the rationales
behind "tempering" graduates at the grassroots is that
fresh college youth lacked the "power of independent
judgment and the ability to tackle practical
problems."166 Such tempering helped to nurture better
cadres.167 The application of these regulations, which
were not reprinted in the SEdC's official documentary
history, was probably less than universal, a case that
resembles the situation of punitive regulations following
the 1986 student protests, cited above. Final figures on
the 1989 job assignment indicate few refusals by
graduates and few rejections by workunits. In total, 52%
of the graduates were assigned to localities, which
included from 80-90% of those who attended schools under
local administration.168
For the next several years allocation went on
without substantial change. The 1990 plan guaranteed
students jobs and repeated most of the previous themes,
stressing ideological education and work at the
grassroots.169 It declared that the "three goods"
students should be given priority in assignments. It
also said that students who "acted rightly in the recent
counter-revolutionary activity" should get favourable
treatment. This coincided with the resurrection of a
national "Learn from Lei Feng" campaign, commemorating
the army cadet whose motto was "Serve the People and be a
Bright Screw in the Great Machine."170 The harsh
rhetoric of the previous year was noticeably absent in
official presentations,171 and after "improvement and
rectification" once again "[g]raduates of institutes of
higher learning are [considered] the state's precious
intellectual resources."172 For 1990 there was an
oversupply of students for urban jobs. One article,
while reporting there would be 33,000 university
graduates from Beijing schools, said work units would
need only 8,000. Later in the piece, it was reported
that 13,000 graduates were expected to be assigned jobs
in Beijing.173 Unless there is a misprint, this suggests
students were being given unneeded work. The imbalance
between graduate supply and workunit demand was commented
on with reference to the post "6-4" sluggish economy but
without specific mention of Tiananmen.174 The tally
reported in mid-July suggested that a third of the
graduates from Beijing schools were assigned to
organizations relating to state economic construction, 8%
went to remote provinces, 3% to ministries and provincial
governments (after requisite grassroots training) and 1%
to joint ventures.175 Also, graduates assigned to the
three largest cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin
decreased by 9%, and the ten border provinces and
autonomous regions received 20% more than the previous
year.176
The state continued to assure and secure jobs for
graduates according to the 1991 plan because the SEdC
considered completely free competitions for jobs "still
not a suitable option" because the state needed to place
graduates in areas of greatest need.177 The steps for
assigning graduates reflects previous years' procedures,
with only slight deviation:178
1: SEdC specifies national priorities, then sets
guidelines.
2: SEdC determines the expected number of graduates and
gets employment needs from departments in the
regions. This information is sent down to provinces
and departments and given to the State Planning
Commission and Labour Department.
3: Graduates are matched with potential jobs, at the
region and department level through two-way choice.
4: SEdC holds and adjustment meeting, to exchange supply-
demand information for nation.
5: Regions and departments report back to SEdC with
specific details of their plans.
6: Schools send out graduates.
7: Personnel departments of the regions check on
graduates allocation and then report back to the
SEdC.
8: SEdC makes conclusionary report to the State Council.
Thus, two-way choice was back in style and encouraged,
"conditions permitting."179 An SEdC-sponsored national
information meeting involved representatives of 100
educational institutions, 500 officials from provinces,
municipalities and autonomous regions, and 1,800 managers
from recruiting units.180 Enthusiasm for reform picked
up from where it was before "6-4." Students were
reported to be satisfied. For Beijing, 52% of the
graduates went to work for industrial enterprises and 39%
with government institutions, the remainder not being
accounted for. The emphasis on grassroots work was
notably missing from commentaries. The cool wind that
had blown from Beijing the previous year had both warmed
and lost fierceness. Alleged malpractices associated
with earlier allocation--the excessive use of
relationships in providing unfair advantages to those
with the right connections, mismatch, gender
discrimination and geographic imbalance--were no longer
problematic.181
As in previous years, this purely mechanical process
was disassociated with tertiary enrolment planning. It
is unclear whether hiring units were given criteria in
deciding how many new employees they needed. It was up
to the local workunit to project its labour demands,
developing a seat-of-the-pants calculation that addressed
implicitly, without guidelines, all the assumptions built
into manpower planning. In this process, it was the
regions and local departments, not the SEdC or another
central government ministry, that gathered data on
employment needs. The assumptions may have well varied
from province to province and, within a given province,
from locality to locality. Thus, there is no unity in
data collection.
Consequently, with the post "6-4" economic recovery,
college graduates again in 1992 became in short supply
for the first time since 1987.182 At a national supply-
demand meet similar to the one held the previous year, it
was reported that:
...428 large- and medium-sized firms attending the
conference need more than 30,000 college graduates
this year, while the state can only offer them 6,500
according to plan.
One article reported the total need as 30% higher than
the "low demand" period of 1989-1990. Forty percent went
into industry and trade.183 The economic development
belt along the coast saw the greatest imbalance between
graduate supply and manpower demand. In Shanghai the
ratio was 6:1, and as high as 10:1 for the most popular
majors.184 Demand for graduates was even greater in
Guangdong. Deng Xiaoping's much publicized "Southern
Tour" in the spring of 1992 was one of several reasons
given for the improved situation, along with the
retirement from government service of the wave of college
graduates from the 1950s and 1960, and government
directives requiring firms to revitalize their management
and thus hire new talent.185 Graduate students, however,
were finding that they were overeducated for available
jobs.186 The group given preferential treatment were
students returned from abroad.187
The 1993 Reforms
The next major manpower planning initiative came in late
1992 as new directions for higher education were being
proposed. A mimeographed document from the SEdC in
November 1992 appears to be an earlier draft of a
proposal to speed up reform in higher education. This
latter document was formally approved by the SEdC on 8
December and published in the China Education Daily in
January 1993.188 It included nineteen points on higher
education reform and represents the first attempt at
comprehensive educational reform in higher education in
China's modern history, for it articulated policy
directions involving the scale, rational and structure of
higher education, as well as enrolment, pedagogy,
financing and employment. The earlier 1985 policy
overhaul had not touched on many of these topics. The
1993 reforms addressed student recruitment in the same
section with job assignment. The policy came just short
of declaring assignment dead. It argued that the system
of guaranteed jobs and cadreship must be changed because
of the adoption of a market economy. Recommending two-
way choices (shuangxiang xuanze), schools and work units
should meet to discuss plans for job arrangement (jiuye).
Policy no longer used the term allocation, fenpei. The
state's participation was limited. It should still
assign and assure some graduates for important state
projects, national defense, education, basic and high-
tech research, and certain difficult professions (jianku
hangye) that remained undefined. The proposals implied
that these government assignments were to be given
priority. For a viable policy, it suggested that schools
must recruit students from remote and rural areas. Also
implied was that the government might have to assign
people to areas they didn't want to go to, and that
students who worked harder (as shown by better results)
would get the better jobs.
This new thrust was repeated in the comprehensive
reform of education developed in a work conference
document189 and issued by the State Council and published
in China Education Daily in February 1993 in which higher
education was only a small part of the national policy
initiative.190 National policy would now tie tertiary
recruitment more closely with employment. According to
the policy, China would more away from paying students'
tuition for higher education. Post-secondary education
was not compulsory; thus, those who wanted to get the
rewards from going to university should be expected to
pay for their tertiary schooling.191 Loans and
scholarships should be made available. For students who
went to "difficult" jobs (still undefined), they could be
given incentives and financial inducements. The
proportion of fee-paying students and those sponsored by
workunits was to be increased and was referred to as
"adjustive," as in "adjusting" the system to include
them. It would take time for the move from fenpei to
jiuye ("entering employment")--job allocation to job
arrangement, but the trend appeared unmistakable and
observers did not expect a return to yesteryear.192 Most
important, the multi-faceted aspect of reform was
recognized.193 Input (admissions) and output
(employment) were sharing space in the same journal
articles.194
The 1994 job arrangement encouraged all schools to
adopt two-way choice and for students to work at the
grassroots. Experience from 1993 showed that only 30% of
Shanghai graduates found jobs in key workunits [state
companies or bureaux under central or provincial
administration] in Shanghai, with the others going
elsewhere.195 The SEdC still was to guarantee manpower
for large- and medium-sized companies and for military
and national priority purposes.196 By 1995 90% of the
graduates were reported to have found their own jobs.197
Now, reform was being seen as a set of interrelated
components although how the components fitted together
was not clear.198 The official press continued to praise
graduates who volunteered to work in remote areas.199
The Beijing Education Department set up a special fund
which allocated ¯1,000 - ¯5000 each as an encouragement
for graduates to choose to work in remote and less
developed regions.200 The new policy on paying tuition
and fees, for example, needed to be linked with the
nation's geographical development needs, but planners
were uncertain how to do this within the newly adopted
market framework.
As the economy slowed down in the early 1990s, some
college graduates found urban jobs scarce and they
settled for working in township enterprises. One
graduate from Foshan in Guangdong Province reported that
he went to a factory and was assigned to the production
floor because the factory was short of skilled labour to
operate the parts assembly machines. At first, this was
explained as part of the training process. Several years
later he still operated the machines because no office
jobs had opened up.201
Reforming Human Resource Development
The foregoing analysis of China's manpower planning
has identified certain themes that run through its
development. First, fenpei lacked administrative
consistency. Allocation was handled by various
administrative agencies, whose mandates frequently
changed. The policy did not progress in a straight
development, and the move toward market economics was not
gradual. A second characteristic of job assignment was a
general concern that education be connected with national
needs. This consideration materialized in the various
campaigns that forced students to work at the "grass
roots," local levels of government. It was also
reflected in government worries over "mismatch," an issue
which relates to the match between graduates'
education/training and the use of their skills on the
job. Through the years several surveys had reported
mismatches of 10-20 percent, and most commentators
considered figures in this range to be unacceptable. The
use of experiments to develop policy initiatives was a
third feature present in the evolution of graduate
assignment reform. Certain key schools, notably Qinghua
and Shanghai Jiaotong, were permitted to develop
alternatives to fenpei. These experiments provided
models for other schools and eventually evolved into the
system that was developed to replace mandatory
allocation. A fourth element characterizing Chinese
manpower planning was the saturating role that politics
played in all phases of policy. One can functionally
differentiate the educational policy process into (a)
policy framing, (b) policy adoption, and (c) policy
implementation202. The first of these functions is
handled by planners, the second by politicians, and the
latter by school administrators. In the West, the middle
part of the process involves politics. For China,
political considerations were of tantamount importance in
all three stages. Finally, throughout its history,
manpower planning has been seen as a panacean means to
manipulate the labour market in order to achieve desired
goals. In the early days of centralized planning, job
assignment was used as a relative simple solution to the
problem of connecting education and employment. In the
later stages of manpower planning, the free market has
become the cure-all.
Analysis of Market-oriented manpower planning Reforms
China's educational community, both administrators and
academic researchers, view the market-oriented reforms
favourably. Despite methodological shortcomings,203
journal articles reflect current attitudes of Chinese
academics toward state policy. Although not free to
criticize new policy directions in the direct way that
characterizes Western publications, writers on manpower
planning are not just parroting "the Party line." They
share with state policy designers the philosophical
underpinnings of the new policy. In addition, they
provide the basis of support for policy reforms and shape
policy opinion at the local level, where state policy
must receive approval if it is to be fully carried out.
Chinese policy, contrary to a common misconception in the
West, does not flow down through the hierarchy with
obedient implementation at all levels. Lower level
bureaucrats have some de facto veto power.204 Such is
the case with educational policy. For example,
bureaucratic opposition may be credited with delaying for
over a decade the implementation of a student loan
program and a fee-paying tuition scheme. Another
example, the 1989 decision to have all graduates refresh
their ideological commitment with a year in the
countryside also met non-implementation. Thus, it is
important to note the views of academics on particular
aspects of policy reform they approve, for this can
suggest the level of support that policies receive from
those at the lower levels of hierarchical decision-
making.
The nexus between input (enrolment) and output (job
assignment) must have been informal, at best. A
fictitious example can serve to illustrate. Ms. Zhou's
unit is responsible for enroling students in the
Department of Stomatology in the Zhejiang University of
Medicine, a school run by the provincial government. How
many students should she enrol? The provincial education
commission will issue her a directive on which she may
have formal or informal influence depending on her
relations with officials in the appropriate office. How
will that office know the number of graduates needed?
The National Planning Commission and its lower level
affiliates in coordination with the State Education
Commission (SEdC) and its lower level affiliates work out
the job assignments, and these are passed down to Mr.
Zhang, who is in the job placement office of the medical
university. If Mr. Zhang talks with Ms. Zhou, some
informal planning might result. If Mr. Zhang tells Ms.
Zhou that there is a large surplus of stomatologists,
will Ms. Zhou pass along the word that enrolment should
be lowered? In practice, at least, these informal
networks may have dealt with manpower planning issues.
From the planning perspective, Chinese manpower
planning was not the unified system it pretended to be.
It is referred to as an "arrangement in different levels
under the unified plan of the government with a
percentage for redistribution."205 This translates as
economic sectoral planning, with the Ministry of Mines,
for example, educating its technical work force, then
assigning them to jobs. The same was done by the
ministry of agriculture and a score of other ministries
(Railway, Culture, Public Security, Diplomacy, Industrial
Chemistry, Light Industry, Sanitation and Hygiene, etc.).
Many ministries had provincial level counterparts, such
as bureaux and administrations. In addition, the SEdC,
provincial education administrations and some
municipalities ran their own schools. The result was an
unplanned planning bureaucracy cut by both economic
sector and level in hierarchy. The only unifying element
in the system was the prime directive: assign graduates
to jobs. Cadres (administrators) assigned to planning
could build their own niches, but these were never secure
for long, given the continuing rule changes. Local
practitioners--such as school placement officers and
those in workunits taking in fresh graduates--found the
system bureaucratic and chaotic. Thus, it is hardly
surprising that reform was welcomed.
The favourable review the reforms received at the
local level may be attributable to several other sets of
factors: the practical and the theoretical. First, those
who had to implement state directives became fed up with
allocation. The rules and procedures changed constantly,
and the local-level bureaucrats bore the brunt of
complaints from school officials, employers, students,
parents, and government cadres. One can suppose that
administrators were constantly under pressure from
friends and relations to help secure good jobs for them
or their children. Many no doubt considered the system a
dinosaur from the Soviet era. The second reason the
reforms received support was simply that practitioners
agreed with the initiative. Job allocation was seen to
have major shortcomings, each of which could be solved
through a supply-demand system based on market economics.
The problems were seen as inefficiency, participants'
irresponsibility, lack of competition. The reforms, as
seen by Chinese observers, address each of the issues
below:
Efficiency through Flexibility. Initially, allocation was
extremely rigid at all levels.206 It was unduly
inefficient.207 Once students got jobs they were just
like paired birds--mated for life.208 This rigidity, so
the argument went, caused considerable inefficiency,
including workunit (danwei) overstaffing and employee-
employer mismatch. Speaking to the first point, a report
from Inner Mongolia, for example, attributed much of the
problem of over-staffing in government offices, cited at
48.7%, to poor manpower planning.209
On the mismatch issue, planners argued that talents
were being wasted in the fenpei system. Throughout
China, graduates were not able to use their acquired
skills on the job.210 Schools were turning out graduates
in specialities that were no longer needed by society.
Hainan schools, for example, were turning out too many
forestry graduates,211 not adapting to the reality of the
island's deforestation. Mismatch was illustrated by the
oft-told anecdote of the nuclear physicist who must serve
as a secretary in a factory because that's where she was
assigned. Little statistically reliable data backed up
the mismatch perception, although one survey reported
that 40% of graduates in Guizhou Province held jobs
unrelated to their qualifications.212 Whatever the case,
it was assumed that the reformed system would be more
efficient--manpower would be better utilized. When
students contacted workunits directly, they would have a
better idea how to evaluate themselves.213 A new
principle would be employed: "good-students-better-
use."214 Better match between speciality of study and
job would result because jobs that deal with specialized
subjects would have a better chance for promotion.215
There would be no advantage to going to a political
danwei, such as a municipal bureau, because future
political reforms would mean that power will not be
guaranteed for life. A general feeling persisted among
academics216 and "research-crats"217 that the former
system's rigidity did not fit with China's contemporary
economic reforms. "In a market economy, the distribution
of the elements of production should rely on finding
qualified persons in the labour market according to the
needs of each."218 Consequently, the personnel system of
allocation is being converted to the contract system of
the free market.219 The reformed system is intended to
develop, not impede, students' creativity and spirit by
treating them as individuals. In other words, "each
turnip needs its own pit." Just as turnips don't grow
well when the seeds are all thrown together into a big
hole, students suffered when they were thrown into the
allocation pit.220 A reformed market would require
labour mobility and graduates would be required to be
versatile.
The concept of flexibility also extended to the
university curriculum which many educators in China saw
as too specialized,221 a hold-over from the Soviet-
inspired era. Fenpei was partly to blame for curriculum
stagnancy, according to one analysis222 because it did
not force specialities to evolve.
Allocation hampered the market's ability to
influence course content, and it prevented education from
meeting society's needs. Some argued that many majors
were outdated and required adjustment to meet the needs
of the market.223 Students often enroled in their majors
"blindly," and the education they received paid too much
attention to theory, too little to practical
applications.224 In other words, graduates were "unable
to use their hands," not employing what they have learned
(dongshou nangli cha).225 Teaching only emphasized book-
learning, and students lacked broad knowledge.226 This
line of argument led many educators in China to advocate
the adoption of general education through the credit
system.227 Within each student, specialization and
general education could be balanced in such a way that a
student could have one speciality but many abilities (yi
zhuan duo neng).228 Such a system was employed in
Nanjing University (NanDa), one of China's most
progressive schools.229 NanDa, as well as Zhejiang
University, allows students to interrupt their studies
with a year of practical work experience and in such a
way allows for a better match between students' talents
and workunit needs.230 Within education, a balance could
thus be reached between short-line (duanxian) studies
more geared to the economy and long-line (changxian)
which emphasized theoretical work.231 The supply of
graduates always exceed the demand by workunits for long-
line, whereas the opposite was the case for the short-
line.232
Two-way choice is understood to be an interim
measure between allocation and free market.233 Just as
the designation of the 1989 reforms as mid-term suggests,
manpower planning in China is in transition. Eventually,
the invisible hand of the market should be controlling
labour flow, which was impeded in fenpei.234 In the
past, schools were isolated from society.235
Implementing these reforms will generate closer
relationships between education and workplace. At this
stage, the school plays a key role in arranging supply to
meet demand. Schools should take a more active role in
supervising two-way choice.236
Responsibility through accountability: The state was
fully responsible for designing and executing fenpei, and
the three major participants--schools, students and
workunits--had little more to do than to follow
directions. They were dependent on taking orders from
higher authorities.237 Students, especially, became
dependent, not active.238 One political dissident from
the late '70s has even noted that "[t]he instructors'
assessment at graduation has a decisive effect on the
students' job assignment, so these instructors become the
objects of much fawning and flattery."239 Critics argued
that fenpei bred irresponsibility, and that the reforms
would create a system which required the participants to
be responsible for their actions. Thus, it would produce
accountability.
Schools: Under the old system, schools were not
responsible for judging the relevance of their curricula
against the needs of society. The orders for graduates
came from above--lumpsums of students needed, qiekuai
jihua (a cut-out chunk).240 Teaching quality was never
examined. In contrast, two-way choice can accelerate
educational reform because schools will be forced to
adjust their majors to society's needs.241 The burden
could now fall on the school "to educate in order to fit
society's needs."242 Given the 1985 reforms that
provided schools institutional autonomy, schools could
move from being "closed" to being "open." They could
decide on their own how many students should take
particular majors and could determine length of
training.243 Schools would become accountable. Good
schools would get good students. Bad schools would not
be able to survive.
Employers: The workunits were not required to be
responsible under allocation because employers had to
passively accept assignees, and they often had no choice
but to put them in an inappropriate position.244 This
system has been equated to an "arranged marriage;" what
is called for now is the "freedom of love."245 In the
future, companies will hire according to need. They will
have to compete among themselves for the most talented
graduates.246 Previous to the reforms, companies lacked
autonomy in selecting personnel.247 Now, they have
it.248
Students: The allocation system was associated with
the iron rice bowl (daguofan), an entitlement given all
workers in the socialist system. Getting into university
meant automatic allocation to a job. Students need not
do well in their studies. The daguofan encouraged them
to strive only for the passing mark, usually 60 in China,
and thus become liu shi fen wan sui "Long Live 60"
worshippers.249 Since jobs were not allocated on the
basis of achievement, students lacked motivation and were
under no pressure to perform well.250 In short, they
lacked "creative spirit."251 In sum, China's manpower
reforms are expected to bring competition into higher
education and prod students into being active, not just
passive.252 In terms of job assignment, students will
begin to face choices.253 The reforms will enact the
"good-graduates-better-jobs" principle.254
Equity through Fair Competition: The third major area of
concern involved "competition mechanisms" (jingzheng
jizhi), something which fenpei prevented and which the
reformed system is expected to provide. The reforms were
designed to create a system that encouraged competition
among the principal players.255 This is more in line
with China's move from plan to market. Through the
continued forces of competition, the best students would
go to the best schools, where they would study
diligently. The best students in schools would get the
best grades. The best workunits would get the best
students through the fair competition of a job market
(rencai shichang).256 This would be made possible by the
free flow of information, which two-way choice would
encourage.257 Thus, students would compete among
themselves to be the best. "In a competitive system,
students must worry about their jobs and this is good for
their development."258 Workunits would compete to gain
the reputation as the most desirable place to work. The
allocation system lacked competition. Graduates would be
wanted everywhere, like the emperor's daughter who never
had to worry about getting married: Huangdi de nu er bu
chou jia.259 In the same vein, schools could take
advantage of the competitive environment to improve
teaching quality.260 Good teachers would be rewarded and
bad students would be eliminated (taotailu) in a survival-
of-the-fittest scenario.261 Feedback from workunits
would allow schools to improve their curriculum.
These three propositions--that the reforms would
ensure efficiency through flexibility, responsibility
through accountability, and equity through fair
competition-- are the crux of the initiatives. This
utopian vision is somewhat obfuscated by the reality that
China's labour market system is not yet developed;262 by
1995 most workunits did not have the power to make hiring
decisions;263 and fair competition has yet to be
achieved.
The issues addressed in the reforms--responsibility,
accountability, equity, fair competition, efficiency, and
flexibility--have been examined above in terms of how
they relate to planning mechanisms. But they may be
viewed from another perspective, that of state-individual
relations, or more specifically of the state's control of
the individual. The government's requirement that
individuals comply totally with state plans is being
replaced with a more flexible structure that permits a
high degree of student choice. There seems to be little
recognition among planners of the secondary and tertiary
effects that will inevitably result from a dilution of
state control. For the individual graduate, a free job
market will likely bring greater mismatch between skilled
learned in school and those used in the workplace.
Student choice will be based less on what is good for the
state and more on what is good for the individual.
Geographical and regional disparity is likely to
continue, for graduates are likely to prefer urban jobs
to those in grassroots areas. The two-way choice
initiative does not address China's regional
heterogeneity and disparity.
Chinese Manpower Planning in a Global Context
In many Western countries, manpower planning was more
successful as an exercise that developed planning than as
a forecasting tool. It met severe criticism on
theoretical grounds. An historical analysis of China's
manpower planning indicates that after adopting the
Soviet model, planners have not relied on foreign
economic models but rather have better catered to the
nation's political, economic and organizational
structure. Yet, Chinese planners during fenpei did not
appear to profit from Soviet experience, which included
lessons on mismatch, assignment refusal by graduates, and
refusals by workunits.264 During the reforms, lessons
from outside China have not been recognized. None of the
68 articles reviewed for this chapter studied experiences
outside China. The popularity of reforms within Chinese
academia and bureaucracy indicates little relationship
between manpower planning inside China with what has
occurred outside.
In some countries, manpower planning was often
initiated by, or at least greatly influenced by, planners
from non- or multi- governmental planning agencies
located outside the country. In contrast, China's
policies grew endogenously. Both the policy makers and
the systems they developed were indigenous, not imported.
Nor is there evidence that China has been influenced by
Asian examples, such as Taiwan265 and South Korea,266
which retain strong graduate employment systems (but
without job assignment). To frame China's manpower
planning in the global context is more an interesting
intellectual exercise, than a useful one. For China
globalization is real, but as far as manpower planning is
concerned, globalization has remained relatively
unimportant. But might it become important? The
following scenario seems likely.
The current politically correct attitude in China
which sees market as a panacea may well give way to an
eventual realization that a stronger state role in human
resource development is required to address issues such
as mismatch, regional disparities, and various items on
political agendas. In this scenario, China's desire to
return to a stronger central planning approach would not
match global trends. Chinese policy makers would have to
choose between cross-national trends that move in one
direction and national needs that suggest another.
With little influence from the outside world, China
decided to abandon the job allocation system that
constituted its own version of manpower planning. It did
so because there was general agreement that fenpei did
not fit appropriately into the concept of market economy
that was being developed. The problem of mismatch--not
using what you study in your job--that had troubled
China's planners for decades, suddenly vanished. The
"invisible hand" of the market would put people where
they needed to be. As one of China's planners explained
to me: "Mismatch is not a problem. The market takes care
of it, just like in America. We can learn from the
United States."267
For Chinese planners to look to the U.S. for
inspiration is problematic.268 The working population in
many free-market societies is characterized by varying
degrees of unemployment, career and job change, and by a
fairly high level of mismatch. Another major difference
is that most American university students experience
general education. Graduates are often hired not so much
for their specific skills as for their problem-solving
abilities, communication and organization skills, the
ability to think creatively and critically.269 Another
difference is that a quarter of the U.S. population over
25 has a college degree, compared with only about two
percent in China. Around fifty percent of the college-
age cohort in the U.S. has some post-secondary education.
Even with the expansion of non-formal education such as
TV universities, the comparable group is small in China.
In free-market economies, much technical training is
acquired on-the-job as companies are willing to make
investments in human resources.
China's abandonment of manpower planning was a
political triumph for reformers under the spiritual
guidance of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. It was a
defeat for the conservative "radicals" who were (and
probably still are) reluctant to see the socialist
redistributive economy converted into a capitalist
consumer-oriented economy. Manpower planning's demise
can be viewed as a political decision.
The fenpei system in China was administratively
unwieldy. This is one of the major reasons its death
sentence was applauded by academics and bureaucrats. The
new reforms, however, were initially greeted with more
scepticism than enthusiasm. In situations where lower-
level bureaucrats do not like policy, they can sometimes
exercise a de facto veto. S. Pepper270 observes that the
enrolment, tuition and job assignment reforms were first
announced in the late 1970s and have continually met
obstacles to implementation. Reforms in higher education
have been the rope of a political tug-of-war between the
reformers and the leftists on the Chinese political
scene. In discussing educational policy reform, Jianping
Shen271 uses the metaphor of a pendulum whose swing is
regulated by the ups and downs of the radical and
moderate groups. For manpower planning, this is
illustrated by the "send graduates to the grassroots"
campaign which appeared after the student disturbances of
December 1986.272 The emphasis on dispatching graduates
to backward and developing regions certainly served a
political need to get troublesome intellectuals out of
the cities where, as a mass, they could cause problems.
But this policy was not accompanied with ideological
rhetoric as politically-inspired policy usually is.
Moreover, the administrative changes discussed above
actually lessened State control. Although Shen273 has
shown that Chinese politics is the major influence on
educational policy, in this instance, politics seems to
have supported rather than caused a general policy that
had been shifting in a particular direction for the whole
decade. For only a brief period educational reforms
virtually ceased after the June 4, 1989 events.
D. Solinger274 argues that generally China's
economic reforms in the 1980s were
merely a means, a set of tools to be manipulated in
the service of a few fundamental and overarching
statist ends: the modernization, invigoration, and
enhanced efficiency of the national economy and its
consequent heightened capacity to boost booth
productivity and returns to the central state
treasury. A related goal was to raise living
standards, to improve the state's ability to address
social needs, and to ensure social stability. These
goals, and not marketization per se, constituted the
"projet" of the decade of economic reform in China.
And it is against these aims that the political
elite consistently assessed--and periodically
curtailed or revamped--its program of urban reforms.
Applying Solinger's thesis to manpower planning suggests
that the change from unified job assignment to a free
labour market might have little to do with marketization.
Actually, marketization is important in that it provides
a major rationale for scrapping the system, as
illustrated in the plethora of academic support for the
change. But the rationale is post factum. The state's
departure from manpower planning can also be seen as part
of a larger disinvestment package from tertiary
education. Components of this strategy include giving
decision-making autonomy to schools and removing state
subsidies for students. All in all, even after Dengist
reforms China's manpower planning was politics-driven and
budget-driven. It did not resemble the type of manpower
planning that has existed in free-market economies. In
the latter, the policy addresses economic rather than
ideological issues. Until the appearance of the 1993
reforms, manpower planning in the Western concept of the
term had never been contemplated, let alone effected, in
China. State policy had not combined enrolment with job
placement. The two had remained separate functions, as
they have in the U.S.275 The major difference in the two
countries lies in the fact that unlike the U.S., which
has no higher education policy, China at different levels
of government sets policy and controls all education.
State apparatuses supervise both job allocation and
tertiary enrolment, but the two supervisions are not
linked.
China's affair with manpower planning might be best
described as a "fling" -- brief but intense, the love
object disposed of when a more suitable partner came
along. The "two-way choice" replacement has generated
much fantasy, but it is doubtful whether it can live up
to such high expectations. Superficially, the system
that is emerging may appear "globalized" but if a case
history of fenpei serves to enlighten us about the
future, it is highly unlikely that the new system will
mirror the practices of other economies. Graduates
finding jobs in Shenzhen, which never experienced fenpei
and where two-way choice has characterized the job search
for ten years, rely almost exclusively on guanxi
(connections) for jobs in the state sector.
As far as human resource development is concerned,
China was synchronized with the global trend, but not
apparently influenced by it. This chapter has examined
the evolution of manpower planning in the PRC. The
policy, defined by reforms which are expected to lead
China to a market-oriented labour system, has occurred
apart from, but consistent with, global trends. They are
similar, but not causally related. Chinese manpower
planning reform exists in a world unto itself. Manpower
policy is designed specifically to meet the nation's
economic, social and especially its
political/bureaucratic needs. The Chinese redirection
mirrors an overall policy shift much in evidence around
the globe. The World Bank, once a leading advocate of
manpower planning, has now disavowed central-government
planning in higher education in favour of a reliance on
market forces. This is part of the Bank's recent
strategy that has governments disinvesting from post-
secondary education.276 Such disinvestment is already
taking place in China's manpower planning. In terms of
manpower planning policy, to say China has been
globalized may be true. But such a statement says
nothing of much analytical significance. The more
important issue involves the role of the state in higher
education. The case for a strong state role in tertiary
education in developing countries277 seems applicable to
manpower planning in China. Further investigation of
this issue is warranted.
_______________________________
1.The term is not construed so broadly, however, to include
the management and operations research literature that
examines manpower use at the level of the firm. For
that, see Bartholomew (1976), Manpower Planning. For the
changing definition of manpower planning, see: Richter
(1984), "Manpower Planning in Developing Countries."
2.See e.g., Youdi & Hinchliffe (1985), Forecasting Skilled
Manpower Needs; Williams (1987), "The OECD's
Mediterranean Regional Project."
3.Manpower planning as a term has also fallen in disregard
worldwide as a politically incorrect gender-biased term.
It is often replaced by human resource development (HRD).
In this chapter MP refers to China's fenpei system while
HRD refers to both MP and the experiments and programs
brought about by reform.
4.Cohn & Geske (1990), Economics of Education.
5.For a recent overview with reference to East Asia, see
Morris (1996), "Perspectives on the Role of Education in
the Process of National Development.
6.Cohn & Geske (1990), Economics and Education, 212-223;
Rogers & Ruchlin (1971), Economics and Education.
7.Psacharopoulos (1979), "Synthetic Approaches in Manpower
Planning;" Mark Blaug (1967), "Approaches to Educational
Planning;" Huq (1975), Education, Manpower, and
Development in South and Southeast Asia.
8.Psacharopoulos et al. (1983), Manpower Issues in Educational
Investment.
9.UNESCO (1983), "Education, Training and Employment," 26.
10.Serageldin & Li (1983), Tools for Manpower Planning.
11.Sheehan (1973), The Economics of Education, 97.
12.Vijaykumar (1978), Manpower Planning Analysis and
Educational Planning, 143.
13.Carnegie Commission on Higher Education (1973), College
Graduates and Jobs, 185.
14.Orleans (1987), "Soviet Influence on China's Higher
Education."
15.Qiang (1991), "Current Situation and Reform of Job
Assignment of College Graduates in China;" also, Wei et
al. (1992), "Planned Allocation, Two-way Choice, Job-
securement by Oneself."
16.Wang (1993), "Special Economic Zone Graduates Job
Allocation under Market Economy."
17.This point is made by White (1978), Careers in Shanghai,
207. He concludes: "...government policies in the form
of educational programs, patriotic rustication plans,
employment procedures, and residence registration all had
effects on individuals' career motivations in
Shanghai..."
18."The most important decision of most students' lives was
that relating to job assignment at the end of their
university years as it has usually been a once-in-a-
lifetime decision, and departmental Party personnel have
had the most important jurisdiction over it. They
determined how individual student were to be fitted into
the job assignments offered to the department by the
state planners. This has meant a very strong incentive
for conformity on the part of students and even various
kinds of ingratiation with those controlling this all-
important decision." Hayhoe, "The Tapestry of Chinese
Higher Education," 126.
19.Zhang (1992), Indispensable Handbook for University and
College Students' Allocation and Transition to Work,
[hereafter, Handbook, (1992)].
20.Zhao (1993), Reform and Development in Chinese Higher
Education, 1977-1993.
21.Liu (1993), Book of Major Educational Events in China, 1531-
1545.
22.Zhao (1993), Reform and Development; Bao Xin (1988),
"Letter from Beijing."
23.Zhou (1990), Education in Contemporary China, 393.
24.Handbook (1992), 10-11.
25.Zhao (1993), Reform and Development, 36.
26.Handbook (1992), 20.
27.Zhao (1993), Reform and Development, 40.
28.Columns may not add to 100% due to rounding. Source:
Handbook (1992), 26-44. The figure for 1957 localities
was reported as 34.8% in Liu (1993), 1531.
29.Handbook (1992), 48, 55.
30.Liu (1993), Book of Major Educational Events, 1489.
31.Liu (1993), Book of Major Educational Events, 1531.
32.Handbook (1992), 56.
33.Liu (1993), Book of Major Educational Events, 1534.
34.Handbook (1992), 82; Liu (1993), Book of Major Educational
Events, 1534.
35.Handbook (1992), 84.
36.Handbook (1992), 87ff.
37.Handbook (1992), 105.
38.Zhao (1993), Reform and Development, 41.
39.Handbook (1992).
40.Zhao (1993), Reform and Development, 41.
41.Liu (1993), Book of Major Educational Events, 1532.
42.Ibid.
43.Zhao (1993), Reform and Development, 41.
44.Liu (1993), Book of Major Educational Events, 1532.
45.Handbook (1992), 133.
46.Zhao (1993), Reform and Development, 37.
47.Shirk (1982), Competitive Comrades; Shirk (1984), "The
Evolution of Chinese Education."
48.Handbook (1992), 140-169.
49.Handbook (1992), 170.
50.Handbook (1992), 186ff.
51.Handbook (1992), 190.
52.Xinhua (1981), "National Conference on Placement of College
Graduates."
53.Lewin et al. (1994), Educational Innovation in China, 132.
54.Zhou (1990), "A Retrospection on the History of Reform in
Job Allocation for Higher Education Graduates and its
Enlightenment;" Lewin et al. (1994), 134. Five years
after being published, the 1983 survey was still being
cited as evidence that the job assignment system needed
to be reformed. See, Li (1988), "Enrolment and Job
Assignment."
55.Handbook (1992), 203ff.
56.Handbook (1992), 223ff.
57.Xinhua (1983), "Education Ministry Circular on Placement
Work."
58.China, Ministry of Education (1983), "Let Your Children Go
Wherever the Motherland Needs them Most to Put Their
Abilities to Good Use."
59.Handbook (1992), 230.
60.Du (1992), Chinese Higher Education, 8.
61.L”fstedt (1990), Human Resources in Chinese Development,
145
62.__, "Misemployment of College Graduates Cited" (1983).
63.Handbook (1992), 243-249, 264, 281, 304, 342; Xinhua
(1983), "College Graduate Job Assignment System
Reformed."
64.Handbook (1992), 243-249; Qinghua is included in this
original group as reported in Lewin et al., 134; in Liu
(1993), 1543-1544; and in __, "Misemployment of College
Graduates Cited" (1983). By 1989, 80% of Qinghua
students had signed contracts through employment
activities organized by the university, according to Zhou
(1989), "1989's College Graduates Job Allocation System
Undergoing Reform." Sichuan University was added in
1984: Zhao (1993), Reform and Development, 42. Zhejiang
University copied the experiment in 1987: "Shanghai
Jiatong University Graduates Allocation Reform," (1989),
220. The Shandong experiment called for yufenzhi,
arrangement before graduation. This was a pre-allocation
system in which work units participate in education.
When admitted to university, students knew where they
would be working. Their curriculum could therefore be
catered to the future needs of the workplace: Fu et al.
(1986), "Survey on Implementing the yufenzhi System for
College Graduates." A similar pre-allocation was carried
out by Zhejiang University called 3-1-1, where students
studied for 3 years, went to work for one year, and
returned to school for the final year: Guo & Jiang
(1990a/1990b), "An Investigation of Job Assignments for
University Graduates and Thoughts Related to It;" Sun
(1993), "Some Thoughts about Deepening the Reform in
Recruitment and Job Allocation for Agricultural
Colleges." The Jiaotong experiment is described in
detail in the China Education Yearbook 1988 [hereafter
1988 Yearbook], 217-220. The Xian Jiaotong experiment is
discussed in Xia & Gu (1989), "Reforming the System of
Job Assignment for College Graduates."
65.Xiong (1988), "From `Arranged Marriage' to `Freedom of
Love.'
66.Handbook (1992), 242ff.
67.Liu (1993), Book of Major Educational Events, 1543.
68.Handbook (1992), 262.
69.Handbook (1992), 264.
70.__, "Renmin Ribao Urges Graduates to Go Where Needed"
(1983).
71.Cui (1984), "Building the Third Echelon."
72.Xinhua (1984), "Circular on Job Assignments for College
Graduates."
73.__, "Misemployment of College Graduates Cited" (1983).
74.Xinhua (1983), "Nationwide Survey for Personnel Needs."
75.Yang (1985), "Important New Policy to Reform the College
Graduate Placement System."
76.China, CCP (1985), "Decision of the Central Committee of
the Communist Party of China on the Reform of the
Educational Structure." Also see, Lewin et al. (1994);
Cheng (1986a), "China's Recent Education Reform;" Cheng
(1986b), "Reforming China's Higher Education for
Qualified Manpower."
77.The Decision followed several years of policy discussions
and negotiations at various levels of government and was
presold to "comrades at the basic level" in a series of
local symposia before the document's formal release. For
one such meeting, see Xu (1985), "Today's Education is
the Productive Force of Tomorrow."
78.This is known as commissioned enrolment. See Cheng
(1986a), "China's Recent Education Reform," 265.
79.For further discussion see Cheng (1994b), "Decentralisation
and the Market."
80.Davis (1990), "Urban Job Mobility," 98-99, which cites
articles from RMRB (15 July 1985), 3 and ZGJYB (16 July
1985), 1.
81.Xinhua (1985), "Report on Job Placement for College
Graduates;" Xinhua (1985), "Colleges Given More Placement
Power."
82.Zhuang (1985), "Official of the Ministry of Education's
Office of Student Affairs Lists Changes in College
Enrollment."
83.Gao & Zhang (1985), "The Second National Symposium on the
College Entrance Examination."
84.Handbook (1992), 281ff; See also, Xiao (1985), "Shanghai
Jiaotong University Reforms Its Graduate Placement
System." Such praise of a pilot program is intended to
nudge local jurisdictions to model their own programs on
the pilot. China's development of educational policy
often works in such a way. See Paine (1992), "The
Educational Policy Process: A Case Study of Bureaucratic
Action in China," 194.
85.Zhang (1988), "1987: College Graduates Job Allocation
System Reform in Different Areas."
86.It is discussed in ibid and mentioned in Davis (1990),
"Urban Job Mobility," 98.
87.Zhang (1985), "University Uses New Educational System;" Li
(1988), "Enrolment and Job Assignment," 15.
88.Yang (1985), "Important New Policy to Reform the College
Graduate Placement System."
89.Handbook (1992), 292ff.
90.Handbook (1992), 284.
91.Handbook (1992), 190, 246.
92.Handbook (1992), 292.
93.Ibid.
94.Handbook (1992), 294.
95.__, "Commentator Views Assignment of Graduates, Reform"
(1986).
96.Handbook (1992), 295; Xinhua (1986), "College Graduate Job
Assignment Report Approved."
97.Xinhua (1986), "College Graduates Volunteer to Work in
Northwest;" Xinhua (1986), "Shanghai Graduates Opt to
Work in Xinjiang."
98.__, "Jiangxi's Wan Shaofen on Jobs for Graduates" (1986).
99.Handbook (1992), 304.
100.__, "Commentator Views Assignment of Graduates, Reform"
(1986).
101.Handbook (1992), 304.
102.Handbook (1992), 305, 309-310; Xinhua (1986), "Circular on
Hiring College Graduates for Jobs;" __, "Majority of
Graduates Assigned by State."
103.Handbook (1992), 306-307; __, "Commentator Views
Assignment of Graduates, Reform" (1986).
104.__, "Majority of Graduates Assigned by State" (1986);
These data may also indicate the central-local
distinction as well as addressing the allocation job-
seeking dimension. Nevertheless, the article states:
"this year's increase in State allocation is evidence of
the government's determination to reinforce the country's
key projects and speed up the development of frontier
provinces." Ibid., K30.
105.__, "Hu Qili on Unified Graduates Allocation" (1986).
106.Handbook (1992), 326-327.
107.Xinhua (1987), "Probation Measures for Graduates Issued."
Policy was earlier reported in Wen Wei Po, the Hong Kong
paper which is believed to receive both financial support
and inside information from the Chinese government. See,
Juan (1987), "Graduates Current Class Will First Be
Assigned to Grass Roots."
108.__, "Responsible Person of the State Education Commission
Answers Liaowang Reporter's Question on the Assignment of
Jobs to College Graduates This Year" (1990).
109.Ibid.
110.Cherrington (1991), China's Students, 93.
111.Xinhua (1987), "College Graduates Willing to Work in
Remote Areas;" Yu (1988), "A Group of Undergraduate and
Postgraduate Students in Chengdu Area Apply for Work in
Rural Areas and Grass-root Units after Graduation;"
Xinhua (1988), "Anhui Graduates Now Seek Grass Roots
Jobs."
112.Xinhua (1988), "Survey Shows Unrealistic Student Career
Goals."
113.__, "Beijing Collegians Seek Jobs in Remote Areas" (1987).
114.Xinhua (1988), "University Graduates Explore Job Market."
115.Wu (1988), "Points of View on Two-way Choice."
116.Xinhua (1988), "Beijing Graduates Fail to Meet Employers'
Needs."
117.Xinhua (1988), "Most 1988 College Graduates Placed in
Jobs."
118.Xiong (1988), "From `Arranged Marriage' to `Freedom of
Love.'"
119.Zhou (1989), "1989's College Graduates Job Allocation
System Undergoing Reform."
120.Xu (1991), "The Cause of Difficulties in Allocating Higher
Education Graduates and Its Way Out Solution."
121.Xinhua (1987), "Many College Graduates Rejected for Jobs."
A similarly sized figure appears in __, "University
Graduates Job Placement Discussed" (1988). Computations
from the Xinhua report's data produce a fractional
person. This suggests that data were garbled either in
the original source or by the time the U.S. Government
had reprinted them. Whether figures reported in official
government publications should be taken at face value
raises an even more fundamental issue concerning the
trustworthiness of the data. Nevertheless, the fact the
data are reported suggests concern over the issue by
program administrators. The actual numbers reported hold
less importance.
122.Guo & Jiang (1990), "An Investigation of Job Assignments
for University Graduates."
123.Li (1988), "College Students to Pay Tuition, Find Jobs;"
Chen & Liu (1992), "Deep Thoughts on Tertiary Students
Job Allocation;" a Hong Kong newspaper reported the
rejection rate for Beijing graduates as 4%: Faison
(1988), "Students Vying for Employment in Beijing."
124.Xinhua (1988), "More University Graduates to Grass-roots
Units."
125.Xu (1991), "The Cause of Difficulties in Allocating Higher
Education Graduates."
126.Rao et al. (1994), "Policy Analysis of the Early Stages
(1985-1991) of Reform of the Job Assignment System for
College Graduates."
127.Handbook (1992), 345.
128.Xinhua (1988), "More University Graduates to Grass-roots
Units;" Li (1988), "Job Markets Proposed for Skilled
Workers;" see Li Ping (1990), "The Labour Service Market
in China."
129.__, "Shanghai Mayor, Students Discuss Job Assignments"
(1989).
130.Yao (1989), "Official Says Cadre Evaluation System
Outdated."
131.Zhang (1993), "Quest for 1993 Shanghai University
Graduates Job Allocation System Reform."
132.Yu (1993), "Chengdu: College and University Students Enter
the Job Market."
133.Xinhua (1988), "Government to Offer Jobs to All College
Graduates."
134.Handbook (1992), 345.
135.Xinhua (1988), "Most 1988 College Graduates Placed in
Jobs."
136.Li (1988), "College Students to Pay Tuition, Find Jobs;"
Xinhua (1988), "Future College Entrants `Free to Choose'
Jobs;" Xinhua (1988), "Education Ministers on Job
Assignments Policy."
137.Xinhua (1988), "Some University Graduates Find Own Jobs."
138.Li (1988), "University Graduates to Lose Iron Rice Bowls."
139.Bao (1988), "Letter from Beijing."
140.Xinhua (1988), "More University Graduates to Grass-roots
Units;" Yuan (1988), "From Planned Assignment to Two-way
Choice."
141.Xinhua (1988), "Students Favor Abolition of State Job
Assignment." Problems inherent from generalizing from
such a small sample compromise the meaningfulness of the
data, yet they reflect what eduational planners believe
to be the case. Otherwise, the data would probably not
have been reported.
142.Rao & Xiong (1990), "Analysis Of University Graduates
Allocation Reform."
143.Survey was by the China Economic Structural Reform
Research Institute. Feng (1989), "University Students
Facing Competition in Employment."
144.Tian et al. (1992), "Analysis of Investigation into
University Students Attitude on Job Choice."
145.China, SEdC (1989), "Report on Job Assignment for
Graduates of Colleges and Universities;" China Education
Yearbook 1990 (1991), [hereafter 1990 Yearbook], 189-192.
146.Xinhua (1989), "State Council Approves Report on Job
Assignment."
147.Zhou (1990), "A Retrospection on the History of Reform in
Job Allocation;" Zheng Jianda, (1992), "To Look through
Practice on Allocation & Job-procurement of the Higher
Education Graduates and Economic Development in Society."
148.Handbook (1992), 376.
149.Handbook (1992), 373.
150.Handbook (1992), 374.
151.1990 Yearbook (1991), 179.
152.A listing without evaluation appears in Zhang (1988),
"1987: College Graduates Job Allocation System Reform in
Different Areas."
153.Faison (1988), "Students Vying for Employment in Beijing."
154.Handbook (1992), 373-376; 1990 Yearbook (1991), 180-182.
155.Xinhua (1989), "State Council Approves Report on Job
Assignment."
156.__, "Shanghai Mayor, Students Discuss Job Assignments."
157.__, "Postponement of Shanghai Job Assignments Denied"
(1989).
158.Xinhua (1989), "1,000 Beijing University Graduates
Assigned Jobs;" Xinhua (1989), "Beijing Begins Assigning
Graduates to Jobs."
159.Handbook (1992), 383.
160.1990 Yearbook (1991), 179.
161.Handbook (1992), 385-9.
162.Handbook (1992), 389.
163.Li (1989), "What Do Entrepreneurs Expect of University
Students?"
164.Tam (1989), "More on New Rules for Graduate Employment;"
Xinhua (1989), "College Graduates Undergo Grass-roots
Training."
165.See, Cheng & Selden (1994), "The Origins and Social
Consequences of China's Hukou System."
166.__, "An Important Measure for China to Bring Its Cadres"
(1989).
167.Mi & Hong (1989), "Subjecting New University Graduates
Training at the Grass-roots Level Is an Important Measure
to Nurture Cadres."
168.__, "China Has Completed the Work of Assigning Jobs to
College Graduates" (1989).
169."Gaodeng Xueshao Xuesheng Biye Fenpei [Allocation upon
Tertiary Graduation]," (1992); Handbook (1992), 394-398.
170.Wang & Ji (1990), "College Graduates Job Placements
Meeting Ends."
171.Ibid.
172.__, "Various Quarters Should Coordinate Well in Arranging
Jobs for University Graduates."
173.Xinhua (1990), "Beijing Graduates Receive Job
Assignments."
174.Xinhua (1990), "Circular Urges Better Job Placement Work;"
Guo & Jiang (1990), "An Investigation of Job Assignments
for University Graduates."
175.Xinhua (1990), "Beijing College Graduates Leave for
Posts."
176.Xinhua (1991), "State to Secure Jobs for All College
Graduates."
177.Ibid.
178.Handbook (1992), 409.
179.Xinhua (1991), "Meeting on Job Assignments for Graduates
Opens."
180.Ibid.
181.Xinhua (1991), "College Graduates Given Job Assignments."
182.An & Yan (1992), "This Year's Needs Exceed Supply of
Allocated Graduates;" Xinhua (1992), "Xinhua: College
Graduates in Short Supply;" __, "Education Commission on
Jobs for New Graduates" (1993).
183.An & Yan (1992), "This Year's Needs Exceed Supply of
Allocated Graduates."
184.Cao & Lu (1992), "Talent Is Needed for Sheyi's
development."
185.An & Yan (1992), "This Year's Needs Exceed Supply of
Allocated Graduates."
186.__, "Overeducated and Underemployed" (1991).
187.Xinhua (1993), "Rules on Returned Student Placement
Issued."
188.__, "Guanyu Jiakuai Gaige he Jiji Fazhan Putong Gaodeng
Jiaoyu de Yijian [Proposals on Speeding up Reform and
Active Development of Ordinary Higher Education]" (1993);
China, SEdC (1993), "Guanyu Jiakuai Gaige he Jiji Fazhan
Gaodeng Jiaoyu de Yijian [Some Opinions about Speeding up
Reform and Developing Higher Education]."
189.Ibid.
190.China, CCP & State Council (1993), "Zhongguo Jiaoyu Gaige
he Fazhan Gangyao [Mission Outline for the Reform and
Development of China's Education;" also, China, SEdC
(1993), "Guanyu Putong Gaodeng Xuexiao Zhaosheng He
Biyesheng Jiuye Zhidu Gaige De Yijian [Opinions on Reform
in Admission and Job Assignment for College Students."
191.Xu (1992), "Reflections On The Reform of Admission to
Colleges and Universities and the Job Assignment System
for Their Graduates;" Zhou et al. (1992), "An Analysis of
the Possibility of Putting into Practice `Charging
Tuition and No Assignment of Jobs' for College Students
and the Scheme of Its Implementation."
192.Zhao (1993), Reform and Development, 42; Cheng (1994b),
"Decentralisation and the Market," 70.
193.__,"Gaoxiao Shoufei Gaige Yaoyou Peitao Guoshi [Reforms in
Fee Payment for Higher Education Must Have Other Policy
Changes to Form a Coordinated Set]," (1994).
194.Ou (1990), "My Opinions on Reform of Admissions and Job
Allocation of Tertiary Normal Schools;" Xu (1992),
"Reflections On The Reform of Admission."
195.Zhang (1993), "Quest for 1993 Shanghai University
Graduates Job Allocation System Reform."
196.__, "Jinnian Gaoxiao Biyesheng Jiuye Banfa Queding [This
Year's University Graduates' Job Procurement Process]"
(1994).
197.__, "Ninety Percent College Graduates to Find Jobs on
Their Own" (1995), referring to a report in China Youth
Daily.
198.Zhu (1994), "Reforms in Fee Payment for Higher Education
Must Have Other Policy Changes to Form a Coordinated
Set."
199.Xia (1994), "Graduates Working in Remote Areas."
200.Xinhua (1994), "University Graduates Face Good Job
Opportunities."
201.Interview, Nov. 1995, Shenzhen. Similar stories were
related to me by several university graduates from medium-
sized cities in Guangdong.
202.Robinsohn (1992), Comparative Education, 18.
203.See, Cheng (1994), "Education Research in Mainland China,"
and Rosen (1987), "Survey Research in the People's
Republic of China."
204.For the tuition controversy, see Pepper (1990), China's
Education Reform in the 1980s, 155-160. Also, Li & Bray
(1992), "Attempting a Capitalist Form of Financing in a
Socialist System" for a description of the 1987 pilot
loan program which, seven years later, had still not been
established despite numerous state documents advocating
its implementation.
205.Zhou (1990), Education in Contemporary China, 394.
206.Yang (1987), "If We Want to Reform the Graduate Allocation
System, We Must First Change Our Thoughts and Concepts."
207.Qiang (1991), "Current Situation and Reform of Job
Assignment;" Li & Chen (1990), "Some Viewpoints on `Two-
way Choice' Job Allocation System for University
Graduates."
208.Huang (1993), "A Cursory Talk on Reform in Job Allocation
for Higher Education Graduates in Our Country."
209.Guo & Zu (1988), "On the Difficulty of Allocation of
College Graduates."
210.Hu (1993), "University Graduates Important Steps in Facing
the Market;" Li (1988), "Enrolment and Job Assignment."
211.Wang (1993), "Special Economic Zone Graduates Job
Allocation under Market Economy."
212.1988 survey by the Guizhou Institute of Educational
Research of Investigation of the Effectiveness of Guizhou
Education System," cited in Min (1994), "People's
Republic of China."
213.Zhu (1989), "Since the Change of Mode in Job Allocation."
214.Shan (1991), "Understanding and Implementing `Priority for
Cultivating and Allocating' Teachers College Graduates;"
Yang (1992), "Execution of Principles and Plans of
Tertiary Students Allocation."
215.Su & Wang (1989), "Three Favourite Trends in University
Students' Job Choices."
216.Chen (1990), "Study on Graduates Counselling under the
Trend of `Two-way Choice';" Rao & Xiong (1990), "Analysis
Of University Graduates Allocation Reform."
217.These are bureaucrats who also research. One of their
prime functions is to articulate state policy. Their
public reports tend to provide justification for policy
rather than unbiased analysis. Any critical observations
contained in their papers reflect official opinion.
E.g., see Min (1994), "People's Republic of China," 106-
127.
218.Chen & Xia (1993), "Establish Labor Market and Deepen
Educational Reforms."
219.Wang (1993), "Special Economic Zone Graduates Job
Allocation;" Wang (1993), "Gradually Establish Higher
Education Recruitment and Graduate Allocation System That
Is Suitable to Social Market Economy."
220.Huang (1993), "A Cursory Talk on Reform in Job
Allocation."
221.Xiao (1994), "A Preliminary Discussion on `Two-way Choice'
in Affecting Graduates."
222.Zhou et al. (1992), "An Analysis of the Possibility of
Putting into Practice `Charging Tuition and No Assignment
of Jobs.'"
223.Deng (1989), "New Thoughts on Job Allocation of University
Graduates;" Chen & Xia (1993), "Establish Labor Market
and Deepen Educational Reforms;" Dong & Zhu (1988), "New
Problems in Job Allocation of Science College Graduates
and Changes of Their Ideas on Job Allocation."
224.Wu (1988), "Points of View on Two-way Choice."
225.Xiao (1994), "A Preliminary Discussion on `Two-way Choice'
in Affecting Graduates]."
226.Zhao & Ding (1989), "Analysis of ideological Obstacles
against `Two-way Choices' in Graduates Job Allocation."
227.Agelasto (1996), "Educational Transfer of Sorts."
228.Xia & Gu (1989), "On Reforming the System of Job
Assignment for College Graduates."
229.Zhang (1992), "A Preliminary Exploration of the Issue of
Job Assignment for College Graduate Science Majors."
230.Ibid. The Zhejiang program is discussed in Guo & Jiang
(1990), "An Investigation of Job Assignments for
University Graduates;" Sun (1993), "Some Thoughts about
Deepening the Reform in Recruitment and Job Allocation
for Agricultural Colleges."
231.Xiao (1994), "A Preliminary Discussion on `Two-way Choice'
in Affecting Graduates;" Deng (1993), "The Megatrend
toward the Labor Market: An Analysis of the Job Market
for 1993 College and University Graduates."
232.Zhang et al. (1990), "`Two-way Choice' in Allocating the
Higher Education Graduates: Pros and Cons."
233.Wang & Huang (1989), "College Students Are Facing the
Selection of the Society."
234.Wang & Zhou (1993), "Different Modes of Job Allocation for
College Graduates Viewed from an Economic Perspective."
235.Xia & Gu (1989), "On Reforming the System of Job
Assignment for College Graduates."
236.Xiao (1994), "A Preliminary Discussion on `Two-way Choice'
in Affecting Graduates."
237.Yang (1987), "If We Want to Reform the Graduate Allocation
System, We Must First Change Our Thoughts and Concepts."
238.Zhou (1990), "A Retrospection on the History of Reform in
Job Allocation."
239.Xu Wenli, quoted in Barm‚ & Minford (1989), Seeds of Fire,
311.
240.Huang (1993), "A Cursory Talk on Reform in Job
Allocation."
241.Chen (1990), "Study on Graduates Counselling under the
Trend of `Two-way Choice.'"
242.Chen (1992), "Causes and Strategies about the Difficulty
in the Assignment of Jobs for Science Graduates."
243.Chen & Liu (1992), "Deep Thoughts on Tertiary Students Job
Allocation."
244.Chen (1990), "Study on Graduates Counselling under the
Trend of `Two-way Choice.'"
245.Xiong (1988), "From `Arranged Marriage' to 'Freedom of
Love.'"
246.Xiao (1994), "A Preliminary Discussion on `Two-way Choice'
in Affecting Graduates."
247.Wang (1993), "Special Economic Zone Graduates Job
Allocation under Market Economy."
248.Deng (1993), "The Megatrend toward the Labor Market."
249.Chen & Liu (1992), "Deep Thoughts on Tertiary Students Job
Allocation;" Li (1993), "Some Points of Thought on the
Reform in the Job Allocation System for Graduates;" Yang
(1987), "If We Want to Reform the Graduate Allocation
System, We Must First Change Our Thoughts and Concepts;"
Zhou (1990), "A Retrospection on the History of Reform in
Job Allocation."
250.Chen (1990), "Study on Graduates Counselling under the
Trend of `Two-way Choice;'" Li (1993), "Some Points of
Thought on the Reform in the Job Allocation System for
Graduates."
251.Qiang (1991), "Current Situation and Reform of Job
Assignment." Indeed, that higher education does not
create motivated and competitive students seems to
resemble Japanese tertiary--four years of less stressful
environment sandwiched between gruelling exam-driven
secondary schools and the workaholism of the salaryman's
life. In both countries, university sharply contrasts
with high school, where one may advance up the steep
educational pyramid only through achievement, as measured
on standardized tests. See, Johnstone (1989), "Trouble
in Leisureland;" Urata (1994), "A Comparison between the
Japanese and the U.S. Evaluation Systems in Higher
Education," 4.
252.Li (1992), "Observations and Thoughts on Post Graduates
Job Allocation;" Wei et al. (1992), "Planned Allocation,
Two-way Choice, Job-securement by Oneself;" Xia & Gu
(1989), "On Reforming the System of Job Assignment for
College Graduates."
253.For further discussion see Cheng (1994b),
"Decentralisation and the Market;" Chen & Liu (1992),
"Deep Thoughts on Tertiary Students Job Allocation;" Chen
& Liu (1992), "Deep Thoughts on Tertiary Students Job
Allocation."
254.Shan (1991), "Understanding and Implementing `Priority for
Cultivating and Allocating' Teachers College Graduates."
255.Hu (1993), "University Graduates Important Steps in Facing
the Market;" Huang (1993), "Some Feelings on Implementing
the `Mid-term Reform for Higher Education Graduates'
Allocation;" __, "Job Competition Advocated" (1986).
256.Deng (1989), "New Thoughts on Job Allocation of University
Graduates."
257.Wei et al. (1992), "Planned Allocation, Two-way Choice,
Job-securement by Oneself."
258.Li (1993), "Some Points of Thought on the Reform in the
Job Allocation System for Graduates."
259.Chen & Liu (1992), "Deep Thoughts on Tertiary Students Job
Allocation;" Guo & Jiang (1990), "An Investigation of Job
Assignments for University Graduates and Thoughts Related
to It."
260.Yang (1990), "Advantages and Disadvantages of Two-way
Choice in Allocation."
261.Liu (1989), "New Subject Faced by Higher Education
Schools;" Wu (1988), "Points of View on Two-way Choice."
262.Chen & Xia (1993), "Establish Labor Market and Deepen
Educational Reforms;" Tang (1993), "Ten Major Causes of
the Underdevelopment of the Labour Market."
263.Huang & Yu (1993), "Two-way Choice to Some Extent Should
Be the Main Channel for University Graduates' Finding
Jobs."
264.Matthews (1982), Education in the Soviet Union. More
flexibility was built into the post-Stalin Soviet
graduate employment system, 170, 173-4.
265.See, Young (1995), "Taiwan."
266.See, Chon (1995), "Korea."
267.Interview, Shanghai Institute of Human Resource
Development, 19 March 1994.
268.China's fenpei system addressed the central government's
directive of mandated full employment. Non-allocation
will inevitably produce at least some unemployment,
depending on the state of the economy. To what degree
state planners will accept unemployment remains to be
seen, because abandoning allocation means abandoning a
full employment policy. Such was a concern in the Soviet
context. Commentary written in the latter Brezhnev years
reported that abandonment "would mean the withdrawal of
the state from a vital sector of the labour market,
introducing realistic salaries for less attractive jobs,
and allowing directors and managers freedom to do their
own hiring. There has never...been any suggestion that
this could happen. And given the authorities'
sensitivity about political control, there is little
prospect of it coming to pass in the foreseeable future."
Matthews (1982), Education in the Soviet Union, 173.
269.These and other qualities are discussed in Green & Seymour
(1991), Who's Going to Run General Motors?
270.Pepper (1990), China's Education Reform in the 1980s, 155-
163.
271.Shen (1994), "Educational Policy in the PRC."
272.There was speculation in the Hong Kong press that the
SEdC, headed by then Acting Premier Li Peng, wanted to
exercise more control over students after the December
1986 student demonstrations by requiring all job
assignments to be submitted to the SEdC for approval in
December. Faison (1988), "Students Vying for Employment
in Beijing."
273.Shen (1994), "Educational Policy in the PRC."
274.Solinger (1993), China's Transition from Socialism.
275.Smith (1982), Manpower Planning and Higher Education.
276.World Bank (1994), Higher Education.
277.For advocacy of a strong state role, see Salmi & Verspoor
(1994), Revitalizing Higher Education, especially
chapters by Castells, "The University System" and Carnoy,
"Universities, Technological Change and Training in the
Information Age."