名古屋高等教育研究

第 11 号（2011）

General Education Reform and Its Implicationsfor Student Learning: The Case of Yuanpei
Program of Peking University in China
CHEN Xiangming＜Abstract＞
Although it is widely acknowledged that undergraduate students
should receive general education, it is not clear how to implement theappropriate model designed for each particular group of students indifferent cultural, historical, economical and educational contexts.
This article introduces one example of general education reform in
China: the Yuanpei Program of Peking University. By providing
general education courses to all undergraduates, and by setting up a
Yuanpei College for a small-scale experiment, the Yuanpei Program
has been implementing such reform strategies as free choices of specialty and courses, a flexible learning calendar with credit requirements, a tutor system, a mixed lodging arrangement, as well as placing
the management of student study and life under the direct governanceof the university.

The outcomes of the reform are on the whole

positive, although many problems remain due to lack of a consensus
about general education as well as some structural constraints andphysical confinements.

In order to deal with these problems, somesuggestions have been put forward not only for a consideration of logistics in universal terms but also with a view to tracing back to theChinese historical heritage in search of more cultural resources indeveloping China’s own model of general education for the current
demands.

Professor, School of Education, Peking University(Visiting Professor, Center for the Studies of Higher Education, Nagoya
University)231

1．Introduction
After the restructuring of higher learning institutions in 1952 based on
the model of the former Soviet Union, undergraduate education in China
was organized around narrowly defined specialties.

Although this prac-

tice met the needs of economic development in the 50s, it has proven out ofline with the open policy of economic reform, the rapid social development,
the advancement of science and technology, and the needs of diverse
student bodies.

In recent years, a lot of reform in general education (GE)has been carried out in Chinese universities. This article will introduce theYuanpei Program of Peking University (PKU) as a case to illustrate some of
the reform strategies underway, their implications for student learning, theexistent problems and concerns, and future prospects for further reform.
At the end of 1980s, PKU put forward its reform strategy for undergraduate education as ‟strengthening the knowledge foundation of students,
weakening the rigid division of specialties, differentiating teaching andlearning contents and methods according to student needs, and providing
different kinds of education for different tracks of students with different
objectives”.

At the beginning of 1999, the university further refined its

reform strategy in more concrete terms as ‟implementing GE in the lower
grades of student learning and widened specialized education in the higher
grades”.
By the end of 2000, PKU had run two experimental classes (one forhumanities and the other for sciences) for 6-7 years respectively. Having
harvested some experiences for reform, many problems remained. Firstly,
the courses for these classes were put together by faculty members fromdifferent disciplines without internal coherence, and this resulted in disintegrated knowledge structure for the students. Secondly, since the students had to learn a large quantity of knowledge from different disciplines
and the knowledge was not selected with great care, the workload for the
students was too heavy.

Thirdly, as the students were managed by dif-ferent departments in turn, they felt a lack of affiliation to any institution as
well as a weak continuity for the management of their study and daily life.
In the meantime, the majority of the students and faculty were not sa-

232

General Education Reform and Its Implications for Student Learning
tisfied with the teaching and learning in PKU at that time.

According to

one survey conducted in 2000, out of the 404 teachers and 659 seniors, 82.2%of the faculty members thought that reform was needed for PKU's curriculum (Lin & Chen 2002).

The majority of the students and faculty be-lieved that the time to decide on the student specialty before they came tocollege was too early, and the existent specialties were too narrowly defined, thus unsuitable for student comprehensive capacity building.

40.1%

of the seniors reported that they wanted to change their specialty without
success.

65% of the students and 45.8% of the teachers believed that the

proportion of the compulsory courses was too big, the division between
different disciplines was too strict and rigid, and it was too difficult tochoose courses in departments other than their own.

85% of the students

and 77.4% of the teachers advocated a full credit system. While science
students considered ‟ the most lacking courses in the curriculum ” ashumanities and social sciences, those for the humanity students weresciences.
Due to these problems, among others, the university leadership, urged bya number of faculty members active for reform, came to recognize that
PKU, as a top comprehensive research-oriented university in China, should
be at the forefront of GE reform with more clearly-defined goals.

Ratherthan running a few experimental classes within the model of specialty
education, PKU should aim to produce ‟high quality talents with broad
fundamental knowledge, basic human quality, high awareness for innovation, and capacity to play a leading role in the thriving of the nation and thecountry” (Wei & Chen 2000).
In order to reach this goal, PKU established Yuanpei Program in 2001,
named after its late president Cai Yuanpei, who advocated general education in the early 20th century.

Two specific approaches have been em-

ployed in the program since then.

Firstly, GE courses are provided to all

undergraduate students in the university.

Out of the 140-160 total credits

required by each department or school, students need to obtain 16 credits
in 4 of the 5 following areas of study: 1) math and natural sciences; 2) social
sciences; 3) philosophy and psychology; 4) history; 5) languages, literature
and arts.

Secondly, Yuanpei Class has been set up in order to trial a new233

model of GE for its later scaling-up in the whole university.

The Yuanpei

Class was renamed in 2009 as Yuanpei College, with more financial support
and personnel from the university to meet its needs for expansion.

2．Reform Concerning GE Courses
Since 2000, GE courses have been developed steadily from a few dozens tomore than 330 now, with 150 courses or so for each semester.

An approvalcommittee composed of representatives from each of the 5 areas of study
has been set up to screen the proposed courses from the departments andschools, before granting them permission to be taught.
2.1

Effectiveness of GE courses

According to the annual evaluation conducted by the Teaching Section of
PKU since 2002, classroom observations of 37 courses by a research team,and frequent classroom visits of the Teaching Guidance Group composed ofretired professors, students overall are satisfied with these courses(Teaching Section of Peking University 2002-2010; Teaching Evaluation
Office in Teaching Section of Peking University, 2004; Xu 2003).

The

courses considered ‟good” by the students are those whose teachers havea deep understanding of their discipline, a wide range of knowledge, a rigorous attitude towards research and teaching, excellent teaching capacityand personal charismas.

Those with a high student enrolment or whose

lecturers can stir up laughter from the students with their humor are notnecessarily regarded as ‟good” ones.
According to one survey (Wang 2005), 84.4% of the students from theYuanpei Class believed that ‟the GE courses have expanded my scope ofknowledge”, and 74.5% agreed that ‟the GE courses have broadened mythinking”.

As for the usefulness of the GE courses to the students' choiceof their specialty, however, 25.3% of the Yuanpei students considered themas ‟not helpful”， 20.9% as ‟helpful but the help is not very big”, and only
24.1% as ‟very helpful” and ‟rather helpful” (See Figure 1).

234

General Education Reform and Its Implications for Student Learning
Very helpful
7.6%
Rather helpful
16.5%

Unclear 0.6%
Not helpful
25.3%

Not very helpful
20.9%
Figure 1

So so
29.1%

Helpfulness of GE courses to Yuanpei students in choosing specialty

The fact that GE courses are more effective in helping the students tolearn about other knowledge areas than assisting them to choose their
specialty may indicate that the introduction of disciplinary knowledge inmany GE courses is rather superficial.

They have failed to provide thestudents with a clear structure of the disciplines' knowledge and researchmethodology as a basis for their choice of a specialty.
Quite a few students think that, in comparison with the courses on their
specialties, GE courses are usually rather easy, with shallower contents, aslower teaching speed, and a lighter workload for them (Chen et al. 2006;
Wang 2005).

As some teachers do not set high standards for the students,

they believe that they can easily obtain credits from these courses.

In theSpring Semester 2004, for example, of the 155 courses, the pass rate of thestudents from 106 courses was 100%. The percentage of the students who
obtained an ‟excellence” score was 90% for 5 courses, 80% for 17 courses,
and 50% for 85 courses (Teaching Evaluation Office in Teaching Section of
Peking University 2004).
2.2

Factors Affecting the Quality of GE courses

Many factors have contributed to the above-mentioned relatively dissatisfactory outcomes of GE course.

One is that, due to lack of enoughpublicity and open debate about GE, many administrators and teachers do
not have an accurate understanding of GE courses.

They harbor somemisunderstandings of GE courses as: 1) ‟popular courses”, which aim to235

introduce interesting anecdotes and unscientific tales to students not specialized in this discipline; 2) ‟introductory courses”, which superficiallytouch upon some general concepts and methods of the discipline as afoundation for the students to choose their specialty; 3) ‟technical courses”,
which inform students of the basic skills and especially operational methods
concerning the discipline.
These misunderstandings may partly be caused by the vague relation
between GE courses and other university-wide courses.

Before the former

was offered, a kind of general courses had been provided to students since
1986.

There are two strands within this kind of general courses.

One iscompulsory for all students, with such courses as politics, foreign languages,
computer skills, military training, and physical education, which takes about
40 credits.

The other is elective for those students who have more ca-

pacity to learn, without credits.

By 1990s, the number of this kind ofcourses ranged from 30 to 50.

Their quality varied, with most of them

involving a brief introduction to the field of study.

Since there has neverbeen a thorough discussion of the definition and functions of GE courses orthis kind of general courses, many teachers tend to confuse the two.
Another cause for the confusion comes from the unclear relation between
GE courses and the ‟platform courses”.

In order to increase the quantity

and the quality of GE courses, the university has, in recent years, selected
some high-quality discipline foundation courses from some departments andschools as ‟platform courses” for all freshers and sophomores.

However,as these courses are originally offered to students of a certain discipline, thetask of revising them for the purpose of GE becomes a big challenge formany teachers.

While courses in sciences have more basis for knowledge

integration as reflected in such foundation courses as math, physics andchemistry, those from humanities have less a basis in reaching consensus.
Teachers of the latter fields have greater difficulty differentiating‟foundation courses” for students in their own discipline from ‟platform
courses” for students of other disciplines.
Another factor for the less satisfactory outcomes of the GE courses
concerns the provision and the quality of the teachers.

First of all, in suchresearch-oriented universities as PKU, research is given more priority than236

General Education Reform and Its Implications for Student Learningteaching, as reflected in the faculty evaluation and promotion criteria.
Even within the same work of teaching, teachers find themselves benefitting more for their own research from teaching courses in their specialty
than teaching GE courses.

Thus, they lack enough incentives to teach thelatter, understandably.
Secondly, the departments and schools do not usually send their bestteachers for GE courses, due to their preoccupation with the developmentof their own discipline and teaching of their own students. Most of theteachers, in the meanwhile, consider themselves belonging to their discipline more than the university as a whole, thus more willing to teach students of their own departments and schools.
Thirdly, the teachers do not get enough support from the university as
well as the departments and schools to offer GE courses.

Although theuniversity now provides 2,000 yuan and one teaching fellow position forcourses which enroll more than 100 students, teachers still find theworkload too big to handle.

In addition, the financial management systemin the university requires teachers to use their own money first before
getting reimbursement, causing inconveniences for the teachers. In somedepartments and schools, the time spent on teaching GE courses is notcounted as teachers' overall working hours, nor included as an indicator forteachers’ performance evaluation and professional promotion.
Lack of inter-disciplinary collaboration is another factor for the relatively
low quality of the GE courses.

At the moment, the courses follow a dis-tributed compulsory model.

Teachers have to apply for offering thecourses through their departments and schools, which do not have thecapacity to build inter-disciplinary courses, let alone trans-disciplinary ones.
Since there exist huge differences among different disciplines in terms ofresearch paradigms, subjects, methods and ways of thinking, teachers musthave a very clear understanding of their own discipline in order to embark
on such a cooperation.

However, due to lack of capacity in this area, as

well as too clear an institutional divide, the overall design of GE courses forthe whole university proves rather challenging.

At the moment, Yuanpei

Management Committee has been working very hard to establish someinterdisciplinary courses, such as academic norms and thesis writing.

The

237

quality of these courses, however, is still questionable.
The proportion of the credits for GE courses needs to be reconsidered,too.

According to international experience, GE courses usually take about

1/4 of the total credits for undergraduate students. Take Harvard University, for example, the core curriculum takes about 1/4 of the total, andthat of Chicago University is about one half of the total.
that of PKU occupies only 11%.

In comparison,This is partly due to the fact that students

in Chinese universities are required by the Ministry of Education and theuniversity to take some general courses, as mentioned above.
80.0
70.0
60.0

67.6%

67.6%

61.3%

58.5%

51%

50.0
40.0
30.0
20.0

19.1%

22.3%

25.5%

22.6%

20.3%
12%

10.0

25% 24%

13.1%

9.8%

0.0

Class time

Teacherqualityneed improvement

Figure 2Curriculum
contents

OK

Teaching
methods

exams

No need for improvement

Suggestions for improvement of GE courses

In accordance with the problems discussed above, most of the students
surveyed by one study (Chen etc. 2006) believed that the areas that needed
most improvement for GE course were ‟teacher quality” and ‟the curriculum contents” (See Figure 2).

3．Reform Concerning Yuanpei College
Yuanpei College is composed of two classes for each grade, one in humanities, and the other in sciences.

In 2010, out of the 3,400 freshers

enrolled by PKU (1,500 in sciences, 1,300 in humanities, and 600 in medicine),
200 have entered Yuanpei College (Teaching Affairs Office of Teaching
Section in Peking University Website 2010).

238

General Education Reform and Its Implications for Student Learning
3.1

Reform Strategies

Since 2001, five new reform strategies have been tried out for undergraduate students in Yuanpei Class/College in PKU in the new model for
GE (Jin 2006).
1)

Students are enrolled without a specialty, enter one of the two
broad areas of study (humanities and sciences), and take mainly
GE courses and ‟platform courses” for the first one and halfyears.

(They should also take the general courses mentioned

above like everybody in PKU.)
2)

The students are given the opportunity to choose their courses
and specialty according to their own needs and interest, after
having familiarized themselves with the disciplinary arrangements and the educational objectives of the university, under theguidance of their tutor and the teaching plan of the university.

3)

A flexible schooling calendar of 3-6 years is provided to the students, who can set up their own speed of study, and are regarded
as qualified to graduate once they have acquired the required
credits from their chosen specialty.

4)

A tutor system is established with each student having his/her
own tutor, who, considered experienced at teaching, is invited by
the university to give individualized guidance to the students.
The tutors help their tutees mainly by two means: 1) to deliver alecture on his/her own discipline to the students every year; 2) toarrange for 2 hours a week office time to answer questions fromthe students.

In the meantime, the students can send email toand make appointments with their tutor at any time.
5)

A new management system of student life is set up, by putting
students from different disciplines in the same dormitory, so thatthey can communicate with and learn from each other. In addition,
after the students have entered the departments and schools for
specialty education, their classes remain intact under the directgovernance of Yuanpei Management Committee.

239

3.2

Outcome of the Reform

According to quite a few studies, internal self-evaluations and external
assessments in the past 9 years, the outcomes of the reform strategies for
Yuanpei Class/College are on the whole positive. However, many problems
remain due to lack of consensus among various stakeholders, severe
structural constraints, and physical confinements.
3.2.1

Free Choice of Specialty

One longitudinal study of all the students in the first two grades of theYuanpei Class, in comparison with 600 non-Yuanpei students from 9 departments and schools of PKU, showed that 68.3% of the Yuanpei students
benefited ‟a lot” and ‟fairly well” from the free choice of their specialty(Chen et al. 2006).

Different from their non-Yuanpei counterparts, they

exhibited more initiatives in collecting relevant information about the
specialties in the university (See Table 1).
Table 1Means of finding information when choosing specialty (%)

Consult

Consult

Consult

Know

Tutor

Consult

seniortutorsparents

about

lecturesinternet

students

Otherscourses

Non-Yuanpei

32.6

57.6

25.1

38.2

20.2

−

−

Yuanpei

45.3

61.0

28.3

62.3

12.6

15.7

6.3

While choosing their specialty, Yuanpei students were more influenced
by their own personal interests (91.2%) and less by their parents' wishes(28.3%) than their non-Yuanpei counterparts (81.4% and 42.1% respectively).
The influence of their learned courses was greater for Yuanpei students(65.4%) than for the non-Yuanpei students (39.7%).
The consistency between the non-Yuanpei students' final chosen specialties and their planned ones at the college entrance exams (48.8%) was
higher than that of the Yuanpei students (34.3%).

This means that Yuanpei

students had more room for choosing their specialty. In addition, after 4
years of study, 71.3% of the Yuanpei students considered their specialty‟meeting my wish and interest”, much higher than that of the non-Yuanpei

240

General Education Reform and Its Implications for Student Learning
students (54.9%) (See Figure 3).
80.0

71.3%

70.0
60.0

54.9%

50.0
40.0

30.9%

30.0

21.9%

20.0

14.2%
6.8%

10.0
0.0

Meeting wish
& interest

Meeting wish
but not interest
YuanpeiFigure 3

Not meeting wish

Non-Yuanpei

Comparison of satisfaction of specialties

between Yuanpei and non-Yuanpei students

The initial concern that the chosen specialties of Yuanpei students may
cluster around a few ‟hot” fields (business management, law, economics,
math, computer science etc.) has proven unfounded.

Of the 329 students inthe first three grades, their chosen specialties evenly spread over 22 departments and schools in PKU.

Eight students changed their specialties

from humanities to sciences, and 26 from sciences to humanities.

Thismeans that Yuanpei students have taken into consideration more of theirown interests and needs than job market attractions.
3.2.2

Free choice of courses

According to the same longitudinal study (Chen et al. 2006), 72.8% of thestudents believed that they benefited ‟a lot” and ‟fairly well” from thefree choice of courses.

85.5% of the first group of graduates agreed thatthey were given ‟very big” and ‟fairly big” free space to choose theircourses.
However, due to the ‟two-track system” with the majority of the students in the university still following the old way of course selection, Yuanpei students have encountered many difficulties, especially in the first241

few years.

As Yuanpei Class has no faculty of its own, all the courses haveto be provided by the departments and schools.

The latter arrange theirtimetable according to their own students' need, without consulting otherinstitutions.

As a result, there is a time conflict sometimes for Yuanpei

students to choose courses and to take exams.

As time goes by, especiallyafter Yuanpei College was established, this difficulty has been gradually
alleviated with the coordination of various parties involved.
Free choice of courses does give students more freedom, but too much
freedom can bring them too much confusion and too strong a sense of
uncertainty.

Especially for those high school graduates who are not used

to making decisions on their own, they may select inappropriate courses or
too many courses at one time.

This has resulted in their low GPA, which

affects negatively their application for graduate study later on.

Withinsuch a free framework, some less diligent students tend to select ‟easier”
courses in order to pass the requirements with high scores with fewer
efforts.
3.2.3

Tutor system

The tutor system is not as satisfactory as it was expected, although 59.4%of the students thought that the tutors' introduction of their discipline was
helpful, and 40.4% found the tutors' office hours conducive to their learning(Wang, 2005).

67.5% of the students graduated in 2005 and 80.9% of those

who would graduate in 2006 considered the tutor system ‟not very helpful”.
Many factors have led to this undesirable result: 1) there are too few
tutors for the large number of students; 2) the tutors, as well-known
scholars themselves, are too busy to give timely assistance to the students;
3) the tutors, not familiar with fields of study other than their own, havedifficulties in giving relevant guidance to the students; 4) many students do
not take initiatives in seeking help from their tutors for lack of awareness of
their difficulties or for shyness; 5) many students have less contact with
their tutor after they enter the department or school in their 4th semester.
In order to provide more assistance to the students, Yuanpei Management Committee has, over the past few years, been appointing more pro-242

General Education Reform and Its Implications for Student Learning
fessors as tutors, who are younger, more energetic, less busy, but equally
enthusiastic for reform.

The number of the tutors increased from 28 in

2001 to 34 in 2005, and to 50 in 2010.

In addition, two retired professors

have been hired to provide full-time academic guidance to the students.
Quite a few graduates from Yuanpei College have been employed as assistants to help with the management of the students' study, social activities and daily life.
3.2.4

Mixed lodging arrangement

The mixed lodging arrangement for the students is like a double-edged
sword.

On the one hand, it has provided opportunities to students fromdifferent disciplines to communicate with each other, and to accumulate
some ‟social capital” as a byproduct.

82.3% of the students agreed that‟living with classmates of other disciplines has helped me to learn aboutknowledge other than my own” (Chen et al. 2006).
On the other hand, 57.3% of the students agreed that ‟not living withclassmates of the same discipline has prevented me from frequent discussion, which has brought about negative impact on my study”.

This ispartly due to the fact that many administrators of the departments andschools, not considering Yuanpei students their own, do not provide necessary information to them.

Many courses require group work, but

Yuanpei students, not living with their classmates of the same discipline,
often do not get the information on time, or do not have the convenience towork with them in the dorm.
According to one study (Chen 2006), over 40% of the students foundthemselves not getting along very well with their counterparts in thedepartments and schools, and 29.7% lacked a sense of belonging once they
entered their specialty.

As a result, 52.6% of the students considered themixed lodging arrangement ‟not very beneficial to them”. In the interviews of all 83 students in the first batch of Yuanpei graduates, many ofthem stated that as the pressure for study was higher than their needs forinterpersonal and inter-disciplinary communication, they preferred to livingwith classmates of their own specialty (Chen et al. 2006).
This result has something to do with the traditional specialty education243model, where students are pulled out to form into homogenous groups ofthe same discipline.

The main objective of this grouping is to train stu-

dents' special skills more easily, while their interpersonal and inter-disciplinary communication becomes secondary. With the GE model, in
contrast, students of the same discipline have to seek communication
without an institutional infrastructure.

Since most of the students are notused to this model, and their study in the specialty is considered more
important than their inter-discipli- nary communication, they choose to giveup the latter.
Besides, the student management of Yuanpei College now is still not up
to the basic requirements of GE by international standards.

Althoughstudents are put in the same dormitory, there is still not enough support ofpersonnel, finance or facilities to organize inter-disciplinary activities inplaces, where students can get together for more frequent, convenient andin-depth communication.
3.2.5

Plans after graduation

In terms of plans about what to do after graduation, Yuanpei students
have exhibited a stronger capacity for choices out of their own interest andability, and their choices are more academic and research-oriented.

The

percentage of Yuanpei students who chose to work immediately after
graduation (3.2%) is much lower than that of non-Yuanpei students (14.2%),
with none in 2006 (Chen et al. 2006).
In addition, the percentage of Yuanpei students who planned for graduate
study was much higher than their original plan when they first entered theuniversity (See Figure 4).

This illustrates the positive impact of GE they

have received in their first 2 years.

In the past 9 years, about 66.6% ofYuanpei graduates have chosen to go on with graduate study, with halfgoing abroad and half studying inside China. Many go abroad for further
study in world-renowned universities like Harvard, Yale, Stanford andColumbia.

244

General Education Reform and Its Implications for Student Learning

45.0

40.5% 39.5%

40.0

35.7%

35.0
30.0

31.0%
25.3%

25.0
17.8%

20.0
15.0
7.0%

10.0
3.2%

5.0
0.0

Graduate
study

Figure 4Work

Go abroad

Initial plan

Later plan

No idea

Yuanpei students' change of plans after graduation

In terms of their motivations for graduate study, 39.4% of Yuanpei
students stated ‟carrying on academic research”, much higher than that ofnon-Yuanpei students (24.6%).

The motivations of ‟due to job market

crisis” (0%) and ‟not wanting to work” (3%) for Yuanpei students weremuch lower than those for non-Yuanpei students (11.2% and 13.8% respectively) (Wang 2005).

4．Discussion
In general, the reform of GE in PKU in the past 9 years has accumulated
a lot of experiences as well as positive results.

As a ‟successful” model

for undergraduate education reform in China, it has won quite a few awards
from the Chinese Ministry of Education and the Beijing Municipality inrecent years.

However, due to constraints in many areas, there are still alot of challenges for this kind of reform, not only in PKU in particular, butalso in Chinese universities in general.
4.1

Reexamination of the concept of ‟General education”

According to the design of PKU, Yuanpei students' schooling arrangement consists of two stages.

In the first stage, the students mainly take

GE courses, and in the second stage they mainly study in their chosen

245specialties in the departments and schools.

The separation of GE (whichmeans GE courses in the case of PKU) from specialty education has brought
about some difficulties for Yuanpei students.
When the students enter their specialties in their 4rd semester, many
departments and schools have already provided some foundational courses
to their own students.

Yuanpei students have to make up for thosecourses on their own.

However, as many departments and schools only

consider the timetable of their own students and put the same kinds ofcourses and exams in the same time period, many Yuanpei students areunable to choose some compulsory courses or take the required exams, due
to time conflict.

The curriculum structure of some departments andschools is rather strict with its sequence of course learning (especially insciences).

Yuanpei students, due to time conflict again, often have to takecourses in the wrong order, causing a low GPA and learning difficulties.
Because of poor adjustment to the requirements of some departments andschools, a few students end up unable to choose the specialty they like.
In addition, after the students enter their specialty, they return to the
traditional model of specialty education, not taking GE courses any more.
They are unable to learn about other fields of knowledge than their own, letalone inter-disciplinary research.

As a result, the students, in the first one

and half years, know very little about the specialties in PKU and, in thelatter two and half years, have very little access to other fields of study.
The difficulties that have mainly resulted from the two-stage schoolingarrangement call for a reconsideration of the concept of ‟GE”. It is clearthat ‟GE” should not be reduced to ‟GE courses” alone.

As a compre-

hensive model for educating college students, GE should include not only
learning about the knowledge and skills outside their specialty, but also
upgrading the over-narrowly defined specialty education, and, above all,reforming all aspects of undergraduate education, including education objectives, student enrollment, specialty selection, teacher training, curriculum set-up, choice of courses, learning and teaching methods, extra-curriculum activities, and student daily life.
Besides, GE should not be in opposition to specialty education, and thelatter should be included in the former.

246

Students who are educated with

General Education Reform and Its Implications for Student Learning
the GE model should also have strong capacity in solving specialized
problems, apart from having a broad foundation of knowledge. ‟General”
in the term ‟GE” does not mean that students know about everything in a
‟ general ” superficial way, but being able to make connections withknowledge of different disciplines, and to view things from a broader, interdisciplinary perspective1).

To separate GE and specialty education, as

manifested in the two-stage arrangement of student learning in PKU, may
make the former subordinate to the latter and reduce the status of theformer2).
4.2

Prospects for further reform

Based on the above description and analysis, some suggestions can bemade for further reform in the case of Yuanpei Program of PKU.

These

suggestions can also be used as referent for other higher learning institutions with similar education goals and objectives in China.
Addressing the ‟headache” of the ‟two-tracked system”, one suggestion is to change the connotation of ‟specialty” and the way it is administered in China (Lu 2003).

If ‟specialty” becomes a group of required

courses, rather than an entity (department or school) with a fixed number offaculty members, students, equipment and finance, students would be liberated from the confinements of their department or school.

They could

choose courses of other specialties if their interest changes later on, or they
can design independent study programs on their own.

The university canalso set up new specialties rather flexibly by combining different courses
from different disciplines, in response to the developments of academia,
student needs and job market demands.

Faculty members would be more

willing to teach GE courses, which can help publicize their specialty so as toattract more students to choose it.

With more senior and well-known

professors joining the teaching force of GE courses, the status of this kind ofcourses would be upgraded as well (Huang 2001: 255).

Although thisstrategy may stir up a lot of conflicts in power and interests, and lead torearrangement of institutions, redistribution of resources, and readjustmentof emotions and behavior, it is worthwhile trying.
Another suggestion is to improve the management and the quality of GE

247

courses.

More specific measures include: 1) to set up an academic com-mittee for each discipline to screen courses more rigorously; 2) to give morecredits to GE courses; 3) to encourage teachers to teach GE courses bydividing their salary into two parts: one from the university based on theirteaching for undergraduates, and other from the department or school
based on their work with graduate students; 4) to provide teachers withmore assistants so that more interactive methods such as group discussion,case analysis and role play can be utilized in large classes; 5) to require
students to read more classics of certain foundation disciplines (Gan 2006);
6) to introduce formative evaluation as well as student and teacher
self-evaluation, besides external evaluation of the courses.
Concerning the two-stage schooling arrangement, one suggestion is to
give more differentiated freedom to students in choosing their courses andspecialty.

Students could be allowed to take GE courses in all four years,

with its number gradually reduced as they enter higher grades.

Those

students, who have a clearer idea about choosing their specialty, should bepermitted to enter their specialty earlier. In this way, they would havemore time to explore their interest, and change their specialty if they find it
unsuitable for them later on.
The last, but not the least important, suggestion concerns the overalldesign of the learning environment for the students under the GE model.
The goal of GE obviously goes beyond mere transmission of knowledge andskills.

Successful implementation of GE needs a university culture, which

fosters active, inquiry-based learning with as much freedom as possible.
The creation of such a culture requires more radical steps than the provision of GE courses and experimental classes or colleges.

It may involve

resource reallocation, new arrangement of architecture and physical space,
as well as reconstruction of power relations.

No reform can be devoicedfrom its historical and social contexts and conditions.

PKU, even if as oneof the first-class universities in China, also needs more social, cultural,
economical and psychological support from society, the government and theacademia in order to implement GE more systematically and thoroughly.

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General Education Reform and Its Implications for Student Learning

5．Conclusion
China, as one of the oldest ancient civilizations in the world, has its
cultural roots of GE in its longstanding history.

It could be seen in Con-

fucian goal of educating ‟the humane person” with broad and thoroughmastery of scholarship overarching the old and the new, as well as integrating doing things and being in the world.

It was also reflected in Liang

Qichao's advocate of educating talents who could connect the Western and
the Chinese, as well as the wisdom, the humane and the courageous, at theend of 19th century.

Cai Yuanpei's ideal of ‟free thinking, and inclusive ofall” for PKU at the beginning of the 20th century was an even stronger andclearer manifestation of GE in Chinese history.

Although this tradition

was interrupted in the period between 1949 and 1976, it has been reviving
since 1980s (Pang, 2006).
However, as current GE is developed with regard to the drawbacks ofplanned economy, and it has mainly been introduced from the Westernmodern universities, it has been focused too narrowly on knowledgetransmission and ‟skills” (shu) mastery, rather than personhood development and enlightenment of ‟the Way” (dao)3).

The Western culture,

due to its massive knowledge development and predominant utilitarianism
in social life, understands GE mainly from the perspectives of ontology andepistemology, attempting to integrate knowledge of various fields and tosolve social problems with education. The Chinese culture, in comparison,pays more attention to the life view, the value system, as well as the historical and aesthetic aspects of GE, in order to pursue never-ending perfection in scholarly life, human wisdom, and moral development in doing
things and being a person.
It is in this regard, Chinese universities have rich cultural and historicalresources to draw upon in developing their own model of GE. The Chinese
GE should not only guide students in obtaining universal basic moral values,
scientific inquiry attitude and behavior norms, but also the Chinese virtues,
ideal personality and practical wisdom, especially its holistic world view of
seeing the human and nonhuman as parts of a whole.

In this sense, Chi-nese universities have chances of contributing to the development of GE in249

the world arena.
Another important issue to keep in mind is that China is a huge country
with more than 3,000 universities varying in levels and kinds, and the caseof Yuanpei Program in PKU is only one example.

How to design and trial

out different models of GE for different students, different educational goals,
different higher learning institutions, different disciplines and fields of study,
and different market demands is also a big challenge for China. Although
China's gross university entrance rate has increased to 21% by 2010,
whether China needs the kind of GE that other countries like U. S. andJapan are implementing, still needs exploring.

It is obvious that, due tohistorical reasons, all universities in China need to expand their scope of
education, but to what extend and how remain to be examined in the future.
Notes
1) In the Chinese language, ‟GE” is translated as ‟通識识教育”, and the word‟通” literally means ‟connected” and ‟going thorough”.
2) In the last few years, this problem has been alleviated with more students
start to learn about their specialty before their 4th semester and some students take GE courses in their later grades. However, public understandingof GE, especially its difference from GE courses, is still divided.
3) ‟Shu” (skill, 術) and ‟Dao” (the Way，道) in the Chinese language are two
important concepts, which differentiate the practice that focuses only on skill
mastery from that attaching great importance to the personal enlightenmentof the essence of that practice.
References
Chen，X. M. et al., 2006, An Inquiry on General Education Model in Universities,
Beijing: Education Science Press.
Chen, W. J., 2006, ‟I’m a Yuanpei Person”: the Impact of Class Management andLodging Arrangement on Students in Peking University, Unpublished article,
Beijing: Peking University.
Jin, D. B., 2006, A Summary of the Situation of Experimental Class in Yuanpei
Program of Peking University, Unpublished article, Beijing: Peking University.

250General Education Reform and Its Implications for Student Learning
Lu, X. D., 2003, Revision of Four Commonly Used Terms in Higher Education
and Teaching, Chinese Higher Education, 19.
Lin, X. Y. & Chen, X. M., 2002, Different Perspectives and Different Voices:
Views and Suggestions from Teachers and Students on Undergraduate
Teaching, Higher Education Research, 4.
Gan, Y., 2006, The Two Central Steps in University General Education, Reading

Books, 4.
Huang, J. J., 2001, The Ideal and Practice of University General Education,
Wuhan: Central China Normal University Press.
Pang, H. S., 2006, The Roots of General Education in Chinese History, Unpublished article, Beijing: Beijing University of Sciences and Technology.
Teaching Section of Peking University, 2002—2010, Annual Evaluation Reportsof General Education Courses, Unpublished reports, Beijing: Peking University.
Teaching Evaluation Office in Teaching Section of Peking University, 2004,
Analysis of the 1st Semester Curriculum Evaluation of 2003—2004 School Year,
Beijing: Peking University.
Teaching Affairs Office of Teaching Section in Peking University Website 2010.
(http://dean.pku.edu.cn/jiaoxue/)
Wang, Z. M., 2005, Survey Results of Yuanpei Program of Peking University,
Unpublished article, Beijing: Peking University.
Wei, Q. G. & Chen, X. M., 2000, Curriculum Reform in the Eyes of Teachers of
Peking University, Unpublished article, Beijing: Peking University.
Xu, H. X., 2003, The Implementation of General Education Courses in Peking
University, Unpublished article, Prepared for the Teaching Conference of
Peking University in Feb. 2003.

251北京大学における元培プログラムの意義−大学生の学習を促進するための一般教育改革−
陳

＜要

向

明

旨＞

学士課程における一般教育の重要性は広く知られているが、どのような学生を対象として、どのような教育モデルを適用すればよいのだ
ろうか。本セミナーでは、中国の大学における一般教育改革の事例として、北京大学の「元培プログラム」を紹介する。
北京大学ではすべての学士課程学生が一般教育を受ける仕組みになっており、さらに大学本部の直轄による実験ベースの「元培学院」
を小規模ながら設立している。名称は北京大学の元学長で著名な教育者である蔡元培（1868-1940)にちなんでいる。この学院が提供する元培プログラムの学生は、専門分野や履修する授業を入学後に自由に決めることができる。北京大学でどのような一般教育を実施するべきかという全学的な合意はまだできていないが、同プログラムはおしなべて良好な成果を出している。同時に、構造的な制約や運営上の課題も存在する。中国高等教育独自の一般教育モデルをどう開発するかという観点から、これらの課題を克服する方法を検討したい。

北京大学教育学院・教授
名古屋大学高等教育研究センター・客員教授

252