# Inception of the Chinese Top Level Courses Project


After discussing the historical background for Chinese higher education
since 1949, I now come to how the actual Top Level Courses Project was
created in 2003. I will explain the factors that I believe led to the
creation, and will also describe the project as it exists today, and as
it has developed during the last 7 years, in detail. This will be based
on both literature review, and a number of interviews with academics and
administrators involved with the production of Top Level Courses. The
groundwork for the project was laid in 2001, with a report:

In 2001, the Ministry of Education released a document called “Some
ideas about strengthening undergraduate teaching and improving pedagogy
in higher education” (MoE 2001). This document laid out the case for an
improved focus on teaching, including an increase in financial
resources, and encouraging more full professors to teach undergraduate
courses. Teaching quality was to be made an important criterion for
promotions, young academics were to receive special training in teaching
and pedagogy, and more courses were to be taught in English, or a mix of
English and Chinese. The final two recommendations are particularly
relevant to the Top Level Courses Project: more educational technology
was to be applied in education, and the document also called for the
establishment and improvement of teaching quality monitoring and
assurance systems.

Then, in 2003, the specific project was launched:

In April 2003, the National Top Level Courses Project was formally
launched by the Ministry of Education (MoE 2003). It set forth a plan to
use the development, selection and publication of Top Level Courses to
carry out the goals of the 2001 policy mentioned above, to which it made
explicit reference in its justification. The creation and evaluation of
these model courses would act as a catalyst and promote the improvement
of all courses, raising the general importance of pedagogy and teaching
within universities. The policy called for all universities to design a
comprehensive plan for how the project would be implemented, to make
sure that it raised the quality the teaching at the entire university.

So why did this happen?

The head of the academic affairs office at University B (B0) explained
that enrolment in Chinese higher education had begun expanding rapidly
from the year 1999, transitioning from elite education to mass higher
education. This expansion happened too fast, and there was not
sufficient equipment or teachers available. According to Mr. B0, this
led to society doubting the quality of instruction. The Top Level
Courses Project was designed as a way to make universities and
individual professors care more about the quality of instruction.

Professor B3 puts the project into a historical perspective, and shows
how it was the natural consequence of a trajectory that had begun with
the Ministry of Education first focusing on evaluating the best national
universities, and increasing their funding. The second step had been to
identify national key disciplines, so that a given university would have
educational technology as its key discipline, another economics. These
were also peer-reviewed, and implied increased funding, and a
responsibility to lead the development of that particular field.
However, a discipline is still very broad, so finally the Ministry of
Education decided to evaluate individual courses.

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The quotes in this text is from the MA Thesis "The Chinese National Top
Level Courses Project: Using Open Educational Resources to Promote
Quality in Undergraduate Teaching" by Stian Håklev, University of
Toronto 2010.

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