China to evaluate universities with ‘ideological index’

Experts predict a race between institutions to show progress on Communist Party building and ideological activities

April 3, 2023

Education authorities in China plan to establish an index for universities’ ideological and political education, putting data-driven momentum behind an existing government push on the issue.

In divisional work plans for 2023 issued by China’s Ministry of Education (MoE), one of the key points is to build an “Ideology and Politics Index” for higher-education institutions, particularly key national universities under the department’s jurisdiction.

A previous round of inspections in 2021 found “insufficient efforts” or “weak links” relating to “ideological work” after investigating 31 institutions, including Peking, Tsinghua and Fudan universities. Even the MoE was told to “study deeply and systematically…Xi Jinping’s thoughts on education”.

“I doubt this will directly affect academic work, though it might result in competition between universities to perform better than rivals in any index or league table,” Mike Gow, a lecturer in business management at Edge Hill University Business School – whose research focuses on contemporary China and who wrote his PhD thesis on the Chinese state’s vision for higher education – told Times Higher Education.

“We can expect that this will see a lot of resources committed to enhancing party-building, ideological and political activities, and to the range of pastoral care and student welfare activities that are under the remit of universities’ party secretaries.”

Jonathan Sullivan, an associate professor and China specialist in the University of Nottingham’s School of Politics and International Relations, said: “If what they [the government] are considering is to rank universities according to ‘ideology and politics’, Chinese institutions will compete like crazy to rank highly, which will further embed and consolidate political education.”

An existing index by Yiban.cn, an ideology education hub that is supported by the MoE and was initially incubated by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2009, ranks institutions across the country by two indicators: activity and development. The former is ranked by student activity directly or indirectly on the platform, and the latter is evaluated by materials of ideological work submitted by institutions.

Another attempt at digitalisation is Xuexi Qiangguo, an app designed to teach “Xi Thoughts”, where users can get points for viewing and commenting on content related to the party’s ideologies and policies. The app has been incorporated into some university programmes.

“Controls of higher education have ramped up over the past few years, with greater attention to curriculum and how or what lecturers teach,” said Dr Sullivan.

karen.liu@timeshighereducation.com