This paper will examine changes in seven aspects of higher education policy in the People's Republic of China during the 1970s and, based on the experience of the Soviet Union and the East European socialist states, will explore the implications of these changes for the structuring of social inequality in contemporary Chinese society.

“Living standards have improved, but levels are low and not even.” These words are contained in an appraisal by two senior members of the State Statistical Bureau of the People's Republic of China, which seems to be the first detailed account in years, written for the benefit of foreigners who are interested in the well-being of the people of China. Other, briefer statements have been available lately, but none of such authenticity. In this respect, December 1978 can be taken as the point of departure: since then, not only have major political and economic changes occurred, but the non-Chinese world has been allowed to participate in these changes and to take account of their successes and failures. Even the language in which official reports are made astonishes. Admittedly, reforms had preceded the third plenary session of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party held in December 1978. The plenum was the occasion when China's policies underwent a dramatic shift from Hua Guofeng's doctrinal concept to a more “pragmatic” approach, with problems being tackled as they arose. Strategy and tactics were revised, following a re-evaluation of major political events, organizational change at the highest political level, a reassessment of Mao's role in the history of the People's Republic and the revision of economic targets. A stable future seemed to be guaranteed by the election of Hu Yaobang to the Politbureau and – a little later – the appointment of Zhao Ziyang as premier in overall charge of modernization, as Deng Xiaoping interpreted this concept. Within a few months Hua Guofeng's modernization projects suffered some drastic amendments and his 10-year Plan in particular was abandoned. In its place, the plenum considered the “eight-character charter” of readjustment, reform, consolidation and improvement. In the countryside, which still provides work and a home for the largest number of men and women, agriculture was given the highest priority - but this time in earnest and not, as during the previous two decades, merely as a slogan.

What is unemployment in China? For 20 years after the Great Leap Forward was officially credited with having achieved full employment in 1958, this question could not even be raised in the People's Republic of China. From the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 and up to 1958 unemployment problems had been prominently featured in the Chinese press. In 1978 unemployment again became a topic of discussion. The reappearance of unemployment as an acceptable subject of debate was a further indication of how much of Maoist ideology had been officially discarded since the death of Mao Zedong two years earlier. One Chinese summed up these changes as they related to employment problems in this way2: Employment is a major economic as well as a major social problem. But from 1958 until the destruction of the “gang of four,” problems of employment virtually constituted a taboo which could not be discussed in public. After the smashing of the “gang of four” and especially after the third plenary session of the 11th Party Congress (December 1978), a new employment policy was decided on. This was a strategic decision of immense significance.

During April and May 1981, at the invitation of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, and with the help of a British Council travel grant, I visited educational institutions at all levels in Beijing and in the provinces of Anhui, Yunnan, Guangxi and Guangdong to discuss the changes in educational policy since the fall of the “gang of four” in 1976. In addition to visiting schools, colleges and universities I was given extensive interviews with leading officials at the Ministry of Education in Beijing and at the Education Bureaus of Yunnan, Guangxi and Guangdong.