Chinese universities are reportedly plagued with bureaucracy, where decisions tend to be made by university administrators. As a result, professors do not have much say in university affairs. For instance, the decision on whether to recruit a certain student is made by the recruitment office rather than professors. Giving academic committees more power is a measure to improve universities' internal governance systems.

Another highlight of these university charters is that they all include provisions on protecting the rights and interests of teachers and students.

For instance, the charter of Renmin University of China states that students can participate in university management and put forward opinions, suggestions and criticisms on the university's development and education reform.

Renmin University of China's charter has also specified the procedures for teachers and students to follow when filing an appeal. It states that the university faculty and staff have the right to express their disagreement with decisions related to their position, payment, fringe benefits, honors and awards, or disciplinary punishment against them and as well as the right to make an appeal concerning such issues.

Power struggles

China has more than 1,600 universities, yet so far, only a small number of these have their own charters, according to a report by The Beijing News.

As early as 1995, China's education law stipulated that universities have the right to administer themselves according to their charters; and in 2006, the Ministry of Education urged universities to produce their own charters.

In July 2010, China released a national educational plan for the next decade. China is going to build a modern university system with Chinese characteristics, says the document titled Outline of China's National Plan for the Medium- and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010-20).

The document stipulates that universities should formulate charters according to law and administer themselves according to their charters.

In 2012, the Ministry of Education promulgated an interim regulation on creating university charters, mandating that all public universities produce charters and spelling out requirements for the charters' content. The ministry said that universities directly under its supervision should submit their charters to the ministry for approval, whereas local universities should submit theirs to local education authorities. Twenty-six universities were selected to pilot this initiative, including the six whose charters were recently approved.

However, many of those universities that have developed charters found the process to be arduous.

In January 2012, Hunan Province's 11 local universities were asked to finish drafting their charters within a year, yet 10 out of the 11 failed to complete the task by the end of 2012, including Hunan Normal University.

Since a charter will reallocate power within a university, there are often obstructions when drafting one, Liu Xinshu, Director of the Legal Affairs Office of Hunan Normal University told The Beijing News.

Universities are also not sure about exactly how far they would be allowed to extend their autonomy.

Southeast University started to draft its charter in 2007. After 11 revisions, a draft was finalized in 2012.

Zhong Weijun, Director of the university's Higher Education Research Institute, coordinated the work of the charter drafting group. Few domestic universities had charters that they could borrow from, so the group modeled its first draft after those of Western universities, Zhong said. Yet school leaders were not satisfied with the first draft, saying it was unrealistic, according to Zhong.

As to how much change the charters will make to universities, Qin Qianhong, a law professor at Wuhan University, said that charters could improve universities' internal governance, yet may have little effect on the university's external relations. In other words, the charters may not be followed in practice, Qin said.

Xu Qingshan, Qin's colleague, saw it differently. He said that something is better than nothing; hence making charters is a small step toward building a modern university system in China.

Email us at: wanghairong@bjreview.com