Diversified Enrollment Policies in Chinese Higher Education: An Analysis of Policy Value Orientation

With the rapid development of China's economy and the continual elevation of higher education standards, there is an imperative need to reform traditional, singular enrollment models. Therefore, China began experimenting with diversified admissions policies in the early twentieth century. The multifaceted enrollment policies in China mainly include an independent recruitment policy, recommended students, and students with exceptional skills in arts and sports. Independent admissions serve as a supplementary recruitment method to the National College Entrance Examination, including discipline-specific talents, comprehensive evaluation, and rural special projects. Over time, various methods reveal issues such as impairing enrollment fairness and needing more robust supervision. In January 2020, the Ministry of Education announced the substitution of the "Strengthening Basic Disciplines Plan" for the previous independent recruitment policy. Under this context, whether the new recruitment policy considerations have balanced various forms of fairness and resolved the drawbacks of the previous one constitutes a series of discussable issues.

Based on existing literature, the research employs bibliometric analysis and a kind of qualitative quadrant analysis from social comparative policy domain as its method. Using selected academic literature databases, specific time frames, and search criteria, the study identifies current research focus areas and main arguments. The research also investigates the problems encountered during policy execution, Then, this research measures the characteristic of those enrollment policies in terms of opportunity fairness, outcome fairness, inclusivity, and marked in the quadrant according to the Bibliometric analysis results. Through this mixed method, the research not only provides a new analytical framework but also tracing back to their origins and values under those policies changes. Finally, the research, from a policy reform perspective, recommends several enhancements, such as expanding the coverage of the new type of enrollment, reducing information barriers, and honing in on more precisely defined student groups in compensatory enrollment policies.