Towards A Market-based Model In Higher Education: A Case Study Of China And New Zealand

Higher education systems in China and New Zealand have experienced significant transformations in response to the dramatic economic and social changes of the two countries through the influence of globalisation. Both systems have shifted from mainly state-controlled, state-funded and elite systems to state-supervised, diversely-funded mass systems based on a market model. The transformations of these two systems are divided into four periods, with some differences of their time span in each period. The study of higher education systems in China and New Zealand demonstrates that no country’s higher education system, be it large or small, Eastern or Western, can be immune from powerful external forces.