After more than a decade of a government-funded push for China to build world-class universities, the country is still struggling to reach global standards in education。

　　A long-awaited draft blueprint on reforms will be released after the Chinese New Year holidays, with an overhaul of tertiary colleges a key focus。

　　Even though Yale University President Richard Levin earlier this month praised Chinese investment in college education in the past decade as "staggering," Chinese scholars observed that more money has not translated into better schools。

　　"In the past few years, China’s top universities have improved their outward ap-pearance," said analyst Xiong Bingqi of the 21st Century Education Research Institute. "They have expanded their campuses, enrolled more students, signed up more PhD candidates and produced more dissertations."

　　As Prof Levin pointed out, the expansion of higher education in China is "faster than ever before in human history."

　　But scholars in the country have taken pains to point out that going fast does not mean it is going well。

　　In 1998, the government ordered a massive jump in the number of graduates, and intake has since increased by up to 30 percent year-on-year for much of the past decade. Annual enrolment leapt by an astonishing six times。

　　New impressive campuses have been built, but student-faculty ratio has not kept pace, training facilities are inadequate, and colleges are grabbing as many students as possible simply to boost their revenues。

　　More importantly, the Chinese economy is not prepared for this upsurge of graduates and a fifth of each cohort struggle to find jobs every year。

　　Analysts blame the university administrators, who are more interested in political achievements than academic results。

　　经过十多年政府出资大力推进建设世界级大学后，中国仍在教育上苦苦打拼追赶全球标准。期待已久的大学改革方案将在春节长假后公布，侧重对三类大学进行彻底改革。

　　当西方著名学者最近因大学数量增长而赞扬中国时，分析人士和中国媒体却建议控制增长。在中国，对大学校园像政府官僚机构一样管理的批评越来越多，党政官员和管理人员兼职讲师和研究员。

　　耶鲁大学校长理查德•莱文本月早些时候称赞中国在过去10年来对大学教育的投资“令人吃惊”，中国学者却认为更多的钱并没转化为更好的大学。

　　“过去几年来，中国的一流大学已改善了外部面貌”，21世纪教育发展研究院分析家熊丙奇(音)说，“他们扩大了校园，招收了更多本科生和博士生，生产出更多论文，但就教育质量和研究水平而言，没有太多变化，事实上你甚至可以说变得更糟了。”

　　今年将有630万大学生毕业，而1997年时只有100万。正如莱文教授所指出的，中国高等教育扩张的速度“在人类历史上比以往都要快”。但该国的学者却平静地指出，发展快并不意味发展得好。

　　在过去10年的大多数年份里，大学入学人数的年增长幅度高达30%。新的漂亮校园一直在兴建，但学生与教职员工的比例并未同步，培养设施也不足，大学尽可能地招收更多的学生只是为了增加收入。更重要的是，中国经济并没为大学毕业生“井喷式”的增长做好准备，每年的毕业生中有1/5的人为找工作疲于奔命。分析人士批评大学管理人员，他们对政绩的兴趣要大于对学术成果的兴趣。(作者白胜晖(Peh Shing Huei)，陈一译)