CENTRALIZATION, THE POLITICS OF QUALITY AND ‘INTERNET MARXISM’

In the previous chapters we have seen how in the eighties minimum degree levels were made mandatory for employment in a particular level of post, and millions of incumbent cadres were forced to obtain the required degree. An astounding expansion of the number of degree holders in the course of just a very few years ensued. Party schools and other institutions set up tailored correspondence courses that earned pupils the required degree certificates but were nevertheless quite different from the formal degree courses at regular schools and universities. For local cadres, especially in rural areas and the less developed parts of China, correspondence degrees were often the only way to overcome the disadvantages of their background and earn a chance of promotion. Conversely, correspondence courses have been a financial lifeline that allowed many party schools to continue operating.

The proliferation of degree courses across party schools has been criticized on a number of grounds. Despite a fixed curriculum and a tight control over the examinations, the quality of correspondence degrees is increasingly deemed to be unacceptably low. As became clear when the Hainan Provincial Party School's ‘diploma wholesale shop’ (wenping pifa dian) was exposed in 2004, there has been often serious inflation of party school degrees up to the point of the outright sale of degree certificates.