The Pandemic and Higher Education: Learning and Reflection from the Experience of Chinese Higher Education

Abstract

Twenty months have passed since China's first lockdown of Wuhan city. The Chinese higher education sector has withstood the challenges of the pandemic. This paper discusses the experience of the higher education sector in China, drawing primarily from the early period of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, we present a narrative of Chinese higher education managing some of the multifaceted challenges, which is pivotal to understanding its policies and practices during the early pandemic. In particular, this paper extends and provides further contexts to Ma et al. (2021) in better understanding their Chinese perspective, giving readers a fuller picture of the governance of Chinese higher education and some of its practical insights. It also provides some important lessons and reflections drawing from localised experiences, which provide important insights into the Chinese higher education policies and practices in response to the national crisis. In addition, we suggest further areas of research relating to the content of this paper, and finish this paper with a future picture of hope after the crisis.