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The education evaluation agencies will undertake education evaluation task and will form principal-agent relationships with the governments with the separation reform of supervision, running and evaluation in China. Because of bounded rationality and information asymmetry, it was already a big problem to avoid the moral hazard of an education evaluation agency in a principal-agent relationship involving only one principal and one agent. In reality, the principal-agent relationship is often more complicated. Of particular concern is that the situation of "one principal-multiple agents" in the evaluation of higher education has emerged. The coexistence of "multiple" education evaluation agencies, such as the official agencies, the semi-official agencies, the agencies affiliated with the university, and the third-party agencies, has taken shape. By using critical discourse analysis, this study attempts to argue that avoiding the moral hazard of higher education evaluation under the "multi-agent" mode becomes a research issue that must be squarely addressed. The paper concluded that in "multi-agent" mode, although the possibility of implied moral hazard in higher education evaluation increases, if the "relative performance" evaluation mechanism can be understood and effective measures can be taken, not only will it not lead to the consequences of moral hazard being more difficult to avoid, but it will greatly enhance the effectiveness of the avoidance of moral hazard. The conclusion has important reference significance on how to effectively use the "multi-agent" mode to avoid the moral hazard of higher education evaluation.

With the separation reform of supervision, running and evaluation in education in China, the government and the third-party evaluation agency begin to cooperate to conduct education evaluation. Obviously, the government and the third-party education evaluation agency have "different" interests demand because of the differences in identity. Existing research has recognized the the problem of "damage of public interest" that may arise from conflicts of interest and incompatibility between the two and the scholars also tried to solve the conflicts to realize the ideal expectation and vision of "win-win cooperation". However, how can "win-win cooperation" of the government and the third-party evaluation agency be realized? This is the goal of the research. By using critical discourse analysis, this paper intends to clarify the interests compatibility between the government and third-party education evaluation agency, based on which, effective measures are proposed to avoid the moral hazard behaviors generated by the third-party education evaluation agency pursuing "selfish interests". Consequently, the study finds that constructing relevant systems based on the "truth telling mechanism" of Incentive Compatibility Theory enables the third-party education evaluation agency to pursue its own interests through "legitimate ways" rather than "unjustified opportunistic ways", thus, enhancing "collective value" while increasing "private interests".

The "moral hazard" of the third-party education evaluation agencies has drawn extensive attention under the separation system of supervision, running and evaluation. The emergence of "moral hazard" is bound to be accompanied by other risks. In fact, the third-party education evaluation agencies will "transfer" risks to the government in order to protect their own interests in the education evaluation. If the risks are solely taken by the government for a long period, the evaluation system will not work well. Introducing the "lock-in" in economics into education field, this paper attempts to clarify the reasons of the third-party education evaluation agencies locking the government and the reasons why the government is willing to be locked by the third-party education evaluation agencies. By using critical discourse analysis, this paper shows that costs and cognitive limitations are the main reasons for lock-in. Accordingly, measures are put forward from the third-party education evaluation agencies and the government, which, to a certain extent, can reduce the degree to which the government is locked in by the third-party education evaluation agencies in order to promote the education evaluation work. This paper is of great significance in laying a solid foundation for further research on how to avoid the "moral hazard" of the third-party education evaluation agencies in the future.

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