On this Friday, a new round of Fudan University Debate will get under way again. As one of the former debate team instructors, my student sent me the first-round debate’s topic: Are Separate Admission Processes for International Students Fair in China? Coincidentally, when searching for this week’s news to share, I happened to see an article posted on the recent newsletter of University World News for the same subject. Thus, our group gives me an opportunity to share this interesting piece along with the controversial topic for discussion.
Here is the news:
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20170222122830767
After Tsinghua University announced last year that foreign applicants would not have to take a standardized writing test for undergraduate courses, there were lots of concerns about the unfair admissions procedures that students with foreign passports are gaining relatively easy access to the country’s most prestigious institutions. Recently, Tsinghua published the complete new rules for the admission of foreign students which pushed the topic to the forefront again.
The critics argue that higher education in China is becoming a serious social problem. They believe that if other colleges and universities introduce similar rules, it would increase the education injustice and inequality in China. They also worry about the student quality and compare it to the hard process Chinese outstanding students apply for the U.S. top universities.
Another sensitive issue raised in the article is about the generous scholarship offered by the government for foreign students. Even in Fudan, it is the same situation that the percentage of foreign students who can get scholarships is much higher than domestic students. Some local students’ parents argue that why they pay the tax to subsidize foreign students at the end.
But others defended the policy. The purpose of the new policy is to expand the scope of applications and thus make the process more competitive than before. It is necessary because the percentage of international students is an important measure of a university’s global influence.
What is your opinion on this topic? Do you think whether Tsinghua’s decision is wise or not?
What is the education equity? Does the new admission policy and scholarship policy violate the principle of higher education?
Is it really good to have a rapid increase number of foreign students for Chinese universities?
Do other Asian countries have the similar situation or good example to share?
Related posts:
Ambitious drive for foreign students is paying off
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20160916134031945
The number of international student enrollment in China:
http://www.iie.org/Services/Project-Atlas/China/International-Students-In-China#.WLR6dTsrI2w
Chaoyi, I’m curious what is the motivation for Chinese universities to attract foreign students? For South Korea we saw in class they wanted to attract foreign students because they did not have enough local students to fill their class space. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing the article! With regards to whether other Asian countries are facing similar issues, one example would be Singapore. With regards to the admission requirement to Singaporean universities, there is much uncertainty about how foreign qualifications are weighed against those of local students (generally, the GCE A Level examination). For Chinese students, the minimum requirement stated by Singapore’s National University of Singapore is “a good pass in the gaokao examination” and a TOEFL or IELTS score.
I would like to ask several questions regarding China:
1) Is there a stated % of international students that the government/universities have declared they are aiming for? For instance, the Singapore government capped international student intake in the local universities in 2011 in order to bring down their proportion from 18% to around 15%.
2) Regarding the scholarships that foreign students have, do they come with any terms and conditions? State scholarship for foreign students in Singapore at the undergradute level often comes with a “bond” i.e. after these foreign students graduate, they have to work for several years in Singapore.
Chaoyi, thank you for recent news about China’s HE!
To be honest, I think this policy change is kind of postive because it is imperative for Asian universities to attract international students given the fact that our unique language could sometimes be a hindrance to those who want to study in Asian countries.
And it also depends on what universities expect of these international students; if most of the courses will be provided in English, which means the university internationalizes in order to survive, then proficiency in Chinese language is not necesarily indispensable.
Thanks for your great comments. Actually, Fudan also followed the same policies toward international students. I still remembered that last year, when I worked at Fudan and participated one scholarship committee meeting, the student affairs department debated with the international student office about the distribution of government scholarships. Because the scholarship for international students are very high so that one scholarship for them can support 3-4 students from rural areas. My suggestion is that we can focus more on benefits of globalization/internationalization and improve the quality of English courses and curriculum design so that all students can share the benefits.
Thanks for sharing Chaoyi! Whereas this policy is not fair and inequities in education will increase, at the same time, I think that attracting international students is crucial if China wants to emerge as a leader in higher education in the future – most international students still opt for the UK, US and Australia so to start turning the tide and to take advantage of the turmoil that is being presented due to restrictions on immigration in the aforementioned countries, this is the best time for higher educational institutes in Asia to incentivize international students to head their way. I know that a significant population of Pakistani students going abroad for higher education in recent years, have started considering studying in China as prestigious as going to an English speaking country due to the availability of scholarships – I don’t know how many international students study in China, but perhaps this strategy has worked for other countries too which is why its being introduced.
Thank you Chao Yi for sharing this recent and astounding news! I think right now Tsinghua has a very strong bargaining power in the matter of selection of students since it is one of the top universities in China. Because of its status, Tsinghua has always been attracting a high demand of students (both local and international, but definitely more of the former), and will be likely to continue to do so at least for the near future. To answer your question on equity in higher education institutions, I will be interested to see if Tsinghua will admit only a certain percentage of international students only. If it is a reasonable percentage, then I do not think that the policy is exceptionally disadvantageous to local students. Then again it is completely arguable what constitutes a “reasonable percentage” of foreign students in the school population.
My question is: do you think other top universities in China might follow suit and implement a similar policy as Tsinghua to attract more foreign students, for the sake of competitiveness?