General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized the need to actively participate in global education governance, vigorously promote the construction of the "Study in China" brand, tell Chinese stories, spread Chinese experience, make Chinese voices heard, and enhance the international influence and voice of my country's education.
"In recent years, due to the restrictions on international travel by various countries during the COVID-19 epidemic, the number of international students in China has dropped significantly; the degree of internationalization of domestic teaching is low; and a mutual recognition mechanism for credits needs to be established." Member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, member of the All-China Youth Federation, Hong Kong Chinese Youth Ling Junjie, founding chairman of the Entrepreneurs Association and chairman of Hong Kong Ceylon Group, discovered during the visit that there are still some obstacles for foreign students to exchange and study in China.
How do domestic universities, scholars, and international students view these issues?
Reporters from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily interviewed some universities in Beijing and learned that after the COVID-19 epidemic, although the enrollment situation of institutions such as the Central Academy of Fine Arts and Beijing Forestry University has shown a good recovery momentum, objective problems still exist.
"When I first came to China to study, Chinese language was indeed a big obstacle. Some teachers used to teach in Chinese and rarely used English." Samad Ali, an assistant researcher at the Hefei Institute of Physical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said, especially when discussing data with teachers. Feeling confused makes learning more difficult.
"Many courses are not taught in English, and we cannot learn what we want to know." said French student Pierre Exbehe.
In this regard, Pan Meng, a teacher at the International Exchange Office (Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Affairs Office) of the China Youth University for Political Science and a special researcher at the Research Center for the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics under the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, believes: "For international students coming to China to study and communicate, the 'language barrier' must be experienced. Colleges and universities can appropriately increase the proportion of English and Chinese-English bilingual teaching, give foreign students more course choices, and actively help them improve their Chinese proficiency. By strengthening exchanges between Chinese and foreign students, they can promote international students to participate in on-campus activities and social activities, and improve the Chinese language ability of international students. and adaptability to life in China.”
"Both master's and doctoral students (foreign students) in our school are taught in English, and undergraduate (study abroad) students are taught in Chinese and take classes with Chinese students. In the process of promoting internationalization, all English teaching is a step-by-step process." Beijing Forestry University Liu Xiaofei, deputy dean of the School of International Studies, said that the school will encourage the continued addition of all-English courses to meet the academic needs of more foreign students. It will also recruit international students in more majors and disciplines, and consider building all-English undergraduate majors, increasing and Expand the number and scale of international students for undergraduate students.
Ling Junjie introduced that since there are currently no national regulations on the proportion of extracurricular learning time in the mainland, there are obvious differences in calculation methods with the ECTS (European Credit Mutual Recognition System), which is commonly used by universities in Hong Kong and Macao and is in line with international standards. As a result, the mutual recognition of credits needs to be done on a case-by-case basis. Promotion by universities has become a major issue for exchange students studying in China to gain recognition from universities in their host country.
This year’s government work report proposed improving the convenience for foreigners to come to China to work, study, and travel.
Pan Meng believes that domestic universities should further optimize the international recognition standards for credits, enhance the internationalization of China's curriculum, and help international students solve the obstacles to studying in China by simplifying course recognition procedures and other measures.
"Hong Kong's local universities are in line with international standards in terms of curriculum and credit mechanisms, and can serve as the 'first stop' and 'exchange station' for international students coming to China." Ling Junjie suggested making good use of Hong Kong's advantages as a "super contact" for the country's opening up to the outside world. , do a good job in the study and exchange work of international students in China.
Hong Kong is backed by the motherland and faces the world. Its unique location advantages and the institutional advantages of "one country, two systems" make it a bridgehead for cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries.
He suggested promoting the internationalization of youth exchanges and encouraging international youth to exchange in Hong Kong and the Mainland. On the one hand, universities in Hong Kong should set up a "Mainland Exchange Program" for international students to encourage international students in Hong Kong to study and exchange in universities on the Mainland; on the other hand, in Hong Kong, Establish a social group focused on organizing international youth exchanges, regularly carry out activities to enhance international youth’s positive understanding of the mainland, and lay the foundation for studying in China or developing careers in the future.
At the same time, we will promote the establishment of an English course sharing mechanism to attract international students to study in China.
Hong Kong universities are unique in English teaching. He suggested accessing the English teaching resources of Hong Kong universities through the mainland Chinese university MOOC platform, sharing course resources, lowering the language threshold for international students to study in China, and improving the internationalization level of mainland university courses.
Furthermore, we should strengthen cooperation in running schools and promote international credit transfer and mutual recognition of degrees.
Ling Junjie suggested that by drawing on the existing "alliance" model in the mainland, the credit transfer mechanism between mainland and Hong Kong universities can be opened up in batches to enhance the overall international attractiveness of mainland universities.
For example, Beijing's "Xuanxuan Road University Teaching Community" selects the most distinctive courses of each school and opens them to students from partner schools to take cross-school electives to achieve mutual recognition of credits.
"In the future, we can expand the 'pair' into an 'alliance' through the '1+X' cooperation model, and promote Hong Kong universities and many mainland universities with similar teaching characteristics and similar majors to form a small mutual recognition of course credits." Alliance' to jointly build an international education ecosystem with interoperable credits and open "merger"." Ling Junjie proposed.
"Study-abroad education exhibitions in China organized by the China Scholarship Council, the Service Center and other brands of 'Study in China' can plan to increase the scope and frequency of countries and regions, and promote different universities in my country to more foreign students through multiple means and channels. Characteristic majors and projects, thereby continuously expanding the scale of international students coming to China." When talking about suggestions for promoting foreign students to study and exchange in China, Liu Xiaofei gave his own views.
“The national level continues to maintain and deepen the strategic positioning of studying in China, the education system insists on opening up to the outside world, and practitioners continue to learn to broaden their horizons and fully understand the meaning of mutual learning among civilizations and people-to-people bonds.” Deputy Director of the International Cooperation and Exchange Office of the Central Academy of Fine Arts Director Yang Xi added.
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily trainee reporter Wang Lulu reporter Chen Fengli Source: China Youth Daily