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Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools
Lin Jinhui
Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (CFCRS) is one of the more than 10 forms of transnational education in China and the only one that China’s State Council has issued regulations for. It is Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on CFCRS issued in 2003. In the past 3 decades, CFCRS have been developing through four periods, including 1980–1995 (starting period), 1995–2003 (rapid growth), 2003–2010 (developing while adjusting), and 2010 to present (quality improvement period). That is to say, since July 2010, when the outline of the National Plan for Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development was issued and implemented, China has achieved great progress in both quantity and quality in CFCRS programs. By July 2016, 2,428 CFCRS institutions and programs had been approved by the Chinese government, among which 90% are in higher education. There are about 560,000 CFCRS students on campus nationwide, among whom 460,000 are in higher education, and the graduates have exceeded 1.6 million.
CFCRS is closely related to cross-border education. Statistics show that about 600 foreign partners in CFCRS programs are from more than 30 countries and regions. And the number of partners is continuing to grow. The reason is that CFCRS policy makers in China have realized the potential high-quality education resources are from different countries instead of just from several traditional education-exporting countries. So China proposed “the Belt and Road Initiatives” (B&R) by pushing countries to the west and southeast of China to establish an education cooperation community and to encourage high-level CFCRS programs in these countries.
If we want to focus on the quality and sustainable development of CFCRS, we should not only study CFCRS itself but also cross-border education in general. Therefore, in this issue of Chinese Education and Society my co–guest editor Kevin Kinser and I have selected seven articles in CFCRS and cross-border education. They provide information on the history and current situation of CFCRS to institutes, teachers, and researchers who are interested in CFCRS and help them explore more theories and practices in this field.
It is an outcome of cooperation among the Center for Research on Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools at Xiamen University (CRCFCRS), Wah Ching Center of Research on Education in China of the University of Hong Kong, and the Cross-Border Education Research Team (C-BERT) at the State University of New York at Albany and the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Pennsylvania State University. CRCFCRS is the first institute in China that focuses on research on Chinese-Foreign cooperation in running schools. Xiamen University has been working together on CFCRS researches with some scholars such as Prof. Gerard A. Postiglione at the University of Hong Kong for 14 years and it has been going deeper. C-BERT at the University at Albany, State University of New York, where Prof. Kevin Kinser worked, is a world-known research platform for cross-border education and has many cooperative programs with Xiamen University and the University of Hong Kong. I’m convinced that our cooperation will continue now that Prof. Kinser has moved on to the Pennsylvania State University.
I’d like to thank editors and translators at Chinese Education and Society for their efforts to make it happen. My great thanks also go to Dr. Xie Ailei at the University of Hong Kong.
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A Discussion on Improving the Quality of Sino-Foreign Cooperative Education
Lin Jinhui and Liu Mengjin
Abstract: Since the release and implementation of the Outline of the National Plan for Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development (2010–20), Sino-foreign cooperative education has achieved great progress, gradually entering a new phase of high-level model development. At the same time, the profound conflicts and issues accumulated over the years at existing Sino-foreign cooperative educational institutions and programs have yet to be resolved. Quality improvement has become a distinctive theme in the new phase of development for Sino-foreign cooperative education. It is necessary to bring forth new ideas in terms of the concept of quality and quality standards in Sino-foreign cooperative education commensurate with its new phase of development, endeavoring to establish a quality assurance system and corresponding operating mechanisms for Sino-foreign cooperative education that comply with international standards while retaining Chinese characteristics. In this article we focus on an exploration of four quality assurance mechanisms: the approval and access mechanism, the classified regulation mechanism, the evaluation and accreditation mechanism, and the penalization and withdrawal mechanism.
As of December 2015, China had a total of 2371 Sino-foreign cooperative educational institutions and programs established or hosted by approved organizations, with a total of approximately 560,000 enrolled students; the number of graduates from higher Sino-foreign cooperative education had already exceeded 1.6 million. After more than 30 years of development, Sino-foreign cooperative education has developed from a supplement to Chinese education (Former State Education Commission 1995) into a component part of Chinese education (State Council of the People’s Republic of China 2003), becoming one of the primary means of achieving cross-border education in China (Lin and Liu 2010). The issues of implementing quality education, deepening comprehensive reforms, improving the quality of education, and building the China Dream of educational openness with increased internationalization have become major theoretical and practical questions.
IMPROVING QUALITY IS A DISTINCTIVE THEME IN THE NEW PHASE OF HIGH-LEVEL MODEL DEVELOPMENT FOR SINO-FOREIGN COOPERATIVE EDUCATION
The Common Appeal for Quality in Education Has Become an International Trend in Cross-Border Education
In reviewing the recent trends of international development in cross-border education, the concept of education has experienced a trend toward diversification. Conventionally, the countries providing cross-border education predominantly hold a view of education geared toward obtaining more economic benefits: for instance, the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and other typical education-exporting countries all treat cross-border education as their principal export industry, driven by the idea of gaining more trade volume for educational exports. However, following the continuous development of economic globalization and internationalization, a clearer trend toward diversification of the concept of cross-border education has been seen amongst the educational institutions of some countries, particularly the first-rate universities: the emphasis on international understanding, increased capacity building, development of human resources, and other concepts has left a deep impression. For instance, while New York University Shanghai, a model example of Sino-American cooperative education, has relatively high annual tuition (the 295 students admitted to the first class in 2013 included 150 mainland Chinese students, who paid annual tuition fees of 100,000 yuan, and 145 overseas students, who paid annual tuition fees of 45,000 USD), these sums are practically negligible compared to the funding support received by New York University in the United States, as such famous universities annually command up to several million USD in annual donations; in addition, schools engaging in overseas cooperative education face major challenges in preventing an impact to their reputation, et cetera, and must carefully and scientifically evaluate the risks. Duke University of the United States cooperated with Wuhan University and the Kunshan Municipal Government to establish Duke Kunshan University: in our analysis, as the foreign partner, Duke University “hoped to draw support from the progress of internationalization to remedy its regrets at having failed to beat Harvard on its home turf” (Lin 2013). according to a ranking of American universities published by U.S. News & World Report in 2016, Duke University ranks 8th (U.S. News & World Report 2016).
More and more international organizations are actively advocating for and promoting quality assurance in cross-border education, and have established various distinctive quality assurance models for cross-border education. Effectively guaranteeing students’ interests has become one of the key focal points for each country. For instance, in 2005, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) jointly formulated the Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-Border Higher Education, which were aimed at supporting and encouraging international cooperation, and improving awareness of the importance of quality assurance in cross-border higher education; protecting students and other interested parties to prevent encroachment on their rights by inferior or nonstandard educators; and simultaneously encouraging the development of high-quality cross-border higher education that can satisfy social, economic, and cultural needs (UNESCO/OECD 2005). Some regional international organizations have also focused a high degree of attention on this matter. For instance, the European Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) set the goal of promoting cooperation on quality assurance in higher education across Europe (ENQA 2013), and the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area drafted by ENQA were recently adopted at its Ministerial Meeting convened in Bologna (ENQA 2015). Many countries have successively formulated policies related to quality assurance in cross-border education: for instance, Australia proposed the Transnational Quality Strategy; and the U.K. Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) published the Code of Practice for the Assurance of Academic Quality and Standards in Higher Education: Collaborative Provision and Flexible and Distributed Learning (Including E-Learning). The cross-border education quality assurance models put forward by each country can be divided into two main categories, respectively represented by the United States and Australia. The educational quality accreditation system of the United States is a highly effective administrative system subsumed under its systems for division of power and educational diversification, while also serving as a type of quality assurance model for cross-border education. In comparison, Australia’s quality assurance for cross-border education is characterized by government promotional efforts, through powerful policies, funding support and other leverage. Regardless of the model, the objective is to ensure quality and allow for the sustainable development of cross-border education.
Key Advances and Existing Problems in Improving the Quality of Sino-Foreign Cooperative Education
Quality is the lifeline of Sino-foreign cooperative education (Lin 2010). This was the thesis of a theoretical essay that was written for the People’s Daily (Renmin ribao) of August 27, 2010 (Lin 2010). In the essay the author discusses the two fundamental patterns of Sino-foreign cooperative education, calling for Sino-foreign cooperative education to operate in accordance with educational patterns, and comply with the patterns of Sino-foreign cooperative education. In the process of reforming Sino-foreign cooperative education, we must answer a prerequisite question: what is the purpose of these reforms? It is to improve the quality of Sino-foreign cooperative education, and improve the quality of internationalized talent training. All reforms must ultimately implement improvements to the quality of talent training in order to achieve real results. With this understanding and this plan in mind, some reforms to Sino-foreign cooperative education can move forward in the direction of profound and comprehensive reforms. Otherwise, the so-called reforms and innovation of Sino-foreign cooperative education will turn down the wrong path. Without a clear concept and orientation for improving quality, such reforms and innovation may be beneficial to improving educational quality, may have no effect on improving educational quality, or may be detrimental to improving educational quality; it could also come at the cost of lowering the quality of talent training. The facts of the reform and development of Sino-foreign cooperative education over the last 10 or more years show that the above situations have all existed at one point or another.
In the five years since the release and implementation of the Outline of the National Plan for Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development (2010–20) (hereafter termed the Education Plan Outline), Sino-foreign cooperative education has experienced many new changes, has achieved new progress, and has gradually entered a new phase of high-level model development. During that five-year period, some Sino-foreign cooperative educational institutions and programs with a good educational foundation and relatively high starting point have gained approval, and have played a model role, and some high-level Sino-foreign cooperative education institutions and programs at colleges and universities under the 985 and 211 projects have also played a leading role in higher Sino-foreign cooperative education. Certain well-run institutions and programs have also served as a model example for mediocre or poorly-managed institutions and programs. From a regional perspective, Sino-foreign cooperative education in eastern regions has served as a guide for Sino-foreign cooperative education in western regions. In the course of 5 years, the top-down planning and quality oversight of Sino-foreign cooperative education have also reflected high-level model characteristics. The national education department has unveiled a cluster of major measures, sending a policy signal for the promotion of high-level model development for Sino-foreign cooperative education. For example, in March 2012, the Office of the Ministry of Education issued the Notice Regarding Strengthened Standards Management in Foreign-Affiliated Education (Office of the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China 2012), which required further clarification of the policy definition of Sino-foreign cooperative education. The ministry is currently engaged in intensive research to formulate the guiding recommendations for the administration of Sino-foreign cooperative education at the undergraduate level and the postgraduate level, as well as the guiding recommendations for quality assurance for Sino-foreign cooperative education at colleges and universities. In January 2013, on the foundation of experience summarized from the pilot evaluation of Sino-foreign cooperative education in three provinces (Jiangsu, Henan, Liaoning) and one municipality directly under the Central Government (Tianjin), the ministry initiated a new round of evaluations for Sino-foreign cooperative education.
Since the implementation of the Education Plan Outline, progress on Sino-foreign cooperative education has been of primary importance: the many real advantages that it brings to educators must be fully recognized. On the other hand, the profound conflicts and issues that have accumulated over the past 10 years or more at existing Sino-foreign cooperative educational institutions and programs have yet to be resolved. The overall standards and quality of introduced educational resources need improvement, and the educational practices at some institutions and programs need further standardization; the structure of disciplines and majors must be further optimized, and the regional distribution and the distribution of cooperating countries must be more balanced. Overall, support for improvements to the quality of Sino-foreign cooperative education is still fairly feeble, and some policies related to quality improvement are short-term; it is necessary to engage in comprehensive reform and development.
The above issues are the key problems that must be resolved in the process of improving the quality of Sino-foreign cooperative education. These problems have all arisen in the course of the development of Sino-foreign cooperative education: it is necessary to establish concepts and perspectives on development and utilize the means and methods of development to affect their resolution.
INNOVATING THE CONCEPT OF QUALITY IN SINO-FOREIGN COOPERATIVE EDUCATION TO SUIT THE NEW PHASE OF DEVELOPMENT
Establishing the Concept That Sino-Foreign Cooperative Education Is a Component Part of Chinese Education
Accurately positioning Sino-foreign cooperative education is a necessary prerequisite in improving the quality of Sino-foreign cooperative education. The Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Chines...
