Category: China

Higher-order thinking as a challenge facing Asian students at Western universities

“Despite having a reputation for being studious, Asian students often face uniquely complex challenges in developing key studying skills”

I studied 20 hours every day to enter medical school, believing that effort was the key to academic success and the concept of optimising my studying skills felt irrelevant.

However, after entering medical school where I faced more than double my previous workload, I realised that efficiency was crucial to manage the content, without compromising my mental health. For the last 10 years, I have worked as an educator with thousands of students around the world and have obtained extensive insights about how students approach learning.

These insights reinforce that developing efficient studying skills is crucial for academic success when students enter university. I have also noticed that Asian students, despite having a reputation for being studious, often face uniquely complex challenges in developing these studying skills.

This is especially true for higher-order thinking – a common expectation at Western universities – due to learning habits they carry from their home country.

“Aspirations are shaped in early years with more than one in 10 international students considering HE abroad before their eleventh birthday”

The past two years have undeniably presented significant barriers to international student mobility. Closed borders, digital learning, social unrest, virtual outreach, visa uncertainties and geopolitics to name but a few – but, far from hitting the panic alarm, millions of students continue to follow their dream of studying overseas.

Within UCAS’ new report, published today in collaboration with the US-based non-profit organisation College Board which delivers programs like the SAT and Advanced Placement, we estimate that during the pandemic, over 155,000 international students chose the UK as their destination of choice and begun their studies. The global HE marketplace appears to have weathered the Covid storm.

“We wanted to create an international university in China and a Chinese university recognised internationally”

The future of education is about bringing together multiple worlds. To create a robust higher education sector, universities need to form partnerships with each other, industry, and the community. It Is also beneficial to blend teaching methods and philosophies. Youmin Xi of Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University explains.

May 28, 2021
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China, Higher education, Internationalisation, Transnational education, UK

Is Australia’s response to the international student crisis similar to China’s?

“It is concerning that the grievances from China’s international students and Australia’s are strikingly similar”

China is the world’s largest country of origin international students, writes Angela Lehmann, head of research at The Lygon Group. In 2018, more than 662,100 Chinese students left China to pursue overseas studies. And Australia is one of the three leading destinations for these young people.

However, what is less discussed is that China is also a major destination country for international students and is currently the third largest receiver of students in the world, with almost 500,000 students studying there in 2018.

Like Australia, China closed its borders to international students in March 2020. Both countries now have large groups of international students wanting to return. And these groups are becoming increasingly vocal as their situations worsen.

“Not everyone has a rigid nine-to-five schedule anymore”

Language schools around the world, normally heavily or even fully reliant on inbound students from all four corners of the globe, have had their income cut at the source, writes Max Hobbs, LTL Mandarin School’s marketing director. Last year proved to be a sink or swim moment for those institutes.

Whilst many schools have sadly had to shut up shop, there have been a few success stories.

We aren’t talking about the ones who were already teaching online pre-2020, we are talking about the ones who have had to completely re-invent themselves like never before.

January 25, 2021
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China, Crisis management, Edtech, Language travel

Wait, am I a Chinese spy now?

“Our students aren’t dumb. If they felt manipulated, they would go elsewhere”

Last August I woke up to find out I was a Chinese spy, remembers Erik Eging of the Confucius Institute US Center. This was news to me.

“81% of international students see buying an international education as an investment”

This year has been an incredible year of disruption for international education, writes Shane Dillon, found of Cturtle and UniAdvisor. It has rapidly brought to the forefront conversations around education delivery and the value of tertiary education in general in the 21^st century.

As of March 2020, the global movement of international students has vanished and the future of the sector, the countries and university brands involved are in a state of flux.

Now more then ever before it is critical for the sector to embrace data on international graduate employment outcomes to illustrate clearly to consumers the value and return on investment an international education delivers. Numerous studies from UNICEF, QS and Cturtle show clearly that employability is the most important consideration impacting student choice across Asia.

August 28, 2020
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Australia, China, Higher education, Immigration, International student recruitment, UK, USA

Student mobility needs to be more than just east to west

“Asian students appear to travel within Asia or to western countries, but western students are not yet studying in Asia at the same level”

The flow of students in higher education has historically been from Asia to western nations, with most international students studying in Europe, North America or Australia, writes Loretta O’Donnell, vice provost of Academic Affairs at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan. However, this trend has been changing for a number of years and is now more multi-directional.

In 2019 China hosted more international students than both Canada or Australia, with the top five highest intakes coming from South Korea, Thailand, Pakistan, India, and the US. Japan also saw an almost 11% increase in international student uptake compared to the previous year, while the UK saw a 2% decrease between 2018 and 2019.

“A well-developed online learning platform is essential for Chinese language schools to maintain their profits during Covid-19”

The coronavirus pandemic has had a disastrous impact on the Chinese economy and Chinese people’s daily lives, writes Ivan Suchkov of That’s Mandarin. Here he discusses how Mandarin-language schools based in China are shifting online for classes.

A large number of enterprises and factories had to suspend production to prevent the further spread of COVID-19. Fortunately, the situation has got a lot better now in China, and all the production lines (except for some industries like the educational sector) have fully resumed work.

However, thousands of private Chinese companies are now still on the verge of bankruptcy, as their businesses have been disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“[There is a] real concern that we seem to be making it too hard for international students to thrive”

As the year draws to a close, it is a good time to review the news that made the most impact.
Funnily enough, it’s not a Brexit story that has stuck in my mind, but the drip, drip of news stories about accusations of cheating, directed against international students in general and Chinese students in particular.

In January, for example, there was the notorious email from the University of Liverpool international advice and guidance team about exam conduct, which translated the word “cheating” into Chinese but no other foreign language, on the grounds that Chinese students were “usually unfamiliar with the word” in English. A student petition condemned the email as “racially discriminative”.

However, underlying these headline stories is a real concern that we seem to be making it too hard for international students to thrive when they come to the UK to study…