More and more young Chinese are leaving China and heading abroad to study. In 2008 China surpassed India with the most students studying abroad. They are going to schools and universities in Australia, Canada, U.K. U.S.A. Singapore and more. According to China’s Ministry of Education, in 2012 around 400,000 student visas were issued for America alone. And the students that are going are getting younger, now even pre-teens are being sent to ‘greener’ pastures for a ‘better’ education. While this trend is only increasing it is not new. China has a history dating back to the mid 19th century of sending students to other countries to study.
History of Chinese students abroad
The first Chinese student to go overseas was businessman Yung Wing way back in 1847, and after graduating from Yale University he headed back to China in 1854 with the aim of encouraging Chinese students to follow in his footsteps. He believed that in order to strengthen China it was important to understand Western science and technical knowledge. In 1871 China sent 30 children aged between 12 and 16 to study in America.
Those first groups were followed up with naval students being sent to Europe to learn shipbuilding as well as students being sent to Japan to learn from the Meiji Restoration. The government was encouraging as it hoped that the knowledge students brought back would help modernize China. By 1910 the number of Chinese students in Japan was over 20,000, one of the more famous of which was of course Sun Yat-sen.
Throughout the early 20th century there was a constant stream of young Chinese heading abroad. Students were sent to work in factories in France to gain a better understanding of Western civilization, and with the growing strength of the Soviet Union many Chinese students also headed there, hoping to learn skills from their socialist neighbors. Before 1969 and the start of the Cultural Revolution, which put an end to study abroad programs, there were still over 10,000 Chinese students studying abroad. Most of them were sent to socialist countries but some were still being sent to France, UK, Denmark etc. It wasn’t until 1978 when Deng Xiaoping said in a speech that it was important for students to learn from other countries that study abroad programs expanded dramatically. Since then the numbers have just kept on rising.
Why bother?
Originally it was just children of the political elite that could go abroad to study. However, with China’s economic growth more and more families are able to send their children abroad and many are choosing to do just that. In 2011 Chinese students applying to grad school in America rose 18% on the previous year. This rise was accompanied by a 43% rise in applications for overall studying (including Undergrad, high school and so on). These statistics highlight the change in demographics. Before, students were just leaving for Grad school, now more and more are aiming to leave China for education at a much earlier stage.
There is a plethora of reasons why an individual would go abroad to study. For some they hope to gain impressive degrees that will put them ahead in the Chinese job market, others are avoiding taking the terrifying Gaokao exam, and there are some that are hoping to stay long enough to gain citizenship. Of course, the quality of China’s education system, or its shortcomings to be specific, is also often a factor: many complain that China’s system of rigorous rote learning neglects the importance of creativity, innovation and critical thinking, and thus hinders China’s development as a leader of cutting-edge inventions and breakthroughs.
The much dreaded Gaokao exam is the university entrance exam that all Chinese high school students must take if they want to get into a Chinese university. In order to get in to a good university, teenagers must do little else but study for it. The pressure and competition is so intense that students will chain themselves to their desks, or sleep for only four hours a night. Last year pictures circulated of students being given IV drips so they could keep studying. If you could afford to not go through this, then why would you? In 2011 around 1 million students decided not to take the test, of them 200,000 spent their time preparing to go to a foreign university.
Another big reason for the exodus is prestige. Even China’s top universities don’t hold weight against universities in other countries. While Ivy Leagues or Oxbridge are still the ultimate dream, the majority of students don’t get in. However, going abroad is still a good option. Sameer Karim (a blogger who writes on entrepreneurship in China), after speaking to a number of hiring managers and returnees, noted that in China a degree from any foreign university carries more prestige than one from even a top Chinese university. This corresponds with the rise in applications to 2nd and even 3rd tier universities.
Do they come back?
As mentioned above, reasons for leaving include avoiding the Gaokao, the prestige of foreign education, as well as a chance at self improvement leading to an improved China. Within these reasons there is an understanding that once their studies are over they will return. However, many of those that left in the 1970s and 1980s did not. There was suddenly a concern over a lack of talent as China’s best and brightest got jobs, had families and gained citizenship in other countries.
However, this seems to be changing. With the global economic downturn, there has been a gradual increase of returnees to China, including those that have been away for many years. As jobs dry up overseas, Chinese expats are returning to the Mainland to compete for jobs with their fancy Western diplomas and their ability to speak English. According to the Ministry of Education, 134,800 overseas Chinese students returned to China in 2010, representing a staggering 375% increase from 2005. Moreover, in March 2013 The Wall Street Journal reported that 72% of Chinese students in America are heading back to China almost immediately after graduation. While these figures continue to rise, it’ll be interesting to see how this trend will affect the overall job market in China.
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Keywords: Gaokao exam china’s education system Chinese students abroad
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Accept those Chinese students and earn their money, but kick them out once they have graduated. Don't offer PRs and citizenships to the rich! Citizenships should be offered only to professionals who have worked for many years with salary beyond a certain amount.
Aug 12, 2013 19:54 Report Abuse
I would guesstimate the hierarchy for **undergraduate** study which most tiger parents hold in their head runs something like: 1: A C9 university. 2: A prestigious foreign university (top 50 in the world). 3: A P211 or P985 which specializes in the chosen major. 4: A notable foreign university outside the top 50. 5: Other options [e.g. dumb princeling fails gaokao and ends up at Stoolbridge Polytechnic]. I don’t think this has changed much and the growth in overseas study, along with its extension into younger age brackets, is simply a function of an increasingly large and increasingly wealthy middle class. This certainly outweighs other factors in terms of significance, including things like the increasing marketisation of HE in the UK thanks to the introduction of full fee payment in England. There was a famous parenting book, published in 2000, called “Harvard Girl” [wiki available] which is often identified as initiating the overseas study drive in China and that was published **almost 15 years ago**. A desire to study abroad isn’t new. There is a sort of mismatch between the HE system and the needs of China’s economy – although China still needs a lot of people with a decent level of general education to fuel its substantial levels of growth, the current HE system perhaps provides a little *too* much of this. There are only a few places which train and educate people so that they are fully employment ready (most college students agree with this, trust me) and it is there, at the top, where the demand for sea turtles comes in. This is compounded by the fact that if you want to do postgraduate study then going abroad looks a whole lot more attractive, because postgraduate education in many places in China doesn’t know what it is for or what it is doing. Outside national research centers you have a lot of people plodding through a three year Masters degree, paying to publish, doing make work jobs and wondering why they are reading a degree designed to prepare them to do a PhD when academic life has gone sour. Western style “professional training” masters – lasting one or at most two years – are very attractive to many people who want to bridge the gap between U/G study and the professional jobs market. PG study migration from China will continue to grow for the foreseeable future I think. I can also very much understand why someone who is fairly bright but does not do well in standardized testing would want to avoid the dreary purgatory that is your average university college (学院) in China. There is a lot of wasted talent gradually dissolving into bitter indolence at the bottom of the educational pile who are there for no other reason than because the high school examination system only properly rewards a single kind of ability and intelligence. In short, the majority (bottom 2/3rds) of the HE system in China needs a good kick up the arse to get it into gear, but at undergraduate level at least the increase in overseas study is being driven by increasing wealth rather than by changing attitudes. Just to be pedantic… The increases and statistics reported in this piece are not very convincing. One of the reasons for a positive wobble in overseas applications to America during and after the 2009/2010 year, for example, was because the UKBA briefly froze all Tier 4 visa application from China. It has only been in the past year or two that applicant numbers to the UK have climbed above that level. I like the history section, but the numbers need a lot of work if they are going to be accurate. There are several full studies on the topic of international students and student mobility across the world – anyone with access to an online academic library should be able to get hold of these if you want to explore the subject further. There are also a range of reports and publications by groups like HESA and UKCISA which are free to download.
Aug 12, 2013 10:53 Report Abuse
@GuestBob I have read all the 6 comments you wrote here on echinacities they are great! i think you would be a great writer or editor. I would like to be friends：）can i have you email or wexin? i wanted to private message you but didt find an option for that here. have a great day！
Aug 12, 2013 12:51 Report Abuse
@ Post 5: That's nice. I have an email for forums postings: emailguestbob@yahoo.com - feel free to drop me a line.
Aug 12, 2013 13:35 Report Abuse
I would much rather go to Peking University, Tsinghua University, or even Zhejiang University than the vast majority of America's 3,000 colleges and universities. I have been to college in both countries... both places have problems, and China more so, but success in life is still equal parts guanxi, luck, talent, and the ability to work hard. American education may have free and open exchange of ideas, but you're still going to owe them 100,000 dollars at the end.
Aug 12, 2013 07:58 Report Abuse
I'm actually pursing my second degree in finance for the exact same reasons. I decided to pursue it in China because it would give me something different to put on a resume and I got a good scholarship. But I'm very curious as to what advice you might have, working in the field here in China.
Aug 22, 2013 10:51 Report Abuse
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