The story appears on

Page A7

August 29, 2014

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home » Opinion » Opinion Columns

Outcry over foreign student scholarships justified, given paltry stipends for locals

EDUCATION authorities in eastern China’s Jiangsu Province recently stirred an outcry with publication of a plan to lure foreign students. According to the plan targets foreign applicants for universities in the province, successful candidates will receive a yearly scholarship of 50,000 to 90,000 yuan (US$8,333-15,000).

The plan was controversial partly because it came amid a recent hike of tuition fees in China. It was reported that nine provinces have raised their tuition fees, with six others likely to follow suit, contributing to the financial pressure on poor students and perhaps higher dropout rates.

In the most extreme case, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in western China raised the tuition for some disciplines by a whopping 76.7 percent.

More importantly, however, it is the amount of stipends that triggered a backlash. Many question, not without reason, why it is necessary to lavish such generosity on foreign students while some of their rural Chinese peers are languishing in poverty. Is China’s education policy now discriminating against its intended main beneficiaries?

That view, though of a nativist ring, seems to be born out by statistics. In 2013, the overall scholarships issued to Chinese students amounted to 57.41 billion yuan, averaging 1,500 yuan per recipient. Contrast this figure with the sum Jiangsu is prepared to grant foreign students, and it does appear that the concern about “discrimination” or “double standards” is not entirely misplaced.

Education officials in Jiangsu surely can cite an agenda for creating handsome incentives for foreigners to come and study. Their plan announces the ambition to develop the province into one of the major destinations for foreign students by 2020, a goal that is in keeping with the national initiative.

Study in China

Back in 2010, China’s Ministry of Education started a program known as “Study in China,” aimed at making China the largest destination in Asia for international students by 2020, with a specific goal of attracting 500,000 of them.

Earnest efforts actually preceded this program. In 2008, the ministry considerably increased the government fellowships and allowance catering to overseas students. China is now the third most popular destination for international students, according to a report by PIER, an Australian education resource consultancy. Against this background, one might be able to better appreciate Jiangsu’s incentives, which are indeed a common practice worldwide.

Principle of fairness

But its policy has blundered on the assumption that education resources should be fairly distributed.

This is perhaps no less the case in the West than in China, where a large proportion of schools are publicly funded. In the United States, private colleges and institutions do not demonstrate a certain bias in favoring international students or enrolling them with extra zeal. As a matter of fact, for public schools, financed by taxpayers’ money, admissions and fellowships would occasionally even gravitate toward local students, without compromising the general principle of fairness.

In Jiangsu’s case, the quest for a leading position in the global education landscape is fine, but it is justified only on the condition it does not come at the cost of the locals. As a commentator wrote in the Beijing News on Wednesday, even if education resources do not essentially favor locals, at least it should be ensured that enrollment is fair, no matter the applicants’ nationality.

In fact, China’s relatively lower tuition fees and living costs as well as a fast-changing, dynamic society are already a major attraction, which, despite the negative publicity of air pollution and food safety, has increasingly broadened its appeal to foreign students.

So it is rather pointless to lavish largesse on foreign candidates. What’s more, besides money, do our universities have no more options in launching this charm offensive? Absolutely not.

They could do a lot more to promote themselves, by improving research capacity, enriching campus culture and barring official interference with the academia.

And our education authorities need to think hard how the urge to go global has to be balanced by some proper attention to the plight of local students.




 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend