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May 27, 2014

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Study tours — a valuable guide or just an excuse for fun?

TWENTY years ago, if a Chinese child asked his parents to take him on an overseas study tour, he may well have been hit on the head with a pair of chopsticks.

But now, with incomes rising, many families can afford to send their children to overseas summer camps to learn English, experience foreign cultures and prepare for overseas studies.

“It is good for children to experience a different learning environment and it will help them decide whether they want to study abroad or not,” says Wang Xin, a 42-year-old accountant who booked a 15-day trip to the US for her 15-year-old daughter in July.

The trip, which costs around 45,000 yuan (US$7,205), will stop at six universities like Harvard, Stanford and Princeton. Students will be given campus tours and listen to lectures by professors and students. They will also visit a dozen tourist attractions including the Statue of Liberty and go shopping.

Such trips are usually called study tours, or you xue, and are provided by schools, overseas study agencies and English language training institutes.

“Isn’t it fantastic to learn and play together?” says Wang, expressing the thoughts of many parents in recent years who have adopted a more relaxed attitude toward education.

Wang says her daughter is happy to go and has even read several American history books to get primed for the trip.

Wang hopes her daughter will enjoy the trip, fall in love with one of the universities and aim to get enrolled when she returns.

Like Wang, many parents hope overseas study tours can impel their children to dream big — meaning going to world-class universities.

However, some question whether such tours provide any English learning and cultural understanding benefits to students.

“Most study tours on the market are in fact summer camps, which have little English language learning,” says Joyce Lou, operations director of the overseas study consulting center of Chiway Education’s Shanghai headquarters.

Lou says students learn little by walking around campuses and taking a few classes. In some cases, students have been left on their own while teachers go shopping.

“Though some trips use studying as a selling point, they focus on leisure and fun,” Lou says. But she adds they are OK if both parents and students just want to explore a different culture.

Bai Shishi, a 13-year-old Shanghai student, says she would rather go abroad with her family after taking a study tour with about 30 students to Australia last year. The trip cost 40,000 yuan.

Uncertain impact

“We spent five days in Brisbane taking history and animal classes in a middle school. The classes were fine but just not that interesting to me,” Bai says. There was only one foreign teacher and the students kept speaking Chinese to each other, she adds.

Bai says she and a classmate stayed with an Australian family, but they didn’t speak with the host family too often because they felt their English wasn’t very good.

They also spent time in Sydney and at the Gold Coast and the teen says she bought many souvenirs.

Although the impact of these study tours remains uncertain, parents still believe they can broaden a child’s horizons and cultivate an early awareness of what it means to be a global citizen.

Chinese online travel agency Ctrip.com reported that several hundred customers across China have booked overseas summer study tours as of May. Of them, 40 percent are parent-child tours and 40 percent are for students. The rest are for adults.

The US, UK and Australia remain the three most popular destinations, mainly because they are where most Chinese students plan to study if they go abroad.

The average age of students going on an overseas study tour is 15 years old although there has been a rapid rise in the number of younger students.

There were only 65 Chinese students studying at US private high schools in 2005, but the figure soared to 23,795 last year.

Since some children are young, more parents are tagging along, resulting in rising demand for parent-child study tours designed especially for kids aged 4 to 12.

Lou at Chiway says study tours can be divided into two types: summer camps and summer schools. Summer camps usually have a group of 20 to 30 students who will go sightseeing and do some workshops, while summer schools require students to study with local students.

“Students can take courses for credit at foreign high schools. If they pass, it will help when they apply for college,” Lou says.

Summer schools usually cost US$4,000 to US$8,000 a month, depending on the school’s ranking. The cost is similar to mostsummer camps, but the focusis clearly on academics.

There are also many types of overseas programs with specialties ranging from sports and arts to science and leadership.

This summer, the Youth Basketball Development League will organize a 15-day basketball camp in the US. Students will receive coaching and play matches against Youth Basketball of America in Orlando, Florida.

Numerous charities and non-profit organizations offer student volunteering programs to help people in less fortunate circumstances.

Range of programs

“Every child is different. Parents should talk to their own children and set a goal before choosing any kind of overseas program,” Lou advises.

Of course, safety is a big concern among parents when they are considering sending their child abroad. This concern has increased since last summer, when three Chinese students, who were on a US study tour, died as an Asiana Airlines plane landed on its tail and burst into flames.

Industry insiders say the market for overseas study tours is still unregulated even though a circular banning commercial overseas summer and winter camps was jointly issued by the Ministry of Education and three other departments in 2012.

The notice discourages parents from sending young children abroad and states that schools and institutions should not profit from overseas camps.

Yang Weiren, deputy director of the Shanghai Education Commission’s international department, says it is difficult to implement the circular because it does not list any punitive measures to take against individuals and institutions.

“The commission is considering drafting a document with detailed terms to regulate the overseas camp market to protect parents and students,” says Yang.




 

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