By Jin Yejia, Phoebe
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Characteristics of Two Sino-foreign Joint Universities
2.1. Rationale for Choosing these Universities for Analysis
2.2. The University of Nottingham Ningbo China
2.3. Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
3. Problems with Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools
4. Recommendations
5. Conclusion
6. References
7. About the Author
1. Introduction
In 1998, UNESCO adopted the World Declaration on Higher Education for the Twenty-First Century: Vision and Actionat World Conference on Higher Education. The Declaration posits that a mission of higher education is ‘to educate for the consolidation of human rights, sustainanble development, democracy and peace, in a context of justice’. It also proposes that ‘international cooperation and exchange are major avenues for advancing higher education throughout the world.’ The Declaration thus affirmed the significant role of higher education and the importance of the internationalizaton of higher education in achieving sustainable development.
Driven by objectives manifested in the Declaration, higher education worldwide, including that of China, has experienced a rapid change. In China, internationalization of higher education is seen as part of cultural integration between China and the West (Yang, 2014), and thus international cooperation should be strengthened. China has established educational cooperation and exchange with 188 countries and regions, including the UK and the United States. It also started 2480 Sino-foreign educational cooperation programs by the end of 2016 such as Joint MBA programs and master programs (Xu & Chu, 2018).
Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools is one important part of intenational cooperation. There are a number of essential policies related to it that have been issued in the 21st century. In 2003, the State Council of China issued the Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (CFCRS) policy that stated clearly that the State encourages to form partnership with high-quality foreign educational bodies to provide high-quality education in China (SCPRC, 2003). Then the first university run by a foreign university with cooperation with a Chinese education group, the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC), was established in 2004. In 2010, the outline of the National Plan for Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development was implemented. Since then China has achieved great progress in internationalization of higher education. As of 2018, there are nine Sino-foreign joint universities in China, and each of them has its own characteristics. For example, although UNNC and Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) both have British partners, they still have their own visions. This entry takes two pioneers in Sino-foreign joint universities, UNNC and XJTLU, as the examples, and explores how these two universities operate within Chinese context and the problems they have encountered.
2. Characteristics of Two Sino-foreign Joint Universities
2.1. Rationale for Choosing these Universities for Analysis
UNNC is the first Sino-foreign university established in China. It is run by The University of Nottingham with the cooperation from Zhejiang Wanli Education Group. There are around 8,000 students at UNNC and, every year, 1,500 students (bachelors up to PhD) graudate with excellent academic qualifications and comprehensive skills. XJTLU was established in 2006, 2 years after UNNC, and its parent universities are Xi’an Jiaotong University and the University of Liverpool, which are two prestigious universities in China and UK respectively. XJTLU offers around 90 degree programs in different fields and has approximately 15,000 registered students. Compared to other new joint universities such as New York University Shanghai that was founded in 2012 and Wenzhou-Kean University that was founded in 2014, UNNC and XJTLU, as the first two pioneers, have been operating for more than 10 years and developed their own styles in education. In QS Mainland China University Rankings 2019, XJTLU is ranked at number 79 in the country, confirming it is a prestigious university in China (QS Top Universities, 2019).
These two universities represent two models of joint universities in China. Miller-Idriss and Hanauer (2011) proposed that there are two theories of transnational higher education: the globalization model which moves the offshore universities towards universalization, and the localization model which adapts the universities into the local context. The two theories construct a continuum with pure globalization and localization at each end, and any joint university can be pinpointed on the continuum. The styles of UNNC and XJTLU lean towards different models. UNNC approximates to the globalization model while XJTLU is closer to the other. It is for this reason they are selected as the units to analyze.
2.2. UNNC
UNNC, located in Ningbo, can be seen as a copy of the University of Nottingham in China as resources and values are transplanted from its home campus in the UK. For example, the campus in Ningbo is operated under the missions of the University of Nottingham, and the textbooks and curricula used on its home campus are adopted on its Chinese campus (Hua et al., 2010). UNNC also has the same academic programs as the parent university of Nottingham: since undergraduate programs in China are four-year long and an undergraduate degree in the University of Nottingham only requires three years of study, UNNC uses the first university year as a foundation year which bridges the gap between Chinese and UK education systems (Ennew and Yang, 2009). This change ensures that students have the same study progress as students in the UK in the next three years. Keeping these characteristics in mind, UNNC is like a Chinese version of the University of Nottingham. The reasons behind the clone of the University of Nottingham may be the unbalanced status of the University of Nottingham and Zhejiang Wanli College. The latter lacks the leading academic status in China, so its involvement in the cooperation is mainly in the financial investment and management part rather than the academics (Feng, 2013).
2.3. XJTLU
XJTLU shares some similarities with UNNC but also differs in some aspects. The cooperation of two prestigious universities, Xi’an Jiaotong University and the University of Liverpool, is more like an alliance between two giants (Feng, 2013). Xi’an Jiaotong University has strong engineering programs, and the University of Liverpool leads the fields of science, engineering, architecture, and business. Unlike UNNC that focuses on liberal arts education, XJTLU, that is located in Suzhou Industrial Park, combines the dominant subjects of two parent universities, and focuses on science, engineering, and management. XJTLU also develops its own curricula. The mission of XJTLU is to ‘educate technical and managerial professionals with international perspectives and competitive capabilities’ (XJTLU, n/d). Although XJTLU also sets the first year of university as a foundation year to follow the UK education system, XJTLU has created its own programs and independent vision and missions. This university shows a new model of higher education in China instead of being a clone of a British university.
3. Problems with Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools
Problems that UNNC and XJTLU are faced with include staffing and management, curriculum design, and the balance between globalization and localization. The first problem is high mobility of teaching resources. Transnational higher education requires the globalization of teaching resources. For example, there are around 600 academic staff in XJTLU and most of them are foreign nationals. The key faculty members of UNNC are assigned from the University of Nottingham to Ningbo for a few years, and after that they return to Nottingham. The large proportion of foreign academic staff can provide innovation to the university but may also bring about high mobility (Shanghai Municipal Committee of China Democratic League Research Group, 2012). High mobility of teaching resources can cause an influx of new teachers every few years. On one hand, it may ring new blood and more prominent people to contribute to school rankings. On the other hand, new teachers may not be familiar with the education system in the school and hold different educational ideologies from the school. It, in turn, may disrupt the existing collaboration in schools and then have an adverse influence on the practice of teaching (Matsumura et al., 2010).
The second problem is the imbalance of programs in the natural sciences and arts/humanities. XJTLU is a university with strengths in science, technology, and management. It has 12 departments and 72 programs related to science, but only 5 departments and 23 programs related to arts and humanities (XJTLU, n/d). As for UNNC, it has 23 undergraduate programs and 14 master programs related to science but only 7 undergraduate programs and 8 master programs in arts and humanities (University of Nottingham Ningbo China, n/d). This shows that UNNC also attaches more importance to the natural sciences and, as XJTLU, has a rather big imbalance between the natural sciences and arts/humanities. Nevertheless, the two universities are both on a missions to develop further as comprehensive universities, but for that, they should focus on the whole person development and satisfy the needs of every aspect of society (Shanghai Municipal Committee of China Democratic League Research Group, 2012). This means that to fulfil their missions, they need to design more programs and courses in arts and humanities.
The third problem is the extent to which the joint universities should be localized. The meaning of CFCRS is to introduce the excellent foreign educational resources to China. Pursuing this aim the country may overlook the excellent educational resources China already has. In the current models of joint universities like UNNC and XJTLU, the foreign partners play a more important role in curriculum design and academic research (Feng, 2013). However, these universities should also incorporate good practices and elements of Chinese education to fit the context. For example, this can include incorporating more courses on traditional Chinese cultures and delivering the curricula in accordance with students’ real English abilities.
4. Recommendations
A number of solutions can be recommended to resolve the problems outlined in section 3. To deal with the negative issues arising from high mobility of foreign academic staff, Sino-foreign joint universities can introduce policies to attract more excellent Chinese scholars from other universities abroad to become academic staff and to maintain long contracts. The universities can also provide financial incentives such as salary increase or bonuses to retain the teaching resources since extrinsic incentives like money can have positive influence on worker effort (Lazear, as cited in Kreps, 1997).
Another suggestion is to have curricula and programs reviewed by a committee made up of the representatives of staff from each faculty and members of society such as officials in the government. There can be regular meetings held to discuss and evaluate the curricula and programs in such joint universities. This step may help ensure that there is a balance between science and arts. Collaborations with the society can also help to ensure that universities are aware of the issues critical and important in their contexts and can engage with local people to help understand and address those issues. Such an arrangement can make the universities more involved, relevant, and localized, and, as such, more unique and attractive to students.
As for the extent to localization, it depends on the missions of universities. For example, UNNC aims to bring a pure British education to China, so it is necessary for UNNC to maintain characteristics of the University of Nottingham. For XJTLU, it aims to combine Chinese higher education and western higher education to create a unique model (XJTLU, n/d). The extent to localize XJTLU can go to is thus much higher than UNNC. Nevertheless, as UNNC develops, it starts absorbing more Chinese elements. This transformation is already reflected in the university’s Strategy 2020 that aims to provide a model of higher education that is based on the British systems and reputation, but also one that is localized and responsive to the Chinese context (University of Nottingham Ningbo China, n/d).
5. Conclusion
Considering the importance of higher education in achieving sustainable development, China has made a huge progress in the internationalization of higher education. It has been successful in doing so due to relevant policies and regulations, especially Chinese-Foreign cooperation in establishing and running universities. UNNC and XJTLU, as two models of Sino-foreign joint universities, share similarities but have their own characteristics. They can be regarded as two different representatives of internationalization of higher education in China. There are some problems faced by them such as high mobility of teaching resources, the imbalance in curriculum design, and the difficulty in balancing globalization and localization of education. While each university has its unique goals and missions, they showcase the good practice of the cooperation between Chinese and foreign education and provide models for those newly-founded joint universities.
6. References
Ennew, C. T. & Yang, F. (2009). Foreign Universities in China: A Case Study. European Journal of Education, 44(1), 21-36.
Feng, Y. (2013). University of Nottingham Ningbo China and Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University: Globalization of Higher Education in China. Higher Education, 65(4), 471-485.
Hua, C., Xu, Y., Shen, W. & Yu, L. (2010). Nuli dazao zhongwai hezuo daxue de chenggong fanli—Ningbo nuodinghan daxue dute banxue moshi [Work on a successful model of Sino-foreign joint universities—Exploration of the unique educational model of UNNC]. China Higher Education, (23), 15-18.
Kreps, D. M. (1997). Intrinsic Motivation and Extrinsic Incentives. The American Economic Review, 87(2), 359-364.
Matsumura, L. C., Garnier, H. E., Correnti, R., Junker, B., & DiPrima Bickel, D. (2010). Investigating the Effectiveness of a Comprehensive Literacy Coaching Program in Schools with High Teacher Mobility. The Elementary School Journal, 111(1), 35-62.
Miller-Idriss, C. & Hanauer, E. (2011). Transnational Higher Education: Offshore Campuses in the Middle East. Comparative Education, 47(2), 181-207.
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University of Nottingham Ningbo China. (n/d). Strategy 2020-Vision and Mission. Retrieved from https://www.nottingham.edu.cn/en/about/strategy/strategy-2020.aspx
World declaration on higher education for the twenty-first century: vision and action. (1998, October 9). Retrieved fromhttp://www.unesco.org/education/educprog/wche/declaration_eng.htm
Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU). (n/d). Vision and Mission. Retrieved from https://www.xjtlu.edu.cn/en/about/overview/vision-and-mission
Xu, Q. & Chu, Z. (2018, September 6). Angshou kuobu waixiang gaodeng jiaoyu qiangguo—Dang de shibada yilai woguo jiaoyu gaige fazhan zongshu—gaodeng jiaoyu pian [Become a strong power in higher education—Review of education reform and development in China since the Eighteenth National Congress of the CPC—Higher education]. China Education Daily. Retrieved from http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/moe_2082/zl_2018n/2018_zl66/2018_zl6503/201809/t20180907_347689.html
Yang, R. (2014). China’s Strategy for the Internationalization of Higher Education: An Overview. Frontiers of Education in China, 9(2), 151-162.
7. About the Author
Jin Yejia, Phoebe
MEd, The University of Hong Kong