International Education and the Chinese Learner

1 - Something Happened While Nobody Was Looking: The Growth of International Education and the Chinese Learner

In the rapidly globalizing world of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, where money, ideas, and people move readily across the planet, it has become clear that the circulation of knowledge plays an increasingly critical part in economic productivity, potentially spelling problems for those who cannot share in this linkage and presenting opportunities for those who can: Educational systems tied to the formation of nation-state citizens and consumers bonded to local systems to the neglect of larger global forces are likely to become obsolete, while those that proactively engage globalization’s new challenges are more likely to thrive. (Suárez-Orozco and Qin-Hilliard 2004, 23) In becoming part of the global economy, China wants to share in the most effective strategies of international education for its people at home and abroad. It is the development of international education and the impact on Chinese learners that I would like to take up in this chapter, which forms the basis for the rest of this volume’s considerations about the Chinese learner at home and abroad and in schools and universities. Recognizing the force of globalization and the need for basic education, international leaders as far back as the mid-twentieth century created strategies and guidelines to make educational opportunities available worldwide, so that individuals and countries could participate in, and enjoy the benefits of, globalization: In 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed free and compulsory education to be a basic human right. In 1990 the World Conference on Education for All, held in Jomtien, Thailand, pledged to 1 Something Happened While Nobody Was Looking: The Growth of International Education and the Chinese Learner Gordon Slethaug Ch01(P.13-36).indd 15 08/07/2010 12:11 PM 16 Gordon Slethaug provide primary education for all by 2000; this pledge was reaffirmed in Dakar, Senegal, in 2000. In 2000 the United Nations Millennium Development Goals promised universal completion of primary education by 2015. And in 2002 the Plan of Implementation that emerged from the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg highlighted the central role of education in promoting good health, environmental protection, and sustainable development. (Bloom 2004, 56) Although these goals have yet to be fully realized, basic, primary-level education has advanced; internationally the 2002 enrollment rate in primary school stands nearlyat96percentindevelopedcountries,89percentincountries“intransition,” and 83 percent in developing countries. These regions include Central Asia, East Asia, Europe, and the Americas. In fact, of all regions, only in Sub-Saharan Africa at 63.5 percent does the rate actually go below 82.6 percent (UNESCO 2005, 44). The proportion of students in secondary schools has also risen above 90 percent in developed industrial countries and those in transition, although some developing countries still fall below 70 percent (UNESCO 2005, 52). As noted by the World Development Report (2007), because a high correlation exists between educational achievement and economic compensation, it is worrisome that any country falls short of full literacy at primary and secondary levels (World Bank 1). Access to basic education and secondary schooling has been identified as an urgent international issue and studied by educators, governmental agencies, and NGOs across the globe. What has not been so well studied, however, is the demand for high-quality education that can nurture excellence and give an academic, economic, and social “edge” in this age of intense global business, politics, and education. Not long ago, the South China Morning Post produced a so-called “white paper,” “Enhancing the Quality of Hong Kong’s Education,” which argued that Hong Kong lacks mechanisms “to overhaul or weed out under-performers” among local schools because they are products of vested administrators, pedagogy, and funding. The answer to this, maintained the report, was a system that mirrored the English Schools Foundation (ESF) and international schools in promoting excellence across the board (“Facts” 2006, E5). As Chris Forse points out (Chapter 3, in this book), the ESF system has grown exponentially in Hong Kong because Chinese parents perceive it as giving high-quality education in the English medium with good access to Western universities. Hong Kong is not alone in thinking that international education may be a better alternative than local education. At about the same time as the South China Morning Post report, the International Herald Tribune profiled “foreign-run schools” in China as an alternative to local schools because of their liberal curriculum and Englishlanguage teaching (Pocha 2006, 4). These observations from Hong Kong and Ch01(P.13...