Authorities in Shanghai have canceled primary school English exams in a bid to lighten the burden on children and parents, amid growing calls for English to be de-emphasized in China’s state schools. The Shanghai municipal government education bureau announced last… Read More ›
In this research paper, we analyse the present model of higher education in several countries, and more particularly in developing countries. Our main objective is to identify the misfunctioning of the organisation of distance higher education in countries in which… Read More ›
Two Chinese universities with close ties to the military have been banned from using a US-developed computer software platform amid tensions between China and the United States over technology. The US Department of Commerce added the Harbin Institute of Technology… Read More ›
Academic institutions must grapple with the question of when engagement becomes complicity. Shortly before its first-ever applications period was due to close, the Schwarzman Scholars program held an admissions seminar at the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing. The elite China-based… Read More ›
Chinese academics and intellectuals should not have been enraged by the communist leadership’s move to drop a written statement about academic freedom from the charters of a handful of universities. Not only has there rarely been such freedom in China since… Read More ›
Australia’s most populous state said it will axe a Chinese-funded education programme that teaches Mandarin in schools, amid fears over potential foreign influence. The Confucius Institute programme – administered by the Chinese government agency Hanban – teaches China’s official language… Read More ›
Back when millions of dollars in Ramsay Centre funding were on the table, University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Dr Michael Spence wasn’t too keen, telling a Q&A audience in June 2018 that he would not tolerate “a propaganda course of any… Read More ›
Reports from China say arrests of foreign teachers across the country are up sharply this year. That information comes from lawyers, schools and teachers. They also report a jump in foreign teachers forced to leave the country. Chinese deportations of… Read More ›
The report delivered by Xi Jinping to the party congress sounds, as a whole, sensible, except the ‘highlight’ under the subtitle of New Era with New Thought. This highlight says that Socialism with Chinese characteristics enters new era “… of… Read More ›
As Typhoon Soudelor bears down on Taiwan, my exceptionally talented Taiwanese high school friend Yen Liao agreed to do an interview concerning the recent textbook crisis and the Ministry of Education. He also spoke about the mentality of Taiwanese parents… Read More ›
The news from the mainland these days is mostly depressing, owing to the government’s escalating crackdown on its critics. But what few observers seem to understand is that the Chinese leadership‘s fight against liberalism and “Western values” is directly undermining… Read More ›
People outside China usually regard China’s ideological control as originated from communism. That is entirely a misunderstanding. When Emperor Wudi (157BC to 87BC) of the Han Dynasty decided to adopt Confucianism as the dominant ideology, China imposed strict Confucianist ideological… Read More ›
Xu Lin is an unusual kind of Chinese official. For starters she accepted a request for a BBC interview. Admittedly she came quickly to regret it, demanding that we delete a large section of our recording. But given that unelected… Read More ›
Soon after US Scientist Eric Betzig won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2014), Bangbu No. 1 Secondary School in Anhui Province, China celebrated the event and posted a conspicuous announcement of congratulation on its son-in-law winning the Nobel Prize. How… Read More ›
Chinese educators and education experts believe China has extraordinary basic education. They think this education gives millions of students solid knowledge and basic skills, which is the point why our education is good. The experts think the only failure of… Read More ›
China‘s Education Department published the new rules of the college entrance examination. Shanghai and Zhejiang provinces are going to be the experimental regions of the new system. Unfortunately, no matter how the Chinese government acts on the education system, all… Read More ›
Chinese students have shown an insatiable appetite for attending U.S. colleges — last year alone, more than 235,000 were enrolled at American institutions of higher education. But now, some in China are grousing that the SAT may impose American values… Read More ›
It’s perhaps coincidence, but Reuters’ report on China’s Xi Jinping not making global impact comes on the same day when Hong Kong newspapers SCMP and Ta Kung Pao report on China’s poor image in Africa due to Chinese people and… Read More ›
The e-learning market has been reshaped by the widespread of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) set up by a large range of top players globally: from the established Ivy League universities to the most daring projects set up by innovative… Read More ›
A prominent Beijing scholar who recently fled to the United States has warned that China was sending “spies” to American universities, and urged US institutions to tread carefully on academic co-operation. Xia Yeliang is one of the original signatories of… Read More ›
Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has taken up a new role with the prestigious Harvard University where he will lead a major research project into United States-China relations. The appointment will see him split his time between Boston, Beijing… Read More ›
Taiwan to reconsider controversial restrictions on learners from the mainland as talent drain and low birthrate take toll on enrolment. The administration of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou is considering loosening controversial restrictions on mainland college students as a talent drain… Read More ›
Jack Ma, one of China’s best-known entrepreneurs, thinks business success in China has nothing to do with prestigious foreign degrees: “When you want to judge whether a person . . . is excellent or not don’t look at whether they went to Harvard or… Read More ›
The following is one of many stories in recent months concerning foreign nationals working illegally, or vilified as serious criminals for seemingly minor matters. After ricocheting from subject of sympathy to target of vitriol by millions of Chinese Internet users… Read More ›
Educational institutions – from primary schools to universities – will be a major target of a sweeping Marxist education campaign announced yesterday by the Communist Party. The unusually detailed action plan released by the ruling party’s General Office was seen… Read More ›
The Program of International Student Assessment (PISA) scores for 15 year olds around the world were recently released. While these scores do offer some indication as to how students from a given country compare, we should be reticent to make took much of… Read More ›
College students in China’s restive western Xinjiang region will not graduate unless their political views are approved, a university official said, as the country wages what school administrators called an ideological war against separatism. Xinjiang is home to the Muslim… Read More ›
Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has signed up the fourth and final destination, Hong Kong, for next year’s trial of the government’s New Colombo Plan, which will send Australian undergraduates into the region for study, internships and long-term diplomacy. “Australian… Read More ›
The majority of Chinese do not consider Canberra as a study destination and those that do find it too quiet, ACT Chief Minister Katy Gallagher has found. Ms Gallagher is in China, with University of Canberra vice-chancellor Stephen Parker and… Read More ›
China is losing top-notch talent at the highest rate in the world as students who seek degrees abroad opt to remain overseas, the official People’s Daily newspaper reported today. An average of 87 percent of students in science and engineering… Read More ›
Beijing is facing increasing public pressure to deal with issues such as pollution, food safety and education driven by the 10 percent of its population who now count as middle class. With two cars, foreign holidays and a cook for… Read More ›
When James Zhao, 23, read news reports last Friday claiming Renren, the “Facebook of China“, could be laying off three-quarters of the staff at its 3G technology department, his heart sank. Having been unsuccessful in his job applications to several… Read More ›
Mainland universities have been ordered to steer clear of seven topics in their teaching, including universal values, press freedom and civil rights, two university staff said, offering an insight into ideological control under the new Communist Party leaders. A law… Read More ›
That’s one way to get to the top of the class… The terrifying climb of Chinese school children as young as five, forced to scale sheer cliffs to get to school. The mountain-top village of only 100 residents is cut… Read More ›
Asian language teaching in Australian schools has declined to the point where more year 12 students are studying Latin than Chinese. Despite China’s growing importance and the Gillard government‘s goal of creating an ”Asia Literate” society by 2025, fewer high… Read More ›
The Australian Institute of Tourism and Hospitality (AITH) is an intermediary. It doesn’t belong to China and it doesn’t belong to Australia. It is registered in Hong Kong, where neither country can touch it. That doesn’t stop it from cheating… Read More ›
When I first saw someone instagram a photo on Facebook, it reminded me of my parent’s wedding picture. I thought, “Oh how nice, looks very retro chic.” Then it became too much. Not everything needs to have a sense of… Read More ›
Xiamen University in Fujian Province announced that it would open its first overseas campus in the Malaysian state of Selangor in September 2015. It will become the first Chinese university to open an overseas branch. The final agreement for the Xiamen… Read More ›
Kexin Lee is a 36-year-old man from Southern China,. He has never had college education and can hardly speak any English, but when it comes to essay writing, hundreds of Chinese students in the UK turn to Lee with their… Read More ›
The news today that the principal of a primary school in Xinyang has been fired after two of his teachers caned a four-year-old boy, was shocking enough to make The South China Morning Post. But for me, it made particularly… Read More ›
Migrant parents expressed disappointment yesterday after three of the largest magnets of migrant labour – Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong – announced only a modest relaxation of residency restrictions for college entrance exams. Officials in the three regions each submitted plans… Read More ›
More than 150,000 mainlanders obtained overseas citizenship last year, making China the world’s biggest source of immigrants, a report released this week says. Many were wealthy and highly educated and had left in search of a more democratic society, a… Read More ›
For Chinese children and their devoted parents, education has long been seen as the key to getting ahead in a highly competitive society. But just as money and power grease business deals and civil servant promotions, the academic race here… Read More ›
Asked for their first impressions of Taiwan after stepping on a university campus here, many mainland students happily reply “friendly and free”. Wait a few months, however, and some of those same students might have a much less flattering description:… Read More ›
SCMP reports today: “Migrant parents are unhappy with new State Council guidelines that set harsh rules for deciding which of their children can sit high school and university entrance exams in the cities where they live. “They say the restrictions… Read More ›
The following open letter, while not directly dealing with China, does highlight the problems of racism and injustice experienced by many Chinese and Chinese-descent people, in Malaysia and many other countries around the world: Yang Amat Berhormat Dato’ Sri Mohd… Read More ›
Hong Kong is preparing for a new march against the school reform imposed by the communist government, which obliges classes of “national education”. Civil society joins the battle first launched 10 years ago by the Catholic Church and say they… Read More ›
Unemployment of recent graduates is hovering at 50% in both China and the US. The lack of available employment for the best and the brightest is a symptom of what is wrong at a macro level with each of our… Read More ›
In my post “Hunan Hospital Passed Water for Vaccine” yesterday, I point out that Mao’s example of lies and trickery in his Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1957 has corrupted the whole nation and made even hospitals cheat their patients. Today, SCMP… Read More ›
A recent news report, ‘Mass tutoring churning out Robot Pupils’ (South China Morning Post, May 19, 2012) referred to a survey conducted by Mark Bray, a professor of Comparative Education at the University of Hong Kong. According to the survey… Read More ›
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