Introduction
To understand the characteristics of education in China, we need to have a panoramic understanding. Therefore, this chapter first introduces the scale and quality development of education system and summarizes the achievements of contemporary education in China, the differences between private education and public education, and the challenges faced. Among the many characteristics of Chinese education, “international reform” is the key word of this chapter. This chapter focuses on various international activities carried out by schools in K-12 education in China, including internationalization of competence model, courses, teaching methods, and academic evaluation standards. However, different types of schools have various motivation and development process of internationalized reform, so this chapter analyzes the internationalization reform path of public schools and private schools respectively. Through analysis, we find that in K-12 education in China, “internationalization” is reflected in curriculum integration, teacher growth, student development, and other aspects, which is consistent with China’s economic and social development strategy “opening up,” and will have a significant impact on China’s education development.
An Overview of the Scale and Quality of China’s Education
The Proportion and Scale of Education at Each Level
China is not only a country with a large population; it is also a strong education market. According to China Statistical Yearbook (2016),1 China had a population of 1.37 billion at the end of 2015, with a domestic GDP of 6.856 billion yuan and a GDP of 50,000 yuan per capita, equivalent to nearly 7000 US dollars. After several years of hard work, China has primarily made compulsory free education a common luxury, so that all children aged 6–15 in every provinces and place can enjoy their 6 years of primary and 3 years of secondary education free of charge. According to the Statistical Bulletin of Education in China (2016)2 issued by the Chinese Ministry of Education, there are 177,600 elementary schools nationwide with 17,524,700 new enrollments, 99,130,100 students currently studying in schools and 15,047,500 graduates. The net enrollment rate of primary school-age children reaches 99.92%. A total of 52,100 junior middle schools nationwide (including 16 vocational junior high schools) with 43,293,700 students, with 14,871,700 newly enrolled students, and 14,238,700 graduates. The gross enrollment rate in junior high schools is 104.0% and its graduation rate is 93.7%. At present, the free education policy may be extended to include early childhood education, as well as senior high school education.
In China, senior high school is non-compulsory and not every student is forced to continue. Meanwhile, a career aspect is introduced in the senior level; therefore, high schools in China are divided into general education high schools and vocational high schools. There are 24,700 high schools national wide with 13,962,600 students enrolled, making a total of 39,701,600 students, having a drop of 667,300 comparing with the number in 2015. The gross enrollment ratio in high school was 87.5%, which is an increase of 0.5 percentage points from 2016. The overall trend of high school students is declining, with increases mainly occurring in general education senior high schools, while the number of students in various vocational senior high schools, vocational junior high schools, and secondary technical schools are continuously decreasing. There are 1340 general education high schools across the country, showing an increase of 143 throughout 2015; with 8,029,200 new student enrollments (an increase of 63,100 over 2015). There was a total of 23,666,500 students enrolled in high school, which was 775,000 less than the previous year. Student graduates were 53,000 lower than the previous year with a total of 7.9235 million graduates. General high school students accounted for 59.6% of the total number of high school students, while vocational high schools accounted for 40.4%. Students from both these two types of high schools can enter the university through college entrance examination, but generally speaking vocational high school graduates will mainly choose to enter the higher vocational colleges. In addition, general high school students who pass the college entrance examination can choose to enter both the general college and higher vocational college to pursue further study.
In China, the total number of students receiving various types of higher education has reached 36.99 million, and the gross enrollment rate is 42.7%. At the same time, the number of colleges and enrollment scale show a rising trend. In 2016, there was a total of 2880 general institutions of higher education and adult higher education institutions nationwide; an increase of 28 from 2015. Among them, there are 2596 general institutions of higher education (including 266 independent colleges) which is an increase of 36 over 2015; and 284 adult institutions of higher education which is a decrease of 8 over 2015. Along the general institutions of higher education, there are 1237 undergraduate colleges and universities; hence, an increase of 18 from 2015; and 1359 higher vocational and technical colleges and universities, having an increase of 18 from 2015. There are altogether 793 postgraduate institutions nationwide, of which 576 are general colleges and universities, and 217 are scientific research institutions.
Here, we are more concerned about the colleges and universities’ admission opportunities. The total enrollment in general higher education is 7.4861 million, having an increase of 107,600 compared with 2015, which consists of 26,958,400 students in school (705,500 more than 2015) and 704.18 million graduates, which has increased by 232,900 compared to the previous year. Although the gross domestic enrollment rate in China’s higher education has reached 42.7%, it is still unsatisfactory considering the huge population base and strong demand for higher education. Therefore, on the one hand, higher education institutions continue to grow in terms of the number of schools and number of enrollments; on the other hand, the enrollment demand for higher education is not limited to institutions within China, with more and more students are seeking ways to study abroad. The number of new overseas students studying abroad in China reached 544,500 in 2016.3 Furthermore, according to OECD’s estimation, there were five million students studying overseas in 2015, with Chinese students accounting for one tenth of the total number of students studying abroad. As China’s reform becomes deeper and continues to open up, the improvement of the per capita income level of Chinese people, as well the impact of the economic globalization, will provide much more space for further growth and possibilities in the future.
The Stratification and Selection of Education in China
Although the overall size of the education market in China is already very large, and the industry has made great strides through the universalization of compulsory education and the development of higher education, imbalance remains as a prominent feature of China’s education. Part of this is due to the vast territory of China, and hence there are differences in the economic development and cultural traditions among various regions. The central finance system uses transfer payments to balance the financial resources of various regions and to guarantee the development of the relatively undeveloped areas. However, the main policy of funds for basic education is still counter-based under the co-ordination of provincial governments.4 This means that while the minimum standards for spending on basic education are safeguarded, there are still great regional differences in quality education resources. There is a fivefold difference in government and families’ spending on education in the eastern and western regions of China, which means that there is most likely significant differences in the education quality, facilities, and equipment, between those regions;5 not only is this difference clear between the eastern and western, it is even obvious within the same province. The developed capital cities and the underdeveloped townships cannot be simply compared by their quality and level of their education.
The stratification of education in China means the scarcity of high-quality educational resources. In order for families to give their children access to quality education resources, competition among different social levels has been created. This competition runs throughout the education process: starting from the fight for admission opportunities into key primary schools, middle schools, senior high schools, all the way to major universities. Competition means screening: limited access to quality educational resources and scarce education admission opportunities means that suppliers need to set barriers in order screen those applying. There are two types of screening to filter out students: economic screening and ability screening. Economic screening means that some high-quality educational resources will be rejected by applicants due to the pricing. The mechanisms of economic and ability screening are particularly evident in all stages of both compulsory and non-compulsory education, as well as in the fields of school education and after-school education. Especially in the stage of compulsory education, even though all school-age children can enjoy free education resources and receive education of a certain quality standard, not all age-appropriate children have access to high school and only about 40% of students have access to non-vocational high schools since the upper-level education, i.e., high school education is a scarce resource. In the perceptions of most Chinese parents, good academic performance means a better future. In addition, they perceive technology-related education as a low level of schooling and academic education related to general knowledge as a higher level of schooling, which is closely related to the common cultural tradition “emphasis on methods rather than application techniques” which is prominent within East Asian countries. Therefore, general high schools which mainly teach the general knowledge of subjects are widely favored by parents and students, which form the two main types for the screening and competition of high school enrollment. There is also obvious differentiation of screening even within ordinary high schools: not all high school students are allowed to enter key universities. Most of the major universities’ students have graduated from key high schools. Therefore, students in the compulsory education stage are required to focus on competing for admissions into key high schools first, in order to obtain possible entrance into key universities.
In China, students who finished a three-year junior high school are required to take an entrance examination in order to enter high school to continue their studies for another 3 years, which is somewhat equivalent to the examination American students take after grade 9, before they reach the 10th grade. The exam is called the Senior High School Test in China. It is a level test that examines whether middle-school students have reached junior middle-school standard, and it also acts as selection criteria for high schools based on the 9 years of compulsory education. Therefore, it is necessary for students to take this exam to obtain their junior high school diploma. All the subjects specified in the national curriculum will be included in the test. Students can apply for the corresponding general high schools, vocational high schools, and technical secondary schools according to the results of the test. However, most students will initially apply for a general high school. The Senior High School Entrance Examination has to consider the capability and potential of junior high school graduates; however, the high school education itself still falls under the category of foundational education. Therefore, the test must not only include the examination of basic knowledge, methods, and skills, but also insist on examining the academic ability. The examination is usually organized by the provincial administrative department to carry out unified question topics, examination, and admission.
After the third year of high school, equivalent to after the 12th grade in the United States, there is a larger nationwide examination, namely, the National College Entrance Examination, which is abbreviated as Gaokao in China. It is an examination used for the selection of qualified high school graduates and equivalent candidates in China (excluding Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan). Differentiating from the senior high school entrance examination, Gaokao combines the functions of both academic qualifications evaluation and university selection examinations. It is held annually from June 7–9 by provinces with their own unified organization and set of questions. All types of higher education institutions at various levels in China organize college admission within 2 months of July and August each year, according to the allocation regulations set by each province. As the college entrance examination is the examination which is the most attended, most emphasized, and receives the most public attention and concern, academic research on the college entrance examination has become abundant, from the scientific proposition, to the unification of the examination, to the fairness of admission, and so on. More importantly, because of the stratification of Chinese universities, most of the universities rely solely on the scores of college entrance examination to screen candidates for admission in order to maintain the equality. As a result, a score difference of one point may accumulate thousands of candidates, leading to pursuing scores to be accurate to two decimal places or even three. The micro-difference in scores, which creates huge differences in admission opportunities, leads candidates and parents haggle over every test point. In order to gain some advantage in the college entrance examination, grade 12 students spend almost one whole year training repetitively on various topics, posing a heavy burden on students. In China, there is an image metaphor which the majority of parents and candidates have for the college entrance examination: a mighty force of thousands upon thousands of soldiers and horse crossing a single-plank bridge. 20 years ago, the college entrance examination was a qualifier as to whether or not a student can go to college, then 20 years later, the college entrance examination became a competition to get into a good university. The Ministry of Education of China has started the reform of college entrance examination and enrollment in Shanghai and Zhejiang provinces in 2014, which is aimed at breaking the “one-time test” and giving students more chances, so that college admission does not only depend on the score, but also the comprehensive quality of students. Although in 2017, high school students from the two places have completed their exams under the new test and admission system. Although such a system is in practice, it has also encountered many problems. Multiple examinations still place burdens upon students. Parents and teachers’ confusion of the new college entrance examination system creates problems within the biggest interest groups of this education chain.
Even though the college entrance examination reform is advancing, for most provinces and cities, Chinese parents and students still inherent impressions of the former college entrance examination, as well as the reality of relative scarcity of China’s high-quality higher education institutions, it still takes time to reverse all exam-oriented education, teaching methods, counseling, and exam preparation. Therefore, many students and parents, especially those with advantages in aspects of social relations, economic status, and expertise, have been trying to find other ways beyond the narrow passage of the college entrance examination.6 Studying abroad is undoubtedly a good choice. Globalization and new internet technologies have further reduced the cost of cross-border mobility and exchange of information, and as the admission opportunities abroad progressively gain recognition and acceptance by their parents and students in China, they have generated their demands in this regard. On the other hand, China being a huge market is not only recognized in the economic field but also in the field of education. Chinese parents and students’ enthusiasm for private investment in education has brought hope to some colleges and universities who have an allotted funding crisis due to the decrease in their source of students and a reduction in federal funding, as well as the given tremendous opportunities for education in international exchange to countries as Britain and Australia that regard higher education as a business enterprise. The British and Australian governments have not only promoted cultural exchange programs with China, but also guided and helped Chinese students study abroad in their country as an important diplomatic mission and government responsibility.7
The Contrast of Public Education and Private Education
Formal school system in China is dominated by public education; and therefore just the same as public schools, private education has huge stratification too. A large portion of private education in China is set up to meet the unmet needs of the public system because of the lack of resources, typically schools for migrant worker’s children. These private schools provide schooling opportunities for children who have migrated with their parents from rural areas to urban areas who cannot enter the local schools in the urban districts. Besides this, the private schools satisfy some of the other differential demands that the public system cannot meet. For example, private bilingual schools provide Chinese students with similar curriculum to those in English-speaking countries such as the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia, for them to gain better academic preparation for studying in universities in these countries. Private schools for migrant children tend to charge low fees with poor teaching quality, which can only provide students with basic discipline and the minimum curriculum, while private international schools, which teach both in Chinses and English, tend to be expensive, putting more emphasis on the personal experience of students and parents’ satisfaction, as well as they pay more attention to the future progress of students’ studies abroad. Private international schools are the main body of current internationalized schooling. The schools gained strong momentum in their development and received a great deal of financial support, becoming an important direction for the development of Chinese private schooling, and possibly an important growth point for Chinese private schools. For example, The China Bright Scholar (Boshile) Education Group, which is listed in the United States, is an education group that owns a number of privately run international schools in China.
Generally speaking, private education follows the path of differentiated development, among which internationalization is one of the more distinctive and meaningful aspects. Of course, private school education is an important core of private education, but the scope of private education in China is broader and not limited to it. Similar to the extensive tutoring culture in East Asia, there are a large number of off-campus training schools in China that are independent of the school education system and provide post-school knowledge and interest development for students. It is like the shadow of the school education, always going with the normal school education system. And the more quality schools the students from, the greater the percentage of all types of tutoring they receive. The interesting thing is that, two of the top education-type companies in China listed in the United States are both training schools, namely “New Oriental” and “Good Future.” Among them, “New Oriental” is an out-of-school training company focusing on language classes for overseas study. The successful development of “New Oriental” undoubtedly verifies that studying abroad and internationalization are an important direction for China’s education needs and also an important field of the private education investments.
The story of the capital market reveals that many of the developments in private education in China are integrated with internationalization. If there is no development direction of internationalization, it is impossible to notice the achievement of two billion-level education listed companies with market capital. Such stories continue to inspire Chinese investors and private school operators, and both training institutions of overseas study and languages or private schools engaged in the traditional Gaokao-oriented teaching method have held an international school as their own investment goals. Under the impetus of such capital power, basic education in China, especially that of private education, has continued to grow and develop. Objectively speaking, it has provided people with more optional international education services and products, and further promoted and guided public awareness and willingness to study abroad.
The Internationalized Reform of Basic Education in China
There is no consensus on the internationalization of China’s basic education. The so-called internationalization here is essentially the degree of similarity between the 12-year education of primary, middle, and high school in China, and that of advanced English-speaking countries such as the United States, Canada, and Britain in terms of curriculum, teaching, and promotion. That is to say, there are differences in similarities from school to school. For example, some public schools with low similarities increase their international and intercollegiate exchanges through the establishment of partner schools and learn from their K-12 education in terms of teaching experience; there are also schools with high similarities, such as schools for foreign children, being a comprehensive model of the primary and secondary schools in these countries including the enrollment, curriculum, and operations management, with the only main difference being that they are located in China. Therefore, internationalization is a concept with varying levels. At the same time, while further strengthening international exchanges, China’s K-12 education places special emphasis on the concept of integrated curriculums. Its purpose is to integrate foreign advanced teaching methods and contents on the basis of Chinese local culture. Therefore, the internationalization of China’s basic education consists of three aspects. The first is the integration of educational philosophy and goals with the aim of international personnel training. The second is the internationalization of curriculum content, teaching methods, and academic evaluation standards. The third is the internationalization from the perspective of students’ studying abroad and the interaction with higher level education institutes in foreign countries.
The concept of education and training objectives relates to the sovereignty of a country and the value of national citizens. Therefore, it has always been highly valued by the government. Thus, the direction of China’s K-12 education reform is not “internationalization” or “foreignization,” but integration and innovation while still maintaining Chinese traditional culture and current social values. Whether it is China’s national curriculum or IB course, or a secondary school curriculum from the United Kingdom, the United States, or Canada, there are many similarities in the cultivation of people, which is the basis for the exchange, usage, and integration of different countries’ curriculum systems. Through a large amount of literature analysis, experts in China’s K-12 education reform defined, selected, implemented, and developed students’ core qualities which use reference from three international organizations (OECD, UNESCO, and the European Union), ten countries including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Finland, Hungary, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Singapore and two special autonomous regions such as Taiwan, and Hong Kong. They refined the future needs of Chinese students’ core academic skills which include: communication, teamwork, information literacy, innovative literacy, social participation and contribution, self-planning and self-management, international perspective, language literacy, mathematical literacy, learning capability, problem solving. At the same time, these experts systematically classify the traditional Chinese culture and schools of thought, based on more than 30 representative works from important thinkers and schools of historical periods from the pre-Qin period to the Qing Dynasty, as well as nearly 100 books and essays from modern and contemporary scholars. They then analyze these texts and elaborated on Chinese students’ values including benevolence and love, cherishing the world, contributing to society, filial piety and patriotism, nationalism, native emotion, honesty, and self-discipline. On the third aspect, the experts conducted a standard analysis on the content of core literature in current curriculums and adopted content analysis methods to encode and classify texts into 19 curricular standards in compulsory education and 16 curricula in high school education. They then obtained the content and frequency of the core literature contained in the four parts: prefaces, curriculum objectives, curriculum contents, and implementation suggestions of the 35 current curricular standards. The study shows that the core qualities of students’ development include the following aspects: learning literacy, language literacy, scientific literacy, art and esthetic literacy, practical literacy, communication and communication, active inquiry, information literacy, humanistic literacy, and problem solving. They combine international comparison with traditional cultural analysis and curriculum standards analysis, etc. and put forward the core of training of students in basic education in China is “all-round development of human,” which can be divided into cultural basis, independent development, social participation, and its overall performance is the six qualities of humanities and cultural heritage, the spirit of science, learning capability, healthy living, responsibility, and innovation practicing. From the refinement of core literacy in China’s basic education to its substantive connotation, we can all see the fit between the standard of personnel training in basic education in China and that of international personnel training.
Second, in teaching methods and academic evaluation, the internationalization of China’s basic education is mainly reflected in the frequent exchange, visits, and communication between schools and local educational institutions with foreign primary and secondary schools. This communication includes management level, teacher level, and student level. Its promotion of internationalization incorporates the educational administration departments and relevant institutions at the district level, the groups and alliances of single school or schools level, and the possible spontaneous participation of students. For example, the Education Commission of Chaoyang District, Beijing, as a local administrative department, has taken internationalization as a direction and characteristic of its development of local basic education. They rely on Chaoyang Education Institute to invite foreign teachers to Beijing to visit and teach local primary and secondary school teachers, as well as how to carry out project-based teaching and inquiry-based learning. They hope that such training and communication will broaden teachers’ horizons and enhance teachers’ teaching level, so they can be able to absorb and take international advanced teaching methods. Such communication led by local school districts and educational administration departments are included at the management level, which is the principal level, and also embraces the teacher level. Schools are also provided more chances in international exchanges and communication opportunities of teachers and students with foreign schools through establishing cooperation with foreign schools and increasing school-level exchanges. Of course, these attempts mainly occur in public and private schools in economically developed areas. In terms of teaching evaluation, Shanghai took part in PISA on behalf of China in 2013 and achieved good results in 65 participating countries and regions. This has also led the international education community to pay attention to the basic education and the academic development of students in China. It also shows the dialogues and comparisons between the achievements of China’s basic education and those of other countries.
Thirdly, some public and private schools try to establish a large number of projects conducting students to studying abroad. This is one of the most notable topics in the field of internationalizing basic education in China—International Schools. China’s international schools can be broadly divided into three categories: schools for foreign children, public international schools, and the private international schools. The element which these three schools have in common is the higher potential for their students to enter foreign high schools or universities for further study. Due to their direction to send graduates abroad, their internationalization holds too main aspects: their cultivating ideas and teaching methods are very similar to foreign primary and secondary schools. The main difference is that schools for foreign children are run directly by various types of foreign institutions and legal foreign residents in order to provide diploma courses that can be used internationally. Under Chinese law, foreign children’s schools can only admit non-Chinese nationality students. Private international schools refer to private schools that adopt Chinese students as their main enrollment targets and partly employ take part or all of the overseas curriculum system, teaching materials, and test evaluation. Overseas courses in these schools are mainly taught in English. International classes in public schools are international education programs run by Chinese public schools (usually public high schools) in cooperation with foreign schools. The Chinese public schools teaching is managed according to overseas teaching plan, syllabus, teaching materials, and test evaluation; and they adopt bilingual or English teaching methods to cultivate international academic skills. The international departments of public schools and private international schools mainly enroll Chinese students. According to incomplete statistics, in 2017, there are 126 foreign children’s schools in China, 241 international departments in public schools, and 367 private international schools. In the recent 3 years, the number of foreign children’s schools and public schools’ international department has grown slowly by not more than 20 in 2 years, while the privately run international school has enjoyed a very rapid growth of more than 100 during the 2 years. The following two sections of this chapter will focus on the international department of public schools and private international schools in the aspects of internationalization reform of public schools and the international development of private schools.
The Internationalized Reform of Public Schools
China’s public schools occupy an absolutely dominant position in the entire basic education system. According to Statistical Bulletin of Education in 2016, there are about 165 million students from grades 1–12 in the whole country, of which public school students make up more than 75%. In public schools, the majority of students are aiming to progress all the way through the domestic education system. However, in order to broaden their horizons, schools may organize short-term study tours (1 week to 2 months) in the summer to help them obtain short-term visits and study in primary schools or even universities abroad. Most of the study tours organized by these schools are based on the establishment of partner schools between public schools and some primary and secondary schools abroad. Some schools organize and carry out these trips with the help of middleman agencies. These tours are usually led by teachers in the public school, and teachers from both schools can also learn from each other during the visits. The cost of these trips is usually paid by students themselves.
In addition to the international communication among students and teachers, some key schools and high-quality schools have also achieved various degrees of internationalization by a number of different ways. There are two main ways: the first is by the introduction of foreign teachers, and the second is to send local teachers to study abroad or attend training. In former practices, foreign teachers were introduced usually as to act as linguistic teachers. These teachers usually had teaching qualifications and were mainly engaged in language teaching activities. This method was used only in key schools of first-tier cities with a developed economy. In contrast, for those common primary and secondary schools, foreign teachers are too costly and it’s difficult to attract them to work in unrenowned schools. The latter method is more common, which is to train local teachers with teaching methods and other aspects at foreign countries or by experts from abroad. This is usually organized by the regional education administrative departments, education groups, or with union organizations and can provide a window for the professional development of local teachers.
Regardless of the students’ trips abroad during their vacation, or the cross-border training of teachers and the employment of foreign teachers from overseas, these factors are all part of the internationalization of public school education process, and there is no direct connection with students’ choice to go abroad and to take further education. The international department of public schools is a teaching organization which was developed in response to the students’ needs in the public education system. Public school international department underwent a certain course of development.
The First Phase (2000–2005): Beginning
Since the late 1990s, there has been a new wave of Chinese students studying overseas, a trend which led to the dramatic increase in students pursuing undergraduate studies in Britain, Canada, and Australia. After 2000, some overseas study agents started trying to introduce overseas preparation courses and set up cooperation with domestic university abroad to set up preparatory study centers under the name of local schools. This opened the beginning of China hosting international courses in local schools. Some representative institutions of these kind of centers include ACE and NCUK (later bought by Kaplan).
By the end of 2001, China joined the WTO. In accordance with the promise of opening up to the education service industry, the ministry of education propagated the Sino-Foreign Cooperative Education Regulations in 2003 and the Measures for the Implementation of the Regulations on Sino-Foreign Cooperation in Qualifying Schools in 2004, establishing a legal basis for setting up international education programs in local schools. In the compulsory education stage, high schools are allowed to set up Sino-foreign cooperative education programs as a way to set up an international curriculum. Since then, domestic educational exchange agencies and educational intermediaries began to introduce foreign curricula to local Chinese schools, as well as beginning an active exploration into the internationalization of local schools; with public schools such as the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China and private schools such as Beijing’s Royal School, Shenzhen College of International Education, as well as Beijing Huijia Private School are all key schools which belonged to the first batch of excellent local schools which have introduced international curricula. During this period, the majority of schools chose to use curricula from the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
The Second Phase (2005–2013): Rapid Development
During the next stage, the international education programs organized by public schools have been rapidly developed. At the same time, CIE, CB, IBO, and other international curriculum certification systems were gradually introduced into various schools. The number of schools and projects’ growth was the fastest following the education movement for local schools attempting to internationalize their education. Since the 9 year of compulsory education does not allow the full introduction of an overseas education system, the rapid growth international schools during this stage was still mainly prominent in senior high schools.
Besides the pressure created by high demand, The Public School International Department being the supplier, also has wide-ranging motives: on the one hand, schools can charge a higher fee than that of an ordinary high school for offering related courses and providing teachers with better benefits, hence giving schools a great incentive; on the other hand, the preparation and application time for students who plan to study abroad is not consistent with that of the college entrance examination. In the second semester of Grade 12, students studying abroad may have already received the admission notice in university while others are entering the intense preparation for Chinese College Entrance Exam (Gaokao). With the two different directions of higher study, the learning rhythm and mood of both the students gathering together may have a serious effect on students’ college entrance exam preparation. Therefore, in order to manage this, schools usually separate the students going to study abroad and organize separate academic and application preparation.
The Third Stage (After 2013): Policy Construction
In 2012, the Ministry of Education began to pay close attention to the phenomenon of large-scale international education projects taken by local students and started policy research and investigation into the matter. Local governments began to cautiously examine or stop some projects. The international classes held by high schools all over the country were set up to be more like “curriculum reform experimental classes” which were set up by the schools own “international department.” However due to the lack of a unified supervision system, there is not yet a very accurate official statistics available.
In 2013, the Ministry of Education made it clear that all forms of high school “international department” and “international class” will be regulated and the government has ordered to inspect and count all Sino-foreign cooperative education projects in each region.
In May 2013, the Shanghai Education Commission issued the Notice on Developing General International Curricula of High School (Shanghai Education Commission [2013] No. 37), explicitly introducing the value orientation of international curricula, as well as regulating the practice and management of introducing international curricula into regular senior high schools. A total 21 experimental schools were established on the premise of strict examination and quality assurance. These 21 high schools can provide high school students in Shanghai with an “integrated” form of international curriculum education and teaching methods.
Following the introduction of the Standardized International Class Policies in Shanghai and other regions, the Beijing Municipal Education Commission also strengthened the scale of enrollment in international high schools in 2014, and no longer approved new high school to embark in Sino-foreign cooperative education programs. The official website of Beijing Municipal Education Commission has released the List of Sino-foreign Cooperation Established Schools in Beijing with a total of 26 existing projects.
In addition, both Hangzhou and Ningbo in Zhejiang Province have established certain regulations regarding the enrollment of public international students in high schools by stipulating the policy that students planning to participate in international projects need to take the senior high school entrance examination first. In October 2016, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Education and Beijing Municipal Bureau of Finance released the Guide for the Major Budgetary Inputs and Projects of the Education Sector in Beijing in 2018, proposing to “support the transformation of the international department of urban high schools.” In future, when this policy is implemented, the international department of public schools is likely to be implicated by policies and their further development may be limited.
Although the international department of public schools has been criticized for using up public education resources, it has been objectively recognized by many parents and foreign well-known colleges and universities because of its lower fees compared to privately run international schools, quality assurance, and large number of enrollments. In some schools, the international department has also become an experimental field for course innovation. With outstanding achievements of education and teaching, the international department has nurtured the development and reform of the curriculum used in schools and played a particular role in promoting the international development of public schools as a whole.
The Internationalized Reform of Private Schools
Following the methods mentioned above, private schools are undoubtedly an important force in the internationalization of China’s K-12 education. China’s K-12 education internalization is not only characterized by its exponential growth and rapid development, but also by its degree of internationalization in hardware facilities, curricula, organization management, and promotion. These factors have always been higher than that of public schools from the very beginning. During the period of 1995–2000 was when private schools initially attempted to explore internationalization. Starting from the Regulations on the Establishing Schools for Social Services in the late 1990s to the Law on Promotion of Private Education which was promulgated in 2003, all the policies demonstrate the government’s attitude in encouraging the development of privately run education. During this period, various modes of operation emerged with enterprise-established school, public-assistance school, local–private schools, and public school transformations being the main types of private schools. At the beginning of their development, many non-governmental schools had already begun their attempts to internationalize, taking advantage of the relatively open policies for state supervision and management. For example, Beijing World Youth Academy, Beijing International Bilingual Academy (Haijia), Beijing Huijia Private School, Beijing Royal School, and several others introduced international courses right from the founding of their schools. Some schools introduce high-quality international curricula by establishing overseas departments, international departments, and bilingual classes. Some examples include Shanghai World Foreign Language Middle School, Shanghai Pinghe Bilingual School, and many others. However, during the next 5 years (2005–2010), due to the explosive growth of public international school curriculum projects, private schools became not as superior in terms of enrollment fees, reputation, quality of students, and international education resources as those key public schools who had set up international programs. Therefore, the development of private schools has slowed down.
However, with the international department of public schools facing abolishment after the policies introduced in 2013 and the strong demand for international schools, it ushered new developments in private international school. Despite studying at a younger age becoming a growing trend, many parents are also aware that sending their children abroad between grade 9 and12 or even lower grades may lead to children facing many psychological, security, and learning difficulties. “Studying abroad locally,” which means to enjoy international education service without ever going abroad is undoubtedly the best choice for them. Therefore, in some large cities, high-quality private international schools are even more difficult to get access to. The enrollment rate of bilingual classes at outstanding private international schools in Beijing and Shanghai is on average more than 9:1. The penetration of private schools in China’s overall K-12 education sector (based on enrollment) rose. At the same time, private international schools, especially primary schools and junior high schools that were founded earlier, were gradually sought after by local parents and students. Related industries and capital investments received huge dividends, and many investors and entrepreneurs started entering the privately run international school market, hoping to gain a share from it. In the past, overseas study intermediaries, extracurricular training schools, and traditional private schools all marched toward internationalization. In China, internationalization has become an important direction for the pursuit of differentiated development in private schools. More importantly, Chinese parents and students in these environments are increasingly accepting international education, and studying abroad is no longer a choice for the minorities, but an educational option that can be considered by a growing majority of families.