How is the way Chinese students choose UK universities changing?

CGTN Europe

CGTN Europe interviewed Josh Freeman, Policy Manager at The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI)

Transcript

00:00Well Josh Freeman is from the Higher Education Policy Institute, that's the

00:04organization that published the report that Ray was talking about in his piece

00:08there. Josh, how is the way Chinese students are choosing UK universities

00:14changing? Thank you, well as you heard there from the report author we see that

00:21Chinese students tend to very often cluster at a relatively small number of

00:26universities. So for example universities like University College London have more

00:31than 15,000 Chinese students and other universities have less than 10. Now

00:35that's great because they have a real community there but what it also means

00:39is that they very often spend lots of their time speaking, interacting,

00:43socializing with other Chinese students potentially instead of meeting students

00:46from other countries like the UK. So there's a question there about whether

00:50they get that full experience and and this is changing. Russell Group for

00:54universities for example are taking more students than ever including

00:58students that would have gone to other UK universities and so that clustering

01:03that effect that the author mentioned might increase. But overall the

01:08number of Chinese students applying to UK universities rather than other

01:13countries is declining, why is that? Yes that's true and you heard that it was a

01:194% decrease in 2022. Now this is not a phenomenon that's limited to the UK

01:24we're also seeing similar decreases in in the United States and in Australia

01:29but there's a couple of things I think going on here. I think the first thing is

01:32that we're seeing a more competitive graduate employment market in China.

01:36Students want to enter the workforce earlier, they want to get more experience

01:41in the workforce doing that kind of work rather than doing additional degrees as

01:47graduate degrees for example. So that's that's one thing but also I think there's

01:51a sense among Chinese students that the best way to get good employment in China

01:56is actually to be educated at a Chinese University and to have that home that

02:00domestic education rather than going abroad getting a foreign degree and then

02:04coming back and that's a switch we're starting to see. Now it's a good question

02:08whether this is a small short-term change or whether this is a new trend

02:13where the number of Chinese students staying in China is going to go up.

02:17If that is a new trend it's going to be quite expensive for a lot of UK universities and so what

02:21are other countries doing to entice Chinese students or adapt their programs

02:25that the... Anyone who's been following the debate in UK higher education will

02:29know UK universities are in trouble they depend on international students

02:32particularly Chinese students and for their fee income but you're absolutely

02:36right and the brilliant thing about this report is that it makes the point that

02:41Chinese students are not just there for their fee income they deserve a great

02:44education they deserve that experience now the National University of Singapore

02:48I think is a great example and they're doing these video interviews so when you

02:54apply you have to submit an interview a video answering a certain question what

02:59that allows the university to do is see you to know you work out what your

03:03English skills are work out what your weaknesses are and and then account for

03:08that for example in courses that you might take before you start your degree

03:14these are great ways of making sure that Chinese students feel properly

03:17included that their English is up to scratch and that they're able to

03:19integrate and get the absolute most out of their UK student experience

03:23Josh Freeman at the Higher Education Policy Institute thank you very much

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