Ideas and Advantages of Sino-Foreign Cooperative Education

Guimin Feng

E&A College of Hebei Normal University of Science and Technology, Qinhuangdao, Hebei, 066004, China

Keywords: Sino-foreign cooperative education, teaching ideas, teaching advantages.

Abstract: Under the background of education reform in China, the effects of Sino-foreign cooperative education

should be facilitated to improve Chinese education level. By analyzing current debates on the ideas and

advantages of Sino-foreign cooperative education and some necessary idea changes, this study reached

several conclusions on the developing trend of Sino-foreign cooperative education. With the comprehensive

discussion on the ideas and advantages of Sino-foreign cooperative education, this study proposed some

plans for the sound development of Sino-foreign cooperative education so as to promote the positive

meanings of Sino-foreign cooperative education.

1 INTRODUCTION

With the continuous education reform in China over

the recent years, Sino-foreign cooperative education

has been common in higher education. For example,

some Chinese education institutions and foreign

education institutions are exchanging students.

However, due to the continuous increase of returned

students and low rate of economic return on current

higher education, many families become careful to

studying abroad. Through Sino-foreign cooperative

education, the education cost can be reduced while

the education level can be improved (Wang Daoxun,

2014). However, there are some differences in

teaching ideas which need to be updated in current

Sino-foreign cooperative education so as to facilitate

the deeper development of Sino-foreign cooperative

education and further demonstrate its advantages.

2 ANALYSIS ON THE IDEAS OF

SINO-FOREIGN

COOPERATIVE EDUCATION

2.1 Debates on the ideas of Sino-foreign

cooperative education

Sino-foreign cooperative education can be regarded

as an important way for China to internationalize its

higher education. The current education

internationalization is demonstrated in two forms.

One is higher education internationalization and the

other is open national education market. The first

form aims at promoting mutual cooperation among

international education institutions. The second form

adheres to market support, and its education model

and activities mainly use economic development to

facilitate education cooperation, regarding higher

education as an international commodity (Yan Xiao,

2014). The two forms of education

internationalization reflect the differences about

education philosophy. The core debate on this issue

includes the following aspects: the first is whether

higher education needs to adhere to market

competition; the second is whether higher education

can be consumption product for students; the third is

whether higher education can be commodities

exchanged in different countries. Some scholars

believe that higher education is a kind of social

cultural heritages and an important part to study

social structures. Therefore, higher education, in

essence, should be public property. In a sense, it can

be even a kind of public responsibility. For

developing countries, higher education is an

important channel for them to promote their social

productivity.

Other scholars argue that apart from the

consideration on the education essence, there are

other factors on the differences of cooperative

education ideas. On the operational level, many

traditional famous universities have been integrated

with local culture. Therefore, the teaching ideas of

Feng G.

Ideas and Advantages of Sino-Foreign Cooperative Education.

DOI: 10.5220/0006444400910094

In ISME 2016 - Information Science and Management Engineering IV (ISME 2016), pages 91-94

ISBN: 978-989-758-208-0

these famous universities, like Oxford and

Cambridge, are hard for other countries to copy

successfully (Qi Xiaodan, Zhang Xiaobo, 2013).

Those successful Sino-foreign cooperative

universities are newly-found, and these universities

haven’t been constrained by academic traditions or

systematic regulations. Therefore, they can leisurely

face the pressure from academic circle and satisfy

market demands, which is also an important way for

the innovation of cooperative education.

Currently, there are a few of OECD countries

that oppose education marketization. However,

education marketization has been the developing

trend for cooperative education. Many higher

education exporting countries are conducting

education cooperation with undeveloped areas for

economic benefits rather than education assistance.

Therefore, the ideas of Sino-foreign cooperative

education should accept commercialized education

and observe market-oriented operating ideas and

models, which ought to be applied in enrollment of

students, major setting, education goals and

management.

2.2 Innovation on the changes of Sino-

foreign cooperative education ideas

Over the recent years, the financial crisis caused by

American subprime crisis has spread to the whole

world. Both the eastern and western world are

considering the future trend of economic

development under the backdrop of economic

globalization. Politicians and scholars are seriously

study the challenges to human commercial morals

brought by liberal economy and virtual economy. In

a sense, this is not merely a simple financial issue,

but the nature of economic conducts served by this

financial system. Therefore, when people are

pursuing for wealth and benefits, even the most

advanced liberal economy system can be

manipulated and changed during its development.

As demonstrate by economic development, in the

process of Sino-foreign cooperative education, we

need to review the relationship between education

support and education commerce under the

background of over marketization. We also need to

ask that whether the profit-oriented education ideas

have deviated from the essence of education and the

goals of Sino-foreign cooperative education. It is

questionable whether this profit-oriented cooperative

education will cause financial loss to China. If the

answer is yes, how we can use national policies to

guide cooperative education, thus establishing

correct ideas and readjust the direction of

cooperative education. All these questions are not

aimed at reducing the profits of cooperative

education, but aimed at promoting the development

of cooperative education with certain economic

returns based on the model of non-government

funded education. If we suddenly reduce or

constrain the profits of cooperative education, the

foreign investment would be severely influenced,

thus hindering the introduction of foreign education

resources. In addition, with the guidance of national

policies rather than reliance on market only, the

profit-oriented trend of cooperative education can be

rectified in a certain extent and the scientific

development direction can be clear and definite.

3 ADVANTAGES OF SINO-

FOREIGN COOPERATIVE

EDUCATION

3.1 Beneficial to attracting foreign

investment

The Sino-foreign cooperative education is the

necessary choice for Chinese education in the

international environment. Seen from the different

type of Sino-foreign cooperative education

conducted by higher education institutions, an

important advantage of Sino-foreign cooperative

education is that it can attract large amount of

foreign investment, which plays an important role in

making up the shortage of higher education funds.

Since China adopted its reform and opening up in

last century, the whole country have been

emphasizing on attracting foreign investment and

have drawn up many preferential policies to attract

foreign investment. Over the past several decades,

China has achieved a lot in attracting foreign

investment. Large amount of practices show that

introducing foreign investment is important in

quickening the development of education. The Sino-

foreign cooperative education is the best form in

education field to introduce foreign investment.

3.2 Beneficial to attracting foreign

high-quality resources

The Sino-foreign cooperative education plays an

important role in introducing foreign advanced

school-running ideas and thoughts, management

experiences and teaching methods. The guidance of

these advanced teaching ideas is also beneficial to

the cultivation of high level internationalized talents.

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On the one hand, the Sino-foreign cooperative

education is beneficial for the enhancement of the

comprehensive education level in China. Under the

influence of foreign advanced teaching ideas, we can

conduct corresponding comparisons and

introspections on domestic teaching systems and

policies, thus promoting the deep reform and further

development of Chinese education system. On the

other hand, with the help of Sino-foreign

cooperative education, the shortage and empty of

some majors in Chinese universities can be made up.

For example, the introductions of some majors like

logistics, sports management and leadership have

not only cultivated correlative professionals needed

urgently, but also played a very important role in

facilitating the enhancement of the comprehensive

quality of the whole industry. The Sino-foreign

cooperative education can lay a vital foundation for

China to have continuous development in these

industries and even reach the global advanced level.

In addition, Sino-foreign cooperative education

can effectively use international education resources

to enhance international competition level of

domestic teachers through mutual integration and

influence. The teacher partnership system adopted

by Sino-America international management school

can also facilitate the formation of close relationship

between Chinese and foreign teachers, thus having

mutual development in scientific research projects

and teaching. In cooperative education, when

foreign professors are lecturing, they can actively set

up public gallery for Chinese young and middle-

aged teachers, which can deepen the integration of

both parties and provide superior conditions for the

improvement of strong teaching staff in China.

3.3 Beneficial to the enhancement of

Chinese education development

One of the goals of Sino-foreign cooperative

education is to achieve sustainable development,

which needs increasing funds input and innovation

on running model and type of operation, thus

forming its own characteristics. Sino-foreign

cooperative education is supposed to promote its

competitive power in fierce market competition so

as to effectively activate Chinese education market.

Then, different forms of Chinese education can

continuously learn from Sino-foreign cooperative

education. Meanwhile, these forms of education can

bring threat and competition to existing education

institutions. However, it is competitions that can

better facilitate the reform and development of

Chinese education and promote the innovation on

education systems and ideas, thus improving the

education institutions in China.

3.4 Beneficial for the development of

international trade in China

In a sense, current Sino-foreign cooperative

education is market-oriented. It becomes part of the

international education trade in China, so developing

Sino-foreign cooperative education to facilitate the

education development in China, in essence, is

contributions to the development of international

trade. Since education industry has a basic and

leading status with conditions progress and

development, Sino-foreign cooperative education

can play an important role in facilitating the

sustainable development of international education

trade and society in China.

4 DEVELOPMENT PLANS OF

SINO-FOREIGN

COOPERATIVE EDUCATION

4.1 Choosing cooperative countries in

view of the general situation of

national education development

Choosing proper countries to cooperate is a vital

premise for Sino-foreign cooperative education. The

choice needs to follow the strategic goal of national

high-quality education development and some

countries that can meet the future vocational

requirements and students requirements are needed.

The Chinese the Twelfth Five-year Plan regards

vocational education as one of an important

direction for the future development of Chinese

higher education. Currently, German vocational

education institutions have advanced management

experiences, so China can choose to conduct

cooperation with Germany according to the higher

education demands in China. In addition, the US has

excellent graduate education, so China can have

cooperative education with the US in order to have

first-class higher education and facilitate the

continuous development of research-based

universities. Through the platform of cooperative

education, China should co-establish academic

innovation platform with other countries and further

strengthen the academic exchanges, thus seeking

funds support from national policies to optimizing

the Sino-foreign cooperative education.

Ideas and Advantages of Sino-Foreign Cooperative Education

4.2 Focusing on eliminating unbalance

of education

Due to regional unbalance of higher education in

China, when cooperating with foreign education

institutions, China should lean to undeveloped areas

to eliminate the unbalance situation of education,

which can make up the shortage of insufficient

education resources in these areas. To achieve this

goal, China needs to have strong national guidance

and education development plans since during the

development of marketization, the strong will

always strong. Only through policy intervention and

guidance can China effectively optimize its

education layout. For example, government can

subsidize Sino-foreign cooperative education

institutions and allow them to gain reasonable

economic return, thus eliminating the unbalance

problems of education resources.

4.3 Optimizing disciplines and majors

When conducting Sino-foreign cooperative

education, China should actively optimize majors

and even introduce some burgeoning disciplines and

imperative majors. Therefore, education institutions

need to analyze which major is needed. For

example, many majors about financial management

have been set up by Sino-foreign cooperative

education over the recent years. With the occurrence

of financial crisis and the gloom of Chinese security

market, graduates of financial management and

economy can hardly find good jobs. These majors

are in saturation and needs to be pruned.

Comparatively, with the continuous increase of

infrastructure investment, talents of infrastructure

management are rare, especially graduates of light

rail construction and engineering management. So,

China can deeply cooperate with Germany and

Japan in these areas to enhance the quality of

professional talents. It will have positive effect on

Chinese economic development.

5 CONCLUSIONS

Although there are some divergences on the ideas of

Sino-foreign cooperative education, it can play an

important role in facilitating the development of

education industry and the reform of education

system in China. However, Sino-foreign cooperative

education can not be profit-oriented, and

government should optimize the forms of education

and strengthen the cooperation of week majors and

disciplines through the guidance of policies. The

government is also supposed to support the

education resources to lean to undeveloped areas,

thus effectively helping the development of

education industry and facilitating its sustainable

development. For the society, only through the

sustainable development of education can we

achieve social sustainable development. In this

point, the advantages of Sino-foreign cooperative

education will be more obvious.

REFERENCES

Qi Xiaodan, Zhang Xiaobo. Running Mode and

Development Path of Sino-foreign Cooperative

Education Institutions, Beijing Education (Higher

Education). 2013(12): 14-16.

Wang Daoxun. Dilemma and Outlet of SFCRS in Chinese

Central Regions, Education and Vocation.

2014(14):52-53.

Yan Xiao. Basic Principles and Influence Factors on the

Introduction of Foreign Good-quality Education

Resources of Sino-foreign Cooperation Education,

Jiangsu Higher Education. 2014(01):120-122+155.

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