The Study Of Educational Structure For International Students From 1950 To 2007 In China

As a basic content of China's higher education,International Students Educationin China is the integral component of Cultural and Educational Exchanges betweenChina and Foreign Countries,and it also promotes the internationalization of China'shigher education.Scale and structure are two fundamental indicators which canmeasure the development of International Students Education in China.However,ourgovernment and schools focus more attention on the increasing numbers ofinternational students rather than the educational structure which is an immanentindicator.Such an acquaintance is unfavorable to the long-term and healthydevelopment of International Students Education in China,also to the improvement ofits job's quality.From the perspective of educational structure,this thesis will analyzethe evolution of structure of International Students Education in China,in order toobtain experience and some effective measures to optimize that structure.Therefore,educational structure is to become the logical starting point and ending point as well.Nationality structure,field structure and category structure enjoy priority in thestructure of international students' education.Based on describing development trackof international student education against the international background,the thesisdeeply probes into evolution process,characteristics,cause of formation,interrelationetc.of nationality structure,field structure and category structure after the foundationof P.R.C,which will become the main countermeasures of optimizing internationalstudents' education.Based on primary files,this thesis will make well use of statistical analysis,international comparison and case studies to study the structure of InternationalStudents Education in China after the founding of the PRC.Some results are gotten asthe following:1.Political factors have weakened their impacts on the structure of internationalstudents education,while economical factors have strengthened their influence.Before the implementation of reform and opening up policy,our governmentdetermined the number,nationality,major and category of international students toChina,according to political and diplomatic needs.After then,directed by economical construction,China had given some accesses to international students at their ownexpense.Thus more and more students from foreign countries chose to study in Chinadepending on different needs of the society and market.Therefore,economic factorsimpact more on educational structure apparently.2.The distribution of international students has become diverse rather thansimple as before.A large number of international students to China come fromneighboring countries.Before the Cultural Revolution,China only accepted students from socialistcountries,and during 1970s,most of them from the Third World.In 1980s,numbersof students from the First and Second World increased rapidly.After 1990s,thedistribution of international students became wider and over 70 percent students indifferent categories came from our neighboring countries,among which South Koreaand Japan provided the most students.With students' category,there were moredegree and non-degree students from neighboring countries while more non-degreestudents such as short-term training and postgraduate students from Europe and theUS.3.More and more international students majored in humanities subjects instead ofscience and technology.And over sixty percent chose Chinese language.After the founding of the PRC,subject structure of international students hadchanged from"science and technology in dominant status",to"science andtechnology in parallel with the liberal arts",to"liberal arts in dominant status",andfinally to"a transition period from language learning to major studying".At present,their subjects are widely distributed and majors are centered on liberal arts when asmall number of students choose to learn science and technology.4.The main category of international students has transferred from degree tonon-degree,and ordinary advanced students take up the most proportions.Before 1970s"international undergraduates were the main body of internationalstudents";in 1980s"the main body changed to be short-term training students";andsince the beginning of 21^st century,"ordinary advanced students,undergraduates andshort-term training students have been in balanced status".With non-degree studentsaccounting for the overall status among international students,the scale of ordinary postgraduates keeps its top place.For the distribution of subjects,ordinary advancedstudents and short-term training students mainly major in Chinese language,literatureand management.Meanwhile,majors of postgraduates and undergraduates arerelatively dispersive.5.Compared with developed countries,categories of international students inChina are unevenly distributed and moreover they are less educated.From the point of category distributions,foreign students studying in developedcountries mainly major in science and technology,while in China about 70 percent ofinternational students mainly choose liberal arts with small number in science andtechnology.Seeing the level of education,postgraduates in developed countries takeup 40 percent of degree students.But among those international students,more thansixty percent belong to non-degree students,and postgraduates take up less than 20percent.6.The basic strategies to optimize the educational structure for internationalstudents.Based on comprehensive analysis of international student education system andproblems existing in international students education structure,the thesis provides twobasic methods to optimize international students education structure.One is to takesome macro-measures such as making plans for developing international studentseducation,perfecting policies for international students education,strengtheningcheck target to structure of international student education and implementingindustrialization of international students education.The other is to take somemicro-measures such as adopting subject strategies,category strategies,doing a goodjob on Undergraduate Education and Teaching Chinese as a Second Language,playing the role of subjective effect of the key universities and so on.