Chinese university campuses abroad: a new hot ticket to education

In the past 15 years, China has invested heavily in education which produced dozens of national universities that are reputable, highly selective and well funded. Among them are Peking University, Tsinghua University in Beijing, Shanghai Xiao Tong University and Fudan University in Shanghai.

It is estimated that there are now 18 million university and technical students in China and over 1 million studying in foreign countries.

That number is expected to spike as China takes aggressive steps to spread its universities across the world just like what American universities have done in recent years. Chinese universities are seeking international cooperation, including faculty collaboration and student exchange programmes.

Early this year, Fujian-based Xiamen University revealed plans to establish a branch campus in Malaysia by 2015 with an annual enrollment of 5,000 by 2020. Its 60-hectare Malaysia campus will be built in Kuala Lumpur at a cost of about 1.26 billion yuan (USD205 million).

The Malaysia campus will offer five courses --- Chinese language and culture, Chinese Medicine, Computer sciences, Economics and Electronic Engineering. All lectures will be in English except for the first two programmes.

In May, Zhejiang University partnered with Imperial College London for a new research centre, called the Imperial West Campus, that will house 3,000 scientists.

Developments such as these are new yet valuable steps that will pave the way for other Chinese universities to tap into newer markets as well as show their educational ideas and culture.

Chinese language in vogue

China's move to open branch campuses overseas is an aftermath of the growing popularity of Chinese language, thanks to Confucius Institutes that promote Chinese language and culture overseas. To date there are more than 700 of these non-profit institutions.

In the US, Chinese ranks 7th among the most studied languages on US college campuses. In 2009, President Barack Obama encouraged 100,000 students to study in China. In France, 27 out of the 30 school districts offer Chinese classes. In New Delhi, it has been reported that fluency in Mandarin is a hot ticket to securing lucrative jobs.

The popularity of Chinese language study across the world can be greatly attributed to China's ascendancy in the global economy which means anyone doing business on an international scale would likely meet a Mandarin speaker. Native speakers of Chinese is estimated at about 845 million, that's almost triple the number of native English speakers.

Embracing a new foreign language for economic gain, however is not a new phenomenon.

In the 1980s, Japanese and Russian were favourites until their economies went downhill. Hopefully, that's not gonna happen in any time soon.

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Written by Lyn Cacha