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Smart Movers

Something new is happening in education in Beijing.

When Royal School students peddle home in the evening after a rigorous day of classwork, you won't find them wearing the typical student tracksuit uniforms; they will be wearing smart bow ties, crisp collared shirts and Etonian blazers.

But the changes taking place run deeper than mere appearances.

The Royal School on the city's northern edge is offering a totally British boarding-school education, with textbooks and uniforms to match. As well as following a purely British-style syllabus in their various subjects, students who attend TMC Education Group (TMC) schools wear a uniform modelled on the smart, orderly uniforms of British public schools. Varying tones of blue and a wide bow tie make up the daily class uniform. Students have a separate gymnasium uniform and a smooth white jacket for classroom project work.

The Royal School students represent part of a global education and training market that was valued at US$2 trillion in 2002 according to World Bank figures. More than 10 percent of the global education sector has been cornered by the private sector and the growth rate for the overall market is projected at 10 percent to 15 percent. The United States has a US$740 billion share of the market, but China is the fastest growing market for private education.

"The Chinese spare no money on two things: doctors and books," said Julia Huang, chief executive of the successful Chinese educational resources Web site, http://www.prcedu.com. Huang is one of many who have grown rich educating Chinese since the country's accession to the World Trade Organization. The country's commitments under the General Agreement on Trade in Services gave free rein to private educators to operate in China.

Britain's General Certification of Education (GCE) examinations programme authorised by England's Cambridge University has been introduced to China by Singaporean education group TMC. The publicly listed Singaporean group was granted a license in May by Cambridge to bring its GCE Ordinary-level ("O Levels") programme to China. Entering China's rapidly crowding education market in 1998 to recruit university students for its higher education programmes in Singapore, the company has signed co-operative agreements with private schools across the country to implement the two-year GCE programme.

The programme is conducted completely in English and is intended for students of about 16 years who have completed junior middle school. As well as the 25 pupils studying at the Royal School, similarly sized classes have also been enrolled in schools in Changsha, Fuzhou and Qingdao.

A GCE education does not come cheap. Students pay more than 30,000 yuan (US$3,623) a year, but get better dormitories, dinners and top quality teachers, said a TMC spokesperson. TMC aims to recruit a "potentially vast" group of students in China who want to pursue a "truly international education" and move from middle school directly to English-speaking universities abroad, said TMC Chief Executive Chin Kon Yuen.

Not everyone thinks private education is the way to go. The UN's Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Professor Katarina Tomasevski advised caution when she met with Chinese educators late last year in Beijing. Tomasevski promoted a concept of "4As" to her hosts: governments should make education available, accessible, acceptable and adaptable. The explosion of private schooling in China is, said Tomasevski, "compounding the existing problems of direct charges for education in public schools."

Still, the opportunities and potential of China's education-hungry populace are obvious to private education providers. At 2.6 percent of China's gross domestic product, spending on education falls below that of many other Asian nations, according to the Asian Development Bank. But China is investing 30 billion yuan (US$3.6 billion) to improve access to education and educational standards in the country's current tenth Five Year Plan (2001-05). It's a significant jump on the 5 billion yuan (US$604 million) spent on the last such plan. The focus this time is on central and western areas, with educational departments in more-developed East China spurred to send resources and rotate teachers to poorer areas. Beijing is preparing to implement a 12-year compulsory education programme, which will include the construction of a portfolio of high-quality secondary schools capable of enrolling 70 percent of Beijing's secondary school students by 2010.

Finding quality staff remains a headache for private and public educators. Better conditions and pay have made teaching a more attractive career option. Teachers will also technically be bound to produce a specific teaching qualification, and they will not be allowed take up jobs without proper qualifications. Still, a large gap persists in educational facilities and skills between rural and urban areas, according Yang Shumin, a secondary school teacher from Shandong Province who teaches at a State school in Beijing.

In more remote provinces many in despair of getting one of the limited places in State-run colleges are turning to local private schools. Most offer language courses, a ticket to big cities for many locals. Crucially, many local private education businesses charge lower fees than well-known public universities and entry requirements are much lower or non-existent. Recent legislation offers tax breaks and low-interest loans to private third-level institutions, an effort by the central government to open up more avenues to China's massive university-age population.

Western universities and language schools have been eagerly recruiting Chinese students for their campuses, but other institutions and investors have raced here to establish academies or to sell degree programmes through local colleges. Public European universities, many operating under a no-fees education system and suffering from declining attendance levels, have begun to look to China as a source of fee-paying students.

"We want to recruit high quality students in China," said Claire Bohan, dean of International Studies at Dublin City University, one of Ireland's most modern universities. "We've established relations with institutions of high standing, and we hope this will lead to student and lecture exchanges.

"We are seeking EU funding for several collaborative research projects we've established; it brings benefits to our students in the changing of mindsets and the exchange of knowledge. We also hope it will help establish many individual links and business opportunities for students" future careers."

One of those alternative paths, China's on-line education sector is also thriving. Fifty "cyber colleges" have been licensed to provide on-line educational resources and degrees to secondary and higher level students. One of the most successful and ubiquitous, 12Learn Softtech, is a subsidiary of a Singaporean company that specialises in corporate training while Julia Huang's on-line service provides on-line textbooks and qualifications.

In a market which exploded in the past few years there are many fakes. Of the estimated 150 private education companies in Shanghai, only 14 are licensed, according to recent reports in the mass-market Shanghai Star daily newspaper. In one well-reported case, the American International University (AIU) offered degree programmes in cooperation with local Chinese colleges, without the requirement of an English proficiency qualification. AIU has recruited 500 students in China, mostly through provincial colleges, into a one and one-half year bachelor's degree programme supplied by AIU that costs Chinese students 31,000 yuan (US$3,743). But the degrees issued are not recognized by either the US Department of Education or China's Ministry of Education. The China Service Centre for Scholarly Exchanges (CSCSE), a gate-keeper organization that proofs qualifications and institutions moving into China's education market, has been inundated with queries from conned students and has taken to compiling well-screened lists of quality foreign universities.

The Ministry of Education also plans to cut back on foreign education fairs because of concerns that fair organisers were motivated by profits only and cared little about the quality of exhibiting universities. The Shanghai Education Commission has banned agencies from recruiting primary and junior middle school students for foreign schools. Agencies charge up to 10,000 yuan (US$1,208) to place secondary school finishers in universities abroad, handling the necessary documents and visas.