China Education Ministry Warns International Students for Breaking Rules

China’s education ministry thinks that foreign students should be punished and persecuted equally as local individuals as a result of previous controversial incidents happened involving foreigners.

Shandong University faced a massive online criticism about its buddy program, in which they paired foreigner students with the several local students of the opposite sex and that was unfair. Foreign students have their own culture and principles. Due to that, some will take that paring as offensive.

Chinese University Apologize for “Buddy Program” to match International Students with Locals

One Egyptian student studying at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University in Southeast China was seen in a video arguing with the police officer because he took women passenger on his electric bike. Later on, he was accused of having “vicious” behaviour towards the officer and got his name placed in “Under observation list”.

Racism against foreigners by Chinese people is not new. Perhaps, it’s not their mistake either, because they have complex culture, norms, and a language which has a difficult learning curve, making it harder for foreigners to understand and communicate effectively.

 There is a different world, a different China for each foreign student. They get different treatment, tests, dormitories, classrooms, and canteen conditions, as well as the number of scholarships and grants in comparison to other local students.

Education ministry issued a circular urging Chinese mainland university to eradicate differences among rules and regulations for local and foreigner students, providing the same facilities and the opportunities to both.

Circular insisted that all students should receive the same treatment and learning resources. But also instructed universities on teaching foreigner student’s Chinese laws and school regulations and to “seriously punish those who breach them.”

It was also insisted that universities should take the differences between students into account and support them in learning about Chinese culture and understanding it better. It will help them to integrate into Chinese culture without much effort quickly.

Why China has become the no.1 choice of International Study in Asia?

Education ministry’s statistics showed that there are 492,000 international students from 196 different countries and regions studying at 1,004 mainland universities and institutions last year. Among them were 63,000 students, or 12.8 percent were fully sponsored by the Chinese government. The percentage is 70 percent, which was much higher in students pursuing post-graduate programs.

Now your question will be “Why these students choose Chinese universities rather than Universities in other countries?”.

That’s because China gives away many scholarships and grants to students, fees are low as compared to universities in Canada and the US. Sixty percent of Chinese international students belonged from South Korea, Pakistan, Thailand, US, and India.

In other words, the main source of international students is its neighbouring countries. The local universities obtain a large number of scholarships from these Chinese universities, making it look like an easy and good deal to get graduated from a better international institution while keeping the cost to the minimum.