The Main Factors Impacting on The Success of Higher Education Internationalisation in Modern China

Abstract

Higher education internationalisation has become a widespread phenomenon, but the route choice constitutes an important issue. This research intends to evaluate how higher education internalisation is influenced by several factors: the leveraging of globalisation and localisation, inflow and outflow of education resources. After reviewing the theories on the patterns of internationalisation and education flows, telephone interview is conducted with six participants from several universities of Xi'an China, include Xi’an University, Northwest University, Xi’an Jiaotong University. Indicated by interview data, universities show strong inclinations of globalising, because the education shall be oriented towards the future career of the students in a globalised business world. However, the globalisation level is not satisfactory for some students. For example, the international branch campuses could be built to a higher level. This means that the campuses could be funded by the local and foreign universities. In addition, the challenges of leveraging globalisation and localisation include vague standards for leveraging the extents of being localised and globalised, cultural barriers and the conflicting ideas among relevant stakeholders such as the education ministry officials, the principal, professors and students. Demonstrated by interview data, outward flows are exemplified by exchange learning. In order to facilitate inward resource flows, universities in modern China tend to attract international students in various ways: travels to some foreign countries to capture the attention of the audiences there; hire some dealers in foreign countries to seek international students; deliver the most recent documents to some foreign agencies that help students apply for studying abroad.