Chinese Students to the UK

Fifty thousand Chinese students have chosen to study in Britain - bringing an estimated $1bn (£550m) to British coffers.

Lin Disheng is a Chinese student studying at Oxford University for his master's degree in computer science. He studied for his Bachelor of Science at Nottingham University - gaining a first class honours in e-commerce and digital business, coming third in his year. Sam - as he likes to be known - is one of over half a million Chinese studying abroad. "China is going through a rapid industrialisation process. It's becoming more and more open," explains Sam. "Chinese young people like me want to make a contribution to this rapid process. That's why I want to study in the UK - to learn better western technologies and experience the western culture and do the best I can."

At the start of the academic year in 2005, over 200,000 foreign students arrived in Britain from all corners of the globe to embark on their British education. If the British government has its way, this number could quadruple to nearly 900,000 over the next 15 years - a quarter from China's growing middle class. If this goal is realised, education would deliver more than $20bn (£11bn) annually to the UK economy - more foreign revenue than today's exports of cars, food, beverages and tobacco.

As well as attracting valuable foreign income, Britain sees the education market as a way to secure long-term interests - especially in China - by solidifying good relations when tomorrow's business and government leaders are young and at university. And the Chinese students are well aware of this. "When they come back, the Chinese students can build a more healthy country and develop a very good relationship with Britain," says Sam.

The traditional big players, Britain and the US, are increasingly facing competition for market share. Education is big business. In fact, for both the UK and the US, income from foreign brainpower is greater than export sales of firepower - that is, arms and ammunition.

However, post 9/11 security fears and restrictive visa controls are shrinking America's dominance of the 2 million strong international student market. While in Britain, a third of colleges reported a drop in last year's foreign enrolments due to visa problems. The UK's university admissions body, UCAS, reported last week that acceptances from China for undergraduate degrees for the coming academic year were down by 21.3% from 4,401 to 3,464. But Chinese students remain the largest single group among overseas students in the UK .

In downtown Chongqing, Solton Overseas Development arranges visas, schools and university places globally for hundreds of Chongqing's new rich every year. Fees are approximately $1000 (£550) a head - which is the average annual income in this part of China. Consultants at Solton admit that parents are now concerned about terror attacks in London. And faced with rising costs of education fees and a strong pound, they're also shopping around for the best education deal. "For a long time, many students chose to go to Britain," says Nie Ying, Consulting Manager. "But now there's growing competition from other countries: Australia, New Zealand and Canada. But we still think that Britain has more advantages and is the better choice.'

Even at university level, China's education system is still based on teaching, repetition and deference to professors rather than arguments in seminars, individual study and critical analysis. As part of any curriculum, students must also attend political classes - usually twice per week - aimed at bolstering Marxism, Mao Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and Jiang Zemin's Three Represents. In their studies, they have to take care not to contradict the Communist Party line. At a trendy Yangtze riverside restaurant with his friends, Sam the postgraduate student explained why this holds students back . "With Chinese universities, you've got a more rigid education system, where it is really hard to challenge the professors and to challenge the academic staff."

If the UK rises above the competition, many more students like Sam will be winging their way to Britain. China alone could be the country's most lucrative education market - with more students at British universities than mainland Europeans.

Adapted from BBC World Service News September 2005

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