In 1978, China launched its reform and opening-up policy. Starting with Deng Xiaoping’s important decision to increase the number of students dispatched abroad, the opening-up of Chinese education took a historic step, as well. As the main form of cross-border education in China, Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (CFCRS) came to stage accordingly. After four decades of vigorous development, CRCRS has made remarkable achievements, which was evident from initially playing as supplement of traditional Chinese education to a vital part of the whole education system. When reviewing the 40-year development process of CFCRS, four phases with distinct backgrounds can be seen, though throughout these phases, educators consistently worked toward the same goal — proactively and critically learning from others while keeping rooted in its own culture.

In Pace with the Nation’s Opening up and Started Exploring: 1978-1994

CFCRS started as cooperative projects. During the early stage of 1978 to 1994, emphasis was placed on institution-building. Under the guidance of Deng Xiaoping's “Education should be geared toward modernization, toward the world, and toward the future”, the initial aim of CFCRS was to encourage Chinese education to learn from the foreign institutions. Nanjing Architecture Vocational and Technical Education Center, jointly run by China and Germany, represented the milestone of CFCRS’s birth in the Technical&Vocational Education&Training (TVET) field. CFCRS's work in higher education first became widely known with the creation of the China-U.S. Cultural Exchange Center, run by Nanjing University in China and Hopkins University in the United States. For national policies, two significant documents laid the policy foundation. One is Opinions on Strengthening the School Construction of Cooperation Projects by the State Education Commission（the predecessor of Ministry of Education）in 1986, which standardized cooperatively run project and institution (CRPI) management for the first time. The other is the Outline of China's Education Reform and Development by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council in 1993, declaring that the central government will comprehensively plan and implement Chinese education opening-up as a whole. According to incomplete statistics, 70 joint institutions in the field of CFCRS had been approved in China by the end of 1994.

Standardized Management and Rapid Development

in the Transition to Market Economy: 1995-2002

In the 1990s, thanks to the significant progress made in China's education legislation, though there is not a specific law on CFCRS, subsequent policies and documents provided sufficient concrete guidance in the areas of general provisions, establishment, organization and administration, education and teaching, assets and financial matters, alteration and termination, legal liability. Hence, a standardized management framework have been established and it provided direct instructions for CRPIs. On the express train of China's education legislation, the scale as well as extent of CFCRS expanded and deepened dramatically. By the end of 2002, CRPIs had covered the entire education system, of which 712 were in the higher education field, and they were distributed in 28 provinces. Moreover, in the market-oriented economy reform, CFCRS also played an active role in attracting foreign investment, which alleviated the shortage of education funds.

Adaptive Development after China Joining the WTO: 2003-2009

After joining the WTO, China successively revised various policies and regulations to adapt to the rules of world trade. CFCRS, as a dominant form of the education service trade, also entered the stage of adaptation. The adaptation was guided by two important documents. One is the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools by the State Council in 2003, and the other is Measures for the Implementation of Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools by MoE in 2004. During this period, the growth rate of CRPIs slowed down, though the whole number of CRPIs kept growth. By the end of 2009, the total number of CRPIs approved by the Chinese government was approximately 1,100. In addition, the most eye-catching work in this period was the launch of evaluation work, which built a quality assessment criteria CRPIs’ quality, management, internal and external benefits, etc., and the CRPIs themselves gained the motivation to improve their quality and ability to develop sustainably.

Transformation and Upgrading in the New Era: 2010-Present

After decades of development and accumulation, CFCRS in China has made considerable progress with an increasingly complete quality assurance system and continuously improved quality, which has gained recognition and popularity at home and achieved considerable influence abroad. By the end of December 2018, the number of CFPIs approved by the Chinese government was 2,389, with approximately 600,000 students enrolled, and of which CRPIs in higher education accounted for about 90 percent, with more than 1.6 million graduates. Moreover, CRPIs’ student sources today are becoming increasingly diverse, with students enrolled from 70 countries and regions globally. Recruiting more and more international elite students has become a new highlight of education in China. For example, some students who study in New York University, Shanghai were also admitted by such top universities as Harvard, Yale.

Profound Development and High-quality Drive the Future Agenda

Nowadays, China has become one of the most important partner to the world's leading universities and quality educational resources. Reviewing the past 40 years, we can conclude that CFCRS in China has broadened the talent training channels, enriched the supply of quality resources, especially for higher education and served as a cultural exchange bridge that promoted and deepened China’s comprehensive opening-up to the outside world.

At a new starting point, CFCRS will play as a strategic pathway for China to comprehensively deepen its reform, expand its opening up and strengthen its education. Resulting in the rapid development of China's economy, continuous improvement of people's living standards and increasing willingness to invest in education, people consequently have higher and newer expectations for education, thereby consolidating profound development and high-quality is the essential value of CFCRS’s future agenda.

Looking ahead, we suggest CFCRS exert consistent efforts in the following aspects: First, to export Chinese educational products worldwide while keeping importing first-class education resources. Second, to create a “catfish effect” by selecting several institution/project models, thus building a competitive environment that can benefit both the CFPI pool and the traditional Chinese institution/project pool. Third, to guide and evaluate projects and institutions by category, to avoid low-level redundant construction and excessive competition. Fourth, to keep a balance among regions, education levels, disciplines and home country distribution, among other factors. And last but not least, to spare no efforts to emphasize the import standard, process supervision and quality assessment.

The author is Associate researcher of National Center for Education Development Research. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of China Watch.