British universities are hurting themselves by exploiting Chinese students.

When I was a college student, I learned a lot. My classes were filled with passionate peers discussing ideas, thinking together about the state of the world, and challenging each other. Among my professors, I found generous mentors who not only shared their knowledge but also modeled the art of living for me.

After seeing how transformative higher education can be, I decided to follow in their footsteps. So I was delighted when I was appointed as a lecturer in the Russell Group Education Department. Now I will be able to recreate the experiences I was fortunate enough to have for my students.

But I couldn't be more wrong. I soon discovered that British academia had changed beyond recognition. The huge rise in Chinese student admissions is not, as administrators believe, evidence of Britain's competitiveness in the international higher education market, but proof that British universities have transformed into unethical enterprises diluting their standards in pursuit of Chinese tuition fees. To the extent that the education they provide becomes anti-educational.

Among the courses I taught in my first year was a master's course on global citizenship education. The students are all from mainland China. There were only two or three people in class who could speak confidently, and most of them could not follow me. Virtually everyone has had to constantly rely on translation devices.

In the first class, I asked students to read a short book. No one did. Secondly, I assigned an academic paper. No one followed. Then write your blog post. Two students said they tried and struggled. My attempts to stimulate discussion in class were almost always met with complete silence. Preparing an interactive activity felt like pulling teeth.

As a non-native English speaker, I tried my best to empathize. I spoke as slowly as possible and avoided big, academic remarks. By the end of the semester, I felt like I was teaching a middle school class. Nonetheless, I am confident that the students all graduated despite having learned very little.

A Chinese colleague told me that universities think of Chinese students as magic money trees. This reflects claims made in a January Sunday Times article that international students lacking the necessary skills are being admitted through lower tariff routes than domestic students. This is because UK universities now lose money educating domestic undergraduates. They can only continue many of their programs with the higher fees they can charge to international students, more of whom come from China than anywhere else.

From my conversations with Chinese students, I learned that they did not necessarily want to come to the UK or pursue a degree in education. But they had no choice. To get a good job in my home country, I had to get a diploma from a prestigious university, and there were many opportunities to take classes at China's best universities. But the readiness of UK universities to exploit this mismatch between supply and demand is failing thousands of students who admit that, through no fault of their own, their previous education did not prepare them for what awaits them in the UK. British students also lose out, as they are affected by the decline in the quality of their classroom experience. And for instructors, trying to teach in such a system can be soul-crushing.

Many colleagues think this is due to the language barrier. Therefore, colleges and universities must increase language test score requirements while providing better academic support to struggling students. Some people suggest that reluctance to speak in class may be due to cultural differences.

But while language and culture are undoubtedly part of the story, the problem goes deeper. A 2023 House of Commons report points to increasing activity by Chinese intelligence agencies on UK campuses, showing that academics and students are being pressured not to talk about the Chinese pro-democracy movement, among other things. And I was lecturing on John Dewey's theory of democratic education to a class full of Chinese students. Most of them would return home after graduation and would have been monitored by Chinese authorities while in the UK. Even if their English is perfect, how can you expect them to speak?

Like all international students, Chinese students have unique perspectives that can make a significant contribution to UK higher education. But their true inclusion requires confronting the ideological abyss between humanities and social science programs that emphasize concepts such as democracy, criticality, voice, and subjectivity, and the totalitarianism of China, to which these concepts run counter.

Unless we are willing to abandon the importance of our programs, we may have to accept that it is unethical to promote them to students in totalitarian countries. The alternative is to allow academic rigor to erode to the point where a degree from a top UK university is no longer as valuable as a printed thesis, with results that are closer than we might think.

The author is a lecturer at a Russell Group university.

Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/uk-universities-are-self-harming-exploiting-chinese-students The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

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