There is a saying that “Where globalization means, as it so often does, that the rich and powerful now have new means to further enrich and empower themselves at the cost of the poorer and weaker, we have a responsibility to protest in the name of universal freedom”. The influence of globalization on Chinese education is extremely extensive, comprehensive and profound. In the context of globalization, China will be required to train cosmopolitan citizens with international quality and help students develop the global quality they need in the context of globalization, with a globalized world view, values and outlook on life. Secondly, globalization also has a profound impact on the educational objectives: globalization will require Chinese education to establish an educational concept with innovation as the essential feature, and focus on the cultivation of innovative educational talents. In addition, in the curriculum and teaching content, it is required to highlight the status of international communication curriculum and moral education.
First, the education in china become better and better. Of the 65 countries and provinces participating in OECD’s 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the results of which were released in December 2010, most of the top performers were in Asia. Shanghai and Hong Kong led the way, followed by Singapore, South Korea, and Japan.A fundamental shift in the global talent pool is under way. Looking ahead to 2020, the U.S. proportion of that global talent pool will shrink even further as China and India, with their enormous populations, rapidly expand their secondary and higher education systems. In the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s in China, there were almost no students in school. Today, nine years of basic education are universal in all but the most remote areas, and China’s goal is to have 90 percent of students in upper secondary school by 2020. If the U.S. high school graduation rate remains flat and China continues on its current path, China will be graduating a higher proportion of students from high school within a decade. And China has 200 million students in elementary and secondary education, compared with our about 66 million.
Second, globalization of Higher Education affects China. Nowadays, increasing people choose to send their children to study aboard. Richard Riley, a former United States minister of education said during his recent tour to Shanghai that the globalization of higher education will bring many opportunities to China.A survey by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization shows that at the end of 2000, there were 1.6 million overseas students studying in 108 countries throughout the world. Of these, 380,000 students, in 103 countries are from China. The largest number from any one country. Currently, 10 percent of international students studying in the United States come from China, and the development of online distance education and educational exchanges has made Chinese higher education more and more international.It seems that globalization sweeps china deeply. And after china join the WTO, no matter in the economic, medical, technology and education, china has developed a lot. For example, in the level of education, china skyrocket the demand for high talent professional elite in many fields. Meanwhile, China’s fast economic development is attracting many foreign educational institutions wanting to try their luck in the country’s huge education market.
Third, the connection of profession expert between China and World become intimacy and they cooperate to involve some new fields. Amb Julia Chang Bloch, a Chinese-American and former United States Ambassador to Nepal, is now lecturing at universities in Beijing and Shanghai, while the distinguished Chinese scholar Yang Fujia is now Chancellor of Nottingham University in Great Britain. Yang has urged Chinese universities to learn from foreign educational administrative practices and to become more innovative.Wu Qidi, president of the Shanghai-based Tongji University, said at a recent seminar on the Globalization of Higher Education being held in Shanghai that universities in the 21st century should pay more attention to cross-cultural communications and enhance understanding between different cultures.Chinese universities should strive to educate talented people familiar with both international practices and Chinese customs and make Chinese qualifications good enough to be accepted worldwide in the 21st century, according to Wu.
Fourth, As a global language, English is known as a language that never fades. With the development of globalization, English has gradually swept the world. In this era of globalization, it is difficult for a person or even a country to establish a foothold if they know nothing about English, because it is impossible for them to conduct trade exchanges, cultural exchanges or scientific and technological exchanges with other countries on a global scale. So in order to have a place in the global economy, the Chinese government has made English education extremely important. This is mainly reflected in the following aspects. First, the Chinese government has made English a compulsory subject in the lower grades of primary school, and the trend of requiring students to learn English is getting younger and younger. In Taiwan and Hong Kong, for example, students start learning English at about the age of six. Class hours vary from 3 to 4 hours per week. In mainland China, well-conditioned urban primary schools have made English a compulsory subject in the first year of primary school, a move that also means the age is decreasing, from 11-9 to 7. However, the difficulties are lack of funds, inadequate teacher training, inadequate curriculum standards for young learners and lagging development of relevant language materials. Secondly, with the rapid development of China’s economy and the increasingly high status of international organizations such as WHO, UNESCO and UNEDO, China needs a large number of English professionals and translators to serve various fields. So China needs to train more English speakers in a very short time. First of all, all colleges and universities take English as a compulsory course, so college students spend more time on English than on their major courses. Pedagogy is also deeply influenced by functionalism. In the early stage, teaching theories such as grammal-translation method, direct method and listening and speaking method have been rejected by Chinese experts, and the only method advocated is communicative method. However, under the influence of the communicative era, the teaching practice of English education in China has not entered a rational mode of operation.
Fifth, Globalization has many influences on China’s education reform. In China, globalization has brought about a paradigm shift in policy education and reform. Mulford observes that under the influence of globalization, the traditional values of education reform – such as wisdom, trust, compassion, grace, and honesty – have been transformed into what he calls contracts, markets, choices, and competition. In today’s society, education reformers are increasingly looking for the ability to be productive, competent, and able to plan, rather than the ability to cooperate and benefit. In the past, education focused on the long-term interests of students and the cultivation of discrimination ability, but the current education under the influence of globalization focuses on short-term benefits, which are symbolic and equity. Facing a competitive global economy and environment, China can only improve its own productivity and competitiveness. And the way to do that is for the state to rebuild and reform education-decentralise and create markets in education. The Chinese government has adopted decentralization and public administration to increase the flexibility of labor force and to create more autonomous educational institutions to cater to the growing choice and diversity in education. According to Carnoy, for example, the relationship between learning, state and market, Currie summarized some trends in the reconstruction of British and American higher education in the face of globalization, which also have important reference significance for the development of higher education in other countries in the era of globalization. It mainly includes :(1) from elite education to mass education; (2) privatization of higher education; (3) practice public management; (4) the expansion of transnational education.
Therefore, globalization has reflected the development of Chinese education in five aspects. More and more parents send their children to study abroad. China is in closer contact with educational experts from all over the world. English is gaining popularity and importance throughout China. So I think globalization has a huge impact on Chinese education. Therefore, China must seize the opportunities brought by globalization and vigorously develop and reform Chinese education in order to increase the productivity of the country and make China stronger and stronger.
