Establishing sub-campuses in China: A Finnish perspective

Abstract

By taking Finland as an example, this article discusses how foreign higher education providers can enter the Chinese market in terms of strategies on both branding and operation. Recent Finnish policies have encouraged Finnish higher education institutions (HEIs) to export education, with China being an important destination. The article argues that developing joint education provisions is the most suitable model for Finland’s education export to China, as it may meet the expectations and interests of both sides. The article then particularly analyses the need for Finnish HEIs to develop cross-border education in China as well as the Chinese expectations of foreign education provision. Strategies are then discussed for Finnish HEIs to harmonize the interests and needs of both countries, and the article concludes with a number of ‘selling points’ that can be used for marketing Finnish higher education in China.

Keywords

China cross-border education education export Finland internationalization of higher education

Introduction

It has been predicted that traditional university-level (higher education) student mobility through studying abroad will be gradually supplemented by ‘cross-border’ education, defined as ‘the educational service going to the students across national borders, instead of the student going to the service overseas’ (UNESCO, 2007: 9). Cross-border education often takes place in the form of higher education campuses located abroad or distance learning.

After China entered the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on 11 December 2001, it stated its position and intent regarding education services (WTO, 2002). According to China’s commitment to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), foreign education providers are normally not allowed to provide online or distance education in China. Rather, only two types of cross-border education activities are open to foreign education providers:

establishing either joint schools or programmes with local educational institutions in China; and

providing education services through individual experts and scholars upon invitation by Chinese education institutions. In many cases, the latter activities supplement the former (Cai, 2011).

Both joint programmes and joint venture schools are described, in Chinese terms, as Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (CFCRS).

Since the middle of the 1990s, hundreds of foreign higher education institutions (HEIs) have developed CFCRS in China (Yang, 2008). Based on observation of practices of CFCRS and other kinds of alliances between foreign and Chinese HEIs, Willis (2001, 2006a, 2006b, 2007, 2008) has summarized general procedures and advice for foreign HEIs entering the education market in China. Among very few studies in this area, Willis’ reports are most relevant and convincing owing to his long experience in the field and rich data used for analyses. Certainly, the findings and suggestions provided by Willis are useful for those foreign HEIs that engage in developing joint educational provisions with local partners in China. However, one should be aware that there is no one-size-fits-all approach for all foreign institutions. To find a suitable way of entering the Chinese education market, national or even institutional characteristics need to be carefully considered. In this regard, Willis’ research has paid little attention to the different situations of foreign education providers, especially those from non-English speaking countries with less well known HEIs. Noteworthy in his findings is that successful examples of educational cooperation with Chinese partners are conducted in a manner that fits the interests of both foreign and Chinese sides (Willis, 2008). This viewpoint guides our analysis and discussion concerning strategies on developing cross-border education in China, particularly in the form of CFCRS, by taking Finnish higher education as an example.

Finland has a long tradition of tuition fee-free education, with all education and related services for foreign students being publicly funded. One important characteristic of international education in Finnish higher education is that the vast majority of international programmes are taught in English. In recent reforms, a marketing approach to internationalization of higher education has been adopted, in which the export of education is encouraged. China, along with other countries, is a prioritized target education export destination for Finland (Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, 2009). It has been suggested that developing cross-border education is an important approach if Finland is to be successful in education export (Cai and Kivistö, 2013). Particularly, Sino-Finnish cooperatively run schools are recommended for Finnish higher education export to China (Cai, 2011). Indeed, some Finnish HEIs are planning to develop joint education programmes and even joint schools in China. They are often not clear, however, about why they do it, what are the challenges to be faced when it comes to implementation, and what are the appropriate approaches needed in order to achieve their goals. As observed by Cai and Kivistö (2013), one problem of implementing the education export policy in Finland is a lack of strategic thinking. This article specifically deals with two issues: why Finland should develop cross-border education in China, and what strategies should be used.

The rest of the article consists of four sections. The first section introduces the Finnish reforms on internationalization of higher education that encourage and support education export, and analyses the importance of developing cross-border education in China. In the second section, the legislation concerning cross-border education in China is presented, as well as China’s expectation of Sino-Foreign cooperatively run schools. The third section discusses the strategies for developing cross-border education in China. The last section is the conclusion, considering reforms in Finnish higher education internationalization and the need to develop off-shore education.

Reforms concerning education export

In the recent reforms in Finland, international education was identified as a revenue generator for HEIs (Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, 2009). Such a market approach is underlined by two assumptions (Elonen, 2010). First, as there are no new economy-boosting companies, such as Nokia, in sight in Finland, the country needs to search for alternative sectors that could provide employment and generate income. Education is one of them. Second, it seems that there is a growing demand for good quality education around the world; a situation that is likely to continue in the future. To the Finnish Ministry of Education (2009), the introduction of tuition fees for international students is not only an instrument to increase the international attractiveness of HEIs, but also a way to develop the export of education as a service trade. Even though the reform has been received with enthusiasm by many in the higher education sector, it has also created controversy and criticism. Some believe that tuition fees will be counter-productive to internationalization as tuition-free education has been the way to attract international students to Finland. In their opinion, fees cannot be the major source of revenue for universities (Helsingin Sanomat, 2007). Moreover, domestic students are afraid that the introduction of tuition fees to international students might open the door for introduction of tuition fees in general (National Union of University Students in Finland, 2009).

Regardless of these disputes, a market or an export approach to international higher education has been introduced in Finland. The current legislation in Finland has allowed HEIs to charge international students tuition fees for degree-level education under two conditions. First, the 2007 Amendments to both the Universities Act (1997/645) and the Polytechnics Act (2003/351) allowed Finnish HEIs to charge fees for their degree programmes when the fees are paid by a third party rather than individual students; the so-called ‘made to order’ model. Second, according to the new Universities Act (2009/558) and the additional Amendments to the Polytechnics Act (2003/351) both effective from the beginning of 2010, Finnish HEIs are able to charge tuition fees on a 5-year trial basis for separate masters’ programmes for international students, provided that the arrangements include a scholarship scheme. The equity principle, which dominates the values of Nordic welfare society, is still strong in Finland. To avoid the threat of excluding students from developing countries from the provision of Finnish HEIs, the new university law requires that institutions are allowed to charge tuition fees only if they establish a scholarship fund for students who cannot afford to pay the fee themselves. If the 5-year experiment on tuition fee-based masters’ programmes shows positive results, it is likely that thenceforth all international students will pay for degree programmes in Finnish HEIs.

The transition from the traditional Nordic model of higher education to a market oriented approach will not be painless. A recent study, based on interviews with actors involved in (potential) education export in Finland, concludes that Finnish HEIs generally are not ready for education export, facing a number of challenges, such as a lack of experience and knowledge in marketing, insufficient motivation and commitment, lack of national coordination and network in exporting education, and the need for a clear vision on education export (Cai et al., 2012).

One of the approaches to resolving these problems at the national level is the establishment of a coordinating programme, Future Learning Finland (FLF), to promote Finnish education in international markets and facilitate Finnish educational institutions in exporting education services. The FLF programme was established in 2010 after the government decided that Finnish know-how in education should be considered as a new export product. The aim has been to build a cluster of educational expertise, with the idea of establishing a cluster model based on the fact that Finland and Finnish players in the international education market are small compared to most other countries. The cluster approach has previously been used in the promotion of exports in the industrial sector. The members (HEIs, schools and companies) of the FLF programme are in a unique position to begin their exporting activities, as the Finnish state is set to support it. The programme is operated by Finpro, the Finnish Trade Centre. The programme is governed and supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economy and Employment.

Offshore education as a solution to a dilemma

The Finnish government has set up two objectives for exporting education by 2015:

the number of international degree students will be considerably increased; and

international education will be developed as an export industry (Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, 2009: 10, 40).

However, the two objectives may be contradictory. On the one hand, it has been argued that charging some international students tuition fees would be unlikely to generate much additional revenue until international students make up a substantial proportion of the total student population (Aarrevaara et al., 2009: 101). On the other hand, as the majority of current international students chose to study in Finland because of its free education (Kärki, 2005: 21; Shumilova et al., 2012), charging tuition fees may negatively affect the enrolment of international students in Finnish higher education as evidenced by similar experiences in Denmark and Sweden (Tse, 2011). Exporting education tends to be mainly a preserve of English-speaking countries owing to the importance of the English language in career success (Elder, 2007; Wiers-Jenssen, 2008: 106). Finland as a non-English speaking country does not have that inherent advantage in exporting higher education, and a pure ‘revenue-generating’ model might not therefore be suitable in the Finnish context. Moreover, the market-oriented model may be difficult to implement, as it is in conflict with Finland’s strong welfare state tradition.

The dilemma also encompasses the current ambiguous understanding of expectations for recruiting international students. Most European countries have three expectations when recruiting international students to higher education:

to generate revenue;

to attract talented students to the domestic labour market; and

to enhance mutual awareness and business cooperation (Cai, 2005).

These expectations have also been reflected in the four approaches to cross-border education, namely ‘revenue-generating’, ‘skilled migration’, ‘capacity building’ and ‘mutual understanding’ (OECD, 2004: 4).

However, the philosophies underlying these approaches are somewhat contradictory. The revenue generation approach is very much economically driven. In contrast, the mutual understanding approach encompasses political, cultural, academic and development aid goals. The skilled migration approach shares the goals of the mutual understanding approach but places strong emphasis on the demands of the labour market. One major problem for the Finnish policies on education export is the lack of a clear understanding of what to expect from international students.

In a fee-free higher education system, it has been expected that those students graduating from Finnish HEIs will either be employed in Finland or return to their home countries, becoming cultural ambassadors and business promoters for Finland. Thus, international education could boost the Finnish economy indirectly (Mughul and Pekkola, 2009). The new strategy on internationalization of higher education (Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, 2009) considers internationalization of higher education as a way to internationalize the entire society and to create new networks and business opportunities. However, it places more emphasis on international higher education as a profitable business. Meanwhile, international graduates are also seen as an important source for supplementing the workforce in Finland. While Finland intends to embrace all these expectations, the question is how to harmonize the competing drives behind them.

Will, then, the mission to develop international higher education as a trade be doomed to fail? The revenue-generating objectives will be achieved if Finnish HEIs can concentrate on cross-border education. As there is a shared concern that the introduction of tuition fees may pose a serious challenge to the recruitment of international students to Finland, organizing educational programmes abroad may be an alternative, and even an effective, way to attract international students, particularly in countries such as China where demand for higher education cannot be met by the domestic supply. While establishing sub-campuses abroad can generally increase student enrolment, operating cross-border education will provide financial rewards for the HEIs involved.

Moreover, cross-border education serves the needs of Finnish industry. In recent years, a growing number of Finnish companies and individuals have established businesses in China. By 2011, there were almost 300 Finnish companies in China (Heimonen, 2011), employing around 30,000 people (Helsingin Sanomat, 2011). These companies will need larger numbers of competent, local employees able to master the technologies and skills they require and able to understand both the Finnish and Chinese cultures. The establishment of Finnish higher education provision in China may facilitate the training of the local labour force in response to the needs of Finnish companies operating there (Cai, 2012).

Cross-border education can therefore be an optimized solution to meet all expectations from educating international students. But this urgently requires Finnish educational institutions and companies to understand Chinese practices on cross-border education.

Legislation and motivation

Legislation and models

According to China’s commitment to the GATS and its national legislation, foreign educational providers are allowed and even encouraged to develop cross-border education in China. However, foreign education institutions are not able to establish independent organizations and educational programmes there; rather they must form partnerships with Chinese educational institutions. As early as the late 1980s and early 1990s, some foreign HEIs were already cooperating with Chinese partners to provide education services in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. However, no clear policy was created to regulate these activities until 1995, when the Chinese Ministry of Education promulgated the Interim Provisions on Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (hereafter referred to as the Interim Provisions).

As China became a member of the WTO in 2001, it was obliged to adopt the regulations and agreements of the WTO Protocol into Chinese domestic law. Thus, on 1 March 2003, the State Council issued the Regulations on Chinese-foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (hereafter referred to as the Regulations), in which the term Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (CFCRS) was explicitly defined as ‘the activities of the cooperation between foreign educational institutions and Chinese educational institutions in establishing educational institutions within the territory of China to provide education service mainly to Chinese citizens’ (Article 2).

Both the Interim Provisions and the Regulations contain the following stipulations:

foreign institutions must partner with Chinese institutions;

partnerships must not seek profit as their objective;

not less than one-half of the members of the institution’s governing body must be Chinese citizens;

the post of president or equivalent must be a Chinese citizen residing in China;

the basic language of instruction should be Chinese; and

tuition fees may not be raised without approval. (Garrett, 2004: 21)

Compared to the Interim Provisions, the Regulations contain some important features, such as extending governmental encouragement from vocational to higher education, strongly encouraging Chinese universities to cooperate with renowned overseas HEIs in launching new academic programmes to improve the quality of teaching and learning and to import excellent overseas educational resources to local institutions, and relaxing restrictions on profit-making (Yang, 2008: 275).

To facilitate the implementation of the Regulations, the Ministry of Education issued in 2004 the Implementation Measures for the Regulation on Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (hereafter referred to as the Implementation Measures). Besides clarifying the provisions of the Regulations and making them feasible in practice, the Implementation Measures also expand and supplement the Regulations. While the Regulations are primarily designed for the establishment of cooperatively run schools, the Implementation Measures also address cooperative arrangements in joint international programmes. Moreover, according to the Implementation Measures: ‘A Chinese-foreign jointly run school is entitled to the support and encouraging measures granted to privately run schools by the State in line with the provisions of the Law on Promotion of Privately run Schools’ (Article 4). The Implementation Measures also include specifications concerning profit-making and CFCRS: a Chinese-foreign jointly run school shall not engage in profit-making operational activities but reasonable economic returns are allowed:

At the end of each fiscal year, a Chinese-foreign jointly run school, whose vested parties do not require reasonable returns, shall withdraw a sum of money from the increased amount of its annual net assets, and the Chinese-foreign jointly run school whose vested parties have requested reasonable returns shall withdraw a sum of money from the annual net gains, no less than 25% of the increased amount of annual net assets or of annual net gains, to serve as a development fund used for the construction and maintenance of the Chinese-foreign jointly run school and the purchase and renovation of teaching equipment. (Article 29)

In 2006, the Ministry of Education published Opinions on Some Issues Concerning Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (hereafter referred to as the Opinions), which re-emphasize several key issues, including:

The nature of Chinese-foreign school operation as a public service must be preserved.

The Chinese educational institution in the cooperation shall play a dominant role in carrying out national educational polices.

High-quality foreign educational resources are encouraged, while quality control needs to be strengthened.

The levels of tuition fees for Chinese and foreign cooperative programmes are to be regulated.

Since then, the Ministry took a strict line on approving new CFCRS applications until 2010, and during that period few applications were acceded to. It has been reported that the Chinese Ministry of Education decided in January 2010 to resume approval of the Chinese-foreign cooperative education programmes (Zhuang, 2010). According to these policies, there are three types of CFCRS provided by Chinese legislation, which are identified by Wang (2005) as joint programmes, affiliated schools and legal entities. First, a joint programme refers to certain educational and teaching activities conducted in a Chinese partner institution according to the cooperation agreement or to the contract signed between the Chinese institution and its foreign partner. Second, a Chinese and foreign cooperatively run school can also be affiliated to a host institution; for example, to a Chinese university. This type of school exists as an independent college that is affiliated to the host university, parallel to other secondary level colleges or faculties within that university. Furthermore, this type of institution does not have a legal status, and is under the administration of the host university. Third, a legal entity is like a joint venture but one that has a legal status. According to the Regulations, an independent Chinese-foreign cooperatively run school shall set up a board of trustees or a board of directors, and the legal representatives shall be appointed by the chairperson of the board of trustees, or by the chairperson of the board of directors, or the president of the school, through consultation between the Chinese and foreign cooperators. These types of institution have autonomy in the financial administration and in running the school, including in matters such as student enrolment, curriculum design, tuition fee level and budgeting.

In terms of teaching arrangements, there are two major types of CFCRS as indicated by the Opinions: the one-campus model and the two-campus model. In the first model, Chinese students spend all their time at local campuses without visiting the foreign universities, but the education programmes are jointly provided by the Chinese and foreign institutions in China. In the two-campus model, students will study at both local campuses in China and campuses at foreign universities.

Benefits of Sino-Finnish cooperatively run schools to China

China allows CFCRS for three main reasons, namely meeting educational demand, improving the quality of skilled labour, and increasing international competitiveness (Cai, 2011). However, in practice, there is a contrast between the governmental expectation of importing high-quality foreign educational resources and the fact that the majority of the foreign partners involved in the CFCRS are of low quality. According to the Regulations, ‘the State encourages Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools to which high-quality foreign educational resources are introduced, … and encourages Chinese HEIs to cooperate with renowned foreign HEIs in running schools’ (Article 3). Some Chinese-foreign cooperatively run schools have indeed been established through partnership with renowned HEIs, but it has been commonly noted (Qin, 2007; Tan, 2009; Wang, 2005) that most joint schools are cooperating with unknown or newly developed foreign HEIs.

Alongside the intensification of internationalization in Chinese higher education and increasing competition in the international education market, Chinese education institutions have become more rational in selecting their foreign partners. Regarding why Chinese universities seek foreign university collaboration, Willis (2006b) conducted an investigation on the motivating factors behind a significant area of alliance activity and identified a range of reasons driving the Chinese HEIs to form alliances with foreign universities. The top three reasons were as follows. First, Chinese universities were encouraged by the government to develop alliances so that they could offer a wide range of courses and programmes, which could speed up economic development in China. Second, through cooperating with foreign institutions, the Chinese universities could enhance their image, status and competitive position. Third, Chinese universities wish to internationalize themselves and to be part of a global academic community by means of establishing alliances with foreign universities. All in all, the quality of foreign institutions must be high and the cooperation serve local interest.

Strategies for developing cross-border education in China

Finnish strategies for developing cross-border education in China must centre on how Finnish higher education can offer benefits to China through CFCRS, and be attractive in the Chinese education market, while still serving Finnish interests.

Introduction of higher quality education resources to China

One challenge faced by Chinese universities in selecting foreign partners is knowing how to evaluate the quality of foreign institutions that are not well known worldwide. In countries such as the USA and the UK there are many HEIs and the quality is diverse. However, this is not going to be a problem when it comes to Finland. There are only a handful of HEIs in Finland and they are quite evenly distributed in terms of quality.

It is clearly noted in both the Strategy for the Internationalization of Higher Education Institutions in Finland 2009–2015 (Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, 2009) and the Finnish Education Export Strategy (Finnish Ministry of Education, 2010) that only quality will bring success. However, as it is difficult for the true quality of education to be measured and perceived by individual students, in practice they tend to use any form of information generated by the markets as the basis for their choices. This is because compared to quality, institutional reputation can be easily identified through university rankings, students’ awareness and information available in public media (Marginson, 2006).

Student surveys in the UK and Australia suggested that when students chose a HEI, they were more influenced by university prestige than by the quality of teaching and student service (James et al., 1999; Moogan and Harris, 1999). Studies of Chinese students’ behaviour (Lu et al., 2009) also showed that they were very sensitive to the prestige of the university in which they wanted to pursue their studies. This is, thus, a major challenge for Finnish higher education, as only the University of Helsinki is among the top 100 in the most popular international university rankings. Typically, Finnish HEIs are quite small and new, unlike the top universities on the list, which are well established, wealthy and large. One should note that the rankings favour research excellence and quantity rather than educational quality.

Fortunately, the quality of Finnish higher education can be promoted in other ways. First, the Universitas 21 has ranked Finland as the fourth best higher education system, after the USA, Sweden and Canada. The ranking is mainly based on four criteria, namely resources in higher education, regulative environment, internationalization activities and academic outputs (Williams et al., 2012).

Second, Finland has perhaps the most advanced higher education quality control system in the world. All universities have been established by law and, as the polytechnic sector was established, all polytechnic institutions had to pass a licensing process with an evaluation in which many of them had to compete in order to satisfy the criteria. Although the institutional autonomy of Finnish universities is high, the establishment of a new study field requires the approval of the Ministry of Education, preventing the institutions from establishing programmes with poor financial and human resources and without relevance to the labour markets. Within recent years, the policy has encouraged all HEIs to build up their internal quality assurance systems. The task of the national quality evaluation agency, the Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council (FINHEEC), has been to develop the criteria for evaluating institutional quality assurance systems and to organize the institutional audits.

Third, Finland has been commonly regarded as one of the most successful examples in the world of the developing information society (Castells and Himanen, 2002) and national innovation systems (Ahlbäck and ERRIN, 2005). Innovation systems comprise the complex functions and interactions among various actors, such as government, enterprises, universities and research institutes. Among the actors, universities are widely regarded to be crucial (Mowery and Sampat, 2004). Indeed, Finnish higher education has provided strong knowledge and human resource support for the development of the innovation society in Finland. It is also an important driver behind the legend of Nokia. Without the high quality of Finnish higher education, all the efforts made towards the innovation system would be in vain.

In addition, the Finnish education system particularly has a high reputation in educating the most talented students in the world, as indicated by its success in several rounds of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).

Linking vocational education and working life

The Chinese state has urged the Chinese HEIs and vocational schools to develop their capacity and quality in producing a skilled work force. Particularly, it is expected that Chinese vocational education can be improved through importing advanced education models and resources from abroad. In this respect, Finnish experience can be of help. In Finland, there are two levels of vocational schools; tertiary and secondary. The strength of the Finnish system is that it is well tied to the needs of the labour market, especially companies and their needs in Finland. It is also a strength of the Finnish education system that it can adapt to changes quickly and the intakes of students are planned according to possible future trends in the labour market. Finnish polytechnics (universities of applied sciences) and Finnish vocational schools can join forces with Finnish companies operating in China to develop the quality of Chinese vocational education together with Chinese partner institutions.

Finnish and many other foreign companies in China are struggling with the low skill level of much of the available work force. More often than not the Chinese work force needs to be trained by the hiring companies after they have been hired. In many cases, however, after training the employees then leave for better jobs. This causes a vicious circle, as the foreign companies hire people, train them and then have to watch them leave (Cai, 2012). The root cause of the vicious circle is concerned with education. In order to stop such a circle, the root cause need to be tackled.

A possible solution could be the development of a tripartite model of cooperation between three key players, namely the Chinese HEIs and/or vocational schools, Finnish HEIs and/or vocational schools, and the Finnish companies in China. To solve the problem, Finnish companies should identify the skills needed from the labour force, and the knowledge and skills they need to develop in the new recruits before they become productive. Here, the Finnish HEIs and/or vocational schools can come into the picture. They have long experience of developing curricula that suit Finnish company needs. In this sense, they are experts in curriculum development and implementation. When they receive the necessary information from the Finnish companies, they can start to develop curricula that may help to solve the problem faced by Finnish companies operating in China. It should be noted that, according to Chinese legislation, the Finnish institutions can only operate in China with local partners.

The benefits of the model are threefold. First, through cooperating with Finnish partners, Chinese HEIs and/or vocational schools can develop their capacity, improve the quality of education and link their graduates to (Finnish) employers. Second, Finnish HEIs can directly generate revenue from education export. Third, Finnish companies would attract a better work force, as they could influence the education of their potential labour force.

Localization instead of standardization

It is worth noting that the Finnish education export strategy is different from many other education exporting countries. For instance, the FLF has made a clear distinction between two strategies. One is standardization – an approach used by many Western education exporters, such as Australia and New Zealand, when entering the markets of developing countries. In this approach, the education providers export standard packages, for example MBA degrees, to local markets. This is a model that best fits mass production, in educating large populations as it is cost efficient. The other strategy is localization, which is the motto of the FLF. Instead of exporting standard services, Finns want to export solutions that can be adjusted according to the local needs and that combine with local know-how. It is also in the interest of Finland to develop, together with local partners, the education in the host country for sustainable cooperation.

Conclusion

This article has analysed the policies and practices of internationalization of higher education in both Finland and China, and has suggested that developing cross-border education in China is an effective approach if Finnish higher education is to be successful in education export to China. Besides generating revenue for Finnish higher education, the Chinese students trained in the Sino-Finnish joint schools may directly service Finnish companies operating in China. When implementing cross-border education in China, the Finnish actors must also consider how their action may benefit Chinese interests; helping China to meet growing demands for higher quality of education, to improve the quality of skilled labour and to increase international competitiveness.

The strategies proposed earlier are intended to make Finnish higher education attractive in China. Indeed, Finnish higher education has a number of characteristics that may be attractive to the Chinese government, HEIs and students in meeting China’s expectations and interests. What are these elements? When seeking answers to this question, one should think beyond the higher education realm. For instance, some attractive characteristics of Finnish society and industry can also be relevant here, if their links to higher education can be shown. Following this train of thought, a number of attractive features of Finnish higher education can be summarized as follows.

Finland is one of the global leaders in developing the information society and innovation systems.

Finland has won top positions in a number of international comparisons, such as the PISA study, and those relating to its education system and quality of life.

Finland as a traditional welfare state attaches importance to the balance between education as a public good and as an industry.

Finland as a country successively controlled by Sweden and Russia for hundreds of years understands the need to preserve national traditions and culture.

Finland has highly developed quality culture in higher education as well as the most advanced quality assurance system in the world.

The Finnish government plays a strong role in higher education development.

Curricula and training in Finnish higher education have close links to the labour market.

All international programmes in Finnish higher education are taught in English.

The Finnish approach to education export, implemented by the FLF, is not above all profit-driven, but emphasizes the benefits of local society by importing Finnish know-how.

While being aware of these points, the next task is to explore how these messages can be communicated to China in order to convince the target groups there. This requires Finland to invest in marketing, conduct extensive research of the local market and establish effective national coordination between key actors. The most effective marketing in China is always based on trust. In the field of higher education, trust is often built through academic cooperation, for example by joint PhD training and research collaboration.

Although the discussion in this article is very much focused on Finnish higher education, analysis of the case of Finland might hopefully also be of interest to other non-English speaking countries in their planning of marketing and branding in the Chinese education market.

Footnotes

Author biographies

Yuzhuo Cai, PhD, is a university lecturer and adjunct professor at the Higher Education Group (HEG), School of Management, and Research Coordinator of the Chinese Education Research and Exchange Centre (CEREC) at the University of Tampere in Finland. His main research areas are higher education policy and management, internationalization of higher education, graduate employability and transformation of higher education in innovation systems. His publications include six books and around 30 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters.

Seppo Hölttä, PhD, professor of higher education management at University of Tampere in Finland, is head of the Higher Education Group (HEG) and the Chinese Educational Research and Exchange Centre (CEREC). He is a guest professor at Beijing Normal University and Beijing University of Technology. His research areas are higher education management and higher education policy. He is also working with the internationalization of higher education including educational export.

Niko Lindholm works in the Finnish National Education Export Program – Future Learning Finland as Project Manager. He is responsible for planning and implementing national education export strategies in China and the Middle East. The National Education Export Program is steered by the Ministry of Education, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Employment and the Economy.

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