A western education isn't what it used to be

[Randy W]

in the SCMP

 

South China Morning Post

Yesterday at 7:29am ·

Overseas education is no longer a sure route to success in China http://sc.mp/blpmPM

 

 

As sea turtles turn into seaweed, Chinese graduates look beyond the career ladder to find value in studying abroad

An unflattering nickname for those returning from universities overseas highlights that this path is no longer a sure route to success

 

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/10155669844184820/

 

 

Liu counts herself as one of the more fortunate ones – rather than settling for the lower-paid role she was offered, she opened her own studio to edit documentaries as a freelancer.

She picked up two long-term jobs that would yield a steady income over the next 18 months and took small jobs for shorter videos at 15,000 yuan each.

“I think I am on of the lucky ones, being able to land on my feet so quickly. Some of my friends are still struggling,” Liu said.

According to the Ministry of Education, last year 544,000 people went abroad to study and 432,500 returned after finishing their foreign education. Nearly 80 per cent of students chose to go back China after completing overseas study.

These graduates were once applauded as “hai gui”, a Chinese word for returned students that sounds like the word for “sea turtle”.

However, with lucrative prospects dwindling, a new and far less flattering phrase entered the lexicon to describe returnees waiting for a job – “hai dai”, which sounds like “seaweed”.

A report released earlier this month found that while more than one third of foreign-educated students found their first job within three months and nearly 89 per cent within half a year, more than 68 per cent made less than they expected.

 

 

[amberjack1234]

This trend may very well have a little to do with the new up spring of the Chinese Nationalism trend.

[MikeandRong]

At an 80% return rate, perhaps the market is getting flooded, 400k+ a year is a lot to absorb each year back at home.

 

I have found that while the vast majority can have very good reading comprehension of English, the written is good, however it appears vastly memorized with improper word selection being used and not as flowing as a native born English speaker, who would choose/use a more correct word choice, and the spoken English while mostly understandable, is not how one (native born) would normally speak in terms of chosen vocabulary and overall sentence construction/flow, and i am completely disregarding pronunciation and or accent to be truly fair in my assessment.

 

In my observations I am talking about college age people, probably age 24-27 and having 4-8 years of University education with a completed masters degree in their chosen field.

[Allon]

I won't mention who the Ph D. couple is I am talking about. Both have Harvard educations and teach at the college level at a major univerity. For the life of me, I don't know how they made it through college themselves. A book one of them wrote is full of grammatical errors. Their speech is riddled with bad English. They are still almost at the baby talk stage.

 

And they have high marks in the qualification tests. I think they study for the test and forget about learning to think in the language they have adopted. But it gets back to the biological rule that after 25 one's linguistic skills go to the dumper.

 

Sad. For all of us really.

[Bessie]

This article describes a social phenomenon regarding talents demand in modern China. The phrase "hai gui" was coined at the end of 1990s. The literal translation of "hai gui" is "returning talents from overseas",

 

At the end of last century and the beginning of the new era, China's economy was burgeoning after a decade of "reforming and opening up". Particularly after joining WTO, China had a high demand of talents with western education. Some people, nicknamed as "hai gui", captured this opportunity, returned to China, and became successful entrepreneurs. Among them are the CEOs of some top IT and ecmmerce companies. Back then, only a very tiny percentage of young students, the best among their peers, were able to go overseas for an advanced degree and they were true talents.

 

However, China has had a big changeover after another decade. Its economy has become the second largest in the world. Some home-grown companies have become strong competitors on global market. Domestic education institutes have grown to be able to supply China employment market with highly qualified talents, thus diminishing the demand for West-educated talents. Also, a lot of young students, most of them are just average or even lower among their peers, are no longer competitive in China after a Western education because they are not true "hai gui".

[True Blue]

I work at a university. They market based on the jobs and salaries that are available to the top 2% and Chinese, Indian, Arab and other foreign students due well because of the pressure on large corporations to hire based on diversity, the willingness of foreign students to study 24/7 and the willingness of foreign students to relocate anywhere for a better job, even if split up from family, spouses, boy friends, girl friends.

 

Most American students except those ABC (American born Chinese) and other 2nd generation kids are unwilling to make those sacrifices. The opportunities are unavailable to them and many work as waiters, waitresses etc. now a batch lord degree is like a high school degree was 40 years ago. Help you get to grad school but little use on its own.. Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs has written extensively about how we need more tradespeople (plumbers, electricians, mechanics, air conditioning repairmen).

 

IMO unless your kid is a 24/7 bookworm better they look into the trades. Other jobs including many medical jobs like reading and interpreting X-rays and other medical.tests are being off shored to Pakistan, Bangledesh, Vietnam etc. Same thing will soon happen to many jobs from US and other Western countries that are now in China. Inflation has caused labor costs to increase in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Beijing and many of those jobs will be moved to the lower labor cost markets of Pakistan, Vietnam, Bangledesh and India. Also as China start enforcing pollution control measures dirty industry will more to countries with no enforcement.