Lessons to be learned in new global classroom

Congresses are about legacies and planning. There are many ways to measure a country's greatness: GDP, military strength, standard of living. My favorite is education, from kindergartens to colleges. More than any other aspect of a society, it shows vision, foresight, ambition and caring. China has arrived economically, and its education sector is reaching out in ways that would have been unimaginable until recently. A primary engine of growth for international higher education, China is leading the way in student recruitment, English and Chinese language programs, transnational education and short-term study abroad.

The Ministry of Education launched the Study in China plan in 2010, with the aim of attracting 500,000 students by 2020.

They are well on the way to that, with 442,773 international students studying in China last year. Countries, especially the United States, are sending students to study in China, and perhaps some of these students would in the past have chosen the United Kingdom, other countries in Europe, or stayed in the US. This outreach is not a global trend. In the UK, the number of incoming international students has hit a plateau, according to figures from the UK Council for International Student Affairs. This is against the backdrop of increasingly rigid visa regulations for international students and the Brexit vote aftershocks.