An Argument Against Foreign Students

An Argument Against Foreign Students 

I realize that title sounds damning to foreign students especially those whose first language is not English, but it should be equally damning of any institution willing to sell its academic soul on the market place as many colleges and universities from North America, Europe and Australia have done.  Its really a combination of greed leading to lower tolerances and therefore lower expectations and academic standards on the part of the institutions involved and students who lack language skills and seek every technical and other unethical method to beat the system to achieve easy marks.  Therefore, on one hand greed for easy money and greed for easy marks proves to be a bad combination especially for those domestic students who just want an affordable quality education.

Recently, I was reading a BBC article about the government of Australia restricting the number of foreign students it allows into its country, this news was similar to news already out in Canada reporting that student quotas and restrictions will also apply here.  The problem government officials cited was not so much anything to do with lower standards, but made strong links to inflation, food costs and housing shortages.  In both Australia and Canada it was felt that through government immigration policies, in regards to student visas, these issues could at least be partially addressed.

From my own experience having worked in China as a school principal as well as in three other Chinese schools in Canada I have a few thoughts about the quality of students coming to Canada, the quaity of education they receive and what they expect to receive, some aspects of their motivation and why it is not always a good thing for Canada.  

I grew up for much of my life in a University City and foreign students were always a part of the community or at least seen in the community.  The universities were like a city within a city with little merging of cultures. Having the universities did bring prestige, honours and wealth to the city and needless to say an essential part of our society.  As such, as the larger community, for many of us, we grew to see the elite of foreign students and deemed them all to be exceptional students, geniuses in fact, often better than our home grown talent. That at least was the sterotype that my generation grew up with and to every stereotype I believe there is an element of truth to get it started.  

However, later in life and after actually living in China I realized their population, although vastly larger than Canada’s was no different in ability.  They certainly had many, many hard working smart people.  Given if you constructed a bell curve depicting IQ of the population or of a cross section of it one would find in that sample genius and imbecile in about equal numbers as in Canada and the rest of the world.  The low end of that spectrum do not come as foreign students to student abroad.  We only get to see the best of the best and form our opinions about their abilities based on the skewed sample we are exosed to.  We would have a different opinion if we saw the sample in its enterity as when one in immersed in the culture.

Why do students come to Canada, Australia, New Zealand the UK even the United States, or an education? Many stay in China after writing their university entrance exam called the Gaokao, an exam written by some twenty million students annually.  About 10 million of those go on to attend very good universites and colleges in China.  The rest have to scramble and rewrite the test the following year and agai and again, give up and enter the work force or go over seas. Many of the bright ones do come to attend the top one hundred universities of the world most of which are found in the Western World.  

After Covid it seems the quality of students coming from abroad has declined but the demand for placement in Western universities and even private high schools is still quite high.  For some of these students who have failed the Gaokao there is great personal and family shame as China for example is a shame based culture based on confusianism.  In order to over come some facets of this shame a family can regain face by sending their child to a western university.  Ths gives them bragging rights at home and solves a major problem.  It could also lead to a promising future if that child is successful, comes back with a degree and speaks fluent English.  In the end using Canada as an example we get some first tier students and then we get a range of students with a very wide range of abilities and language skills upon arrival to the country.

To be continued…