Rearch On Internationalization Of Higher Education Within The Framework Of GATS

In the globalization era, information and communication technologies, the market economy, new trade agreements, international mobility and knowledge society have been powerful forces for the changes in many sectors including higher education. At present, the demand for higher education is increasing in most countries. This is due to a number of reasons:changing demographics, increased number of secondary school graduates, a movement to life-long learning, and the growth of the knowledge economy.In face of increasing demand for higher education, the capacity of the public sector in many countries to satisfy this need is being challenged. As a result, new types of education providers such as international companies, for-profit institutions, corporate universities are emerging, which deliver education services across national borders to meet the need in other countries. Meanwhile, alternative types of cross-border program delivery such as branch campuses, franchise and twinning arrangements are being developed. Consequently, a rather complex picture of higher education provision is emerging.As a matter of fact, the demand for higher education has been steadily increasing for years and that academic mobility has been a main feature of higher education for decades. Yet, it is only during the last dozens of years that higher education has been thought of as a commodity or a service to be delivered on a commercial basis across borders by both public and private providers. Furthermore, it is only in the last several years that trade agreements have clearly identified education provision as a trade sector, and cross-border education, as an important form of higher education internationalization, has begun to be managed by internatianl trade rules. The fact that the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) explicitly identifies higher education as a service sector to be liberalized and regulated by trade rules is a new territory for the education sector.At present, there is a need to further study the actual impact of the GATS on a country's higher education. According to the research findings of the domestic and foreign scholars, most scholars think that the developed countries are the major beneficial owners, who have not just gained a huge sum of foreign exchange but have attracted a mass of high-level talents from all over the world. However, with the analysis, this dissertation draws a conclusion that those exporters of trade in education services such as the UK regard the GATS as a potential threat as well, which concern the negative effect of the GATS on their higher education. In addition, many scholars and experts believe that the internationalization of education can be realized outside of the trade regime. And all these beliefs provide new evidence for the study of the impact of the GATS on higher education, which is of theoretic importance.The dissertation studies the developing trends of global higher education and the potential impact of the GATS on a country's higher education, especially the impact of the GATS on higher education of those developing countries. With these studies, the author gives China some suggestions on how to develop higher education within the framework of the GATS and what China should pay attention to. On the one hand, there is a tendency of privatization and diversity in the development of global higher education, in which context China should maintain the public property of education based on its own situation and encourage private higher education to develop while regulating the development by laws and regulations. On the other hand, regarding the development of international trade in higher education services, China should have a clear mind about the opportunities as well as potential risks brought about by the development. This dissertation puts forwards some suggestions on how to make related policies and laws and regulations, and on how to improve its competitiveness while taking advantage of quality foreign education resources. It's of practical significance to study higher education within the framework of the GATS.Under the guidance of the related theories and on the basis of generalizing previous research findings of domestic and overseas scholars, the dissertation makes the analysis by means of normative and experimental study, quantitative and qualitative analysis. In the context of globalization, taking economic statistics as evidence, the dissertation penetrates into the development of globalization and internationalization of higher education as well as the controversial issues arising from setting higher education within the framework of the GATS, and it further analyzes the impact of the GATS on higher education both of the developed and developing countries. Finally, the dissertation focuses on China's higher education and analyzes the situation of trade in higher education services in the context of globalization and the corresponding suggestions.According to the research clue above, the dissertation is divided into six chapters.Chapter 1 begins with an introduction to the background and significance of the dissertation and points out the research clue, paper structure, research method, new ideas and deficiencies. Chapter 2 covers a literature review in the domain.Chapter 3 introduces and comments on the related theories, which provide theoretical support for the analysis and study of the dissertation.Chapter 4 analyzes the big development processes of the world higher education. This chapter analyzes the impact of globalization and internationalization on higher education in terms of development stages, forms, developing forces, opportunities and risks. At the same time, it accounts for the contradictory viewpoints on higher education globalization from different countries.Chapter 5 systemically explores the impact of the GATS on high education. This chapter introduces the situation of international trade in higher education services, elaborates the GATS principles related to education, discusses the relationship between the GATS and higher education, analyzes the controversial issues arising from the relationship, and explores the root of the contradictory viewpoints on the GATS and higher education. With the analysis of the affecting factors of the GATS on higher education, this chapter then analyzes the impact on higher education with experimental method from the perspective of importing and exporting countries.Chapter 6 gives an analysis of international trade in China's higher education services. This chapter first reviews the situation of China's higher education development in the context of globalization and the affecting factors, and then it analyzes the impact of internationalization on China's higher education and the policies and counter-measures adopted by our country. It then elaborates the situation of trade in higher education services in China and its commitment to education as well as the features of four modes of education provision and their impact on China's education services. Finally, this chapter, on the basis of the analysis above, proposes some suggestions to develop higher education under the GATS.The last part of the dissertation is the conclusion. The liberalization of higher education is the result of privatization and globalization, and the GATS is the primary driving force. Countries hold contradictory attitudes towards education liberalization due to the uncertainty of the impact of the GATS on higher education. With education increasingly being liberalized, both opportunities and risks arise. The trade rules will affect a country's higher education policies in terms of quality of foreign higher education institutes, the existing situations of domestic univeristities, funding system and capacity building. Yet, to what extent the GATS will affect domestic education system is deternminded by the commitment made by those countries. There include three main new ideas in the dissertation:First, the dissertation holds that the export of China's higher education is in the joining phase of indirect export and direct export based on the features of each phase of higher education internationalization and the goal of internationalization when it discusses the policies and counter-measures to develop higher education under the GATS. Therefore, it proposes that China should adopt the strategy of combination of education aid and export, which is a theoretic creation.Second, in analyzing Chinese-foreign cooperation in education, domestic and foreign scholars mostly explore the reasons for policy distortion from the perspective of policy and policy implementation, while this dissertation points out the inner factors in the problem, namely, the real purpose of those school-running institutions and this new idea compensates some deficiencies in the research.Third, scholars home and abroad usually take some developed country or developing country as an subject when they study the impact of the GATS on higher education, while this dissertation includes these two types of countries when it analyzes the respective impact on exporting countries and importing countries by the GATS, and it further makes a comparison between the impacts. Therefore, the range of study subject is expanded.Yet, the dissertation leaves two points to be desired in future study. GATS influences higher education in various aspects and some concerns law, which is hardly discussed here. In addition, the dissertation touches little upon the impact of the GATS on academic freedom, intellectual property, the production of research and knowledge in the future.