Policy Study On The International Courses For Domestic High School Students

International courses for domestic students of domestic high school students (hereinafter referred to as "international courses"), a hot issue in recent basic education reform, are gaining increasing popularity and welcome from governments, schools and families, with globalization growing. The foreign courses adopted by mainland schools include international courses in a general sense, e.g. IB (International Baccalaureate) courses, and other countries’ national courses, e.g. British A-LEVEL (General Certificate of Education Advanced Level) courses and American AP(Advanced Placement) courses. In short, all these courses are referred to as "international courses". On top of a foreign origin, international courses shall meet with another two requirements, namely, targeting at students of different countries and adopting international credit recognized by most universities in many countries.Many high schools begin to carry out international education in the form of international classes by introducing one or more types of international courses, among which the following six types are the most common. The first one is the international courses in a general sense developed by global organizations, e.g. IB (International Baccalaureate) courses; the second one is the national courses from other countries, e.g. British A-LEVEL (General Certificate of Education Advanced Level) courses and IGCSE (International General Certificate Of Secondary Education), and American AP (Advanced Placement) courses and GED (General Educational Development) courses; the third one is the state courses developed in another country, e.g. Canadian VCE (Victoria Certificate of Education) courses and BC (British Columbia) courses; the fourth one is the courses jointly developed by China and other countries, e.g. PGA (Project of Global Access) courses by ACT and CEAIE (China Education Association for International Exchange); the fifth one is the courses from foreign high schools introduced in the form of school-to-school cooperation; the last one is certain subjects offered by foreign high schools.International courses bring new blood into domestic high schools in the aspects as schooling philosophy and curriculum reform, the diversification of local education and more choices for students. But early introduction saw a lot of problems, for example, unclear policies and laws, lack of coordination between different regions/schools, without standards regulating course-choosing, cooperation agreements, teacher recruiting, quality management, tuition fees, and values, and weak risk-controlling. To remove these problems, people’s ideas differ. One point of view goes that the introduction and provision of international courses shall be controlled under strict regulations. The second one is that international courses, as a new force in education reform, shall be given more free room to develop in that strict regulations will limit our education reform and exploration. The third one is the combination of the advantages of former two thoughts, using systems and management to give full play to the positive points of international courses and to avoid potential problems.These different ideas reflect the four challenges to be fight off by policy-setting. First, misunderstanding of the problems as "what are the problems in international courses", "why problems occur in the introduction of international courses", "why we need to introduce international courses", "how to orient the value of international courses". Second, lack of standard in regulating the introduction and provision of international courses, for example, "what is the introduction standard and why", "which areas are allowed to introduce international courses", "who can provide these courses". Third, problems in normalizing and ensuring the quality of operation, for example, "how to enroll students", "to give student roll or not", "to charge a fee or not", "how to organize and support the teachers", "to treat public and private high schools equally or not". Fourth, sovereignty problems in the penetration process of different markets and cultures:"how to avoid potential ideological risks", "how to maintain our nation’s spirit", and "how to analyze the market and family requirements for international courses". In short, the last one is put forward on the basis of former ones.Attitudes towards the orientation of international courses also differ, which can be summarized as three ones, say, education, market, and the public. The three different orientations, however, share one intersection, namely, the students. This tells the fact that international courses in high schools shall put cultivation as the center and students at the first place.When it comes to the entry approval, the primary process in opening international courses, some are for it, but some are not, because of the advantages and disadvantages brought about by those courses. Actually, the two views are somewhat biased. From the perspective of public policies, we need a model to analyze, in a systematic way, the environment in which international courses are and their relations to the environment. International courses can only be approved to enter under three requirements, namely, regional conditions, school development and social (individual families are included) responses. These requirements mirror the powers pushing for the entry of international courses, say, regional support, school promotion, and social effect. If the powers of an international course tend to converge (be positive), it can be approved to enter the class. If not (be negative), it will be refused. After that, the approval policies of international courses can be classified into four types as positive supporting policy and positive restricting policy, negative supporting policy and negative restricting policy.When it comes to the real operation and management of international courses, there are a lot of problems to be solved, for instance, the combination of domestic courses with foreign ones, class system, management frame, the quality of teachers, enrollment, tuition fees, the difference between public and private high schools, etc.. What’s worse, lack of policy regulations and the differences in operating cause more other problems as unclear statement on the rights of different parties, shortened or excessively extended subjects, uneven level of and inadequate number of teachers, the dilemma of charging faced by public schools, uneven level of course providers, etc.. All these problems go against the application of the value of international courses, with the realization of the goal of reforming high school curricula and improving educating modes through drawing upon the strong points in foreign courses interrupted. Therefore, we are supposed to think of and solve these problems from the aspect of policies.The policies regulating the international courses shall comply with five principles. First, the international courses shall put cultivation as the center and students at the first place, and are conducive to educate modern Chinese with international horizon, a good knowledge of international norms, and ready for international competition and cooperation. Second, to build corresponding systems for entry approval and examination, with approved course list, qualification of the providers, and the schooling purpose involved. Third, to differentiate the management of public and private schools according to international practice, with such aspects as enrollment, school roll and tuition fees in particular. Fourth, to improve the overall quality of the teachers and their profession, establishing corresponding organizations to manage international courses and relevant examinations, building provincial centers for international examinations, and conducting pilot projects of providing international courses in certain schools. Fifth, to promote the integration of Chinese courses with foreign courses and the innovation of local courses, as a result of which some local courses can be introduced to the world.Education shall be conducted on the premise that the sovereignty is not interfered. So, basic education shall adhere to socialist core values and attach great importance on refined cultural tradition of our nation. Introducing international courses into high schools may undergo such processes as getting familiar with these courses, integrating with local courses step by step, innovating local courses and educational modes, in which the schools are required to keep to their own orientations, spare all their efforts and regulate the policy-setting. Only in this way, schools offering international courses can have a scientific orientation, acquire entry approval, and carry out with standardized and quality management, which not only serve the reform and improvement of local schooling, but also benefit all the students.