Research on the Internationalization Strategy of Higher Education under the Background of Network Education

Abstract

The nationalization of higher education is the only way for the further development of colleges and universities in the future, among which strengthening the education and management of college students is one of the most important tasks. At present, China’s economy and science and technology are developing by leaps and bounds, which has led to the rapid development of education to a certain extent. Therefore, many foreign students will choose China for further study. However, we can clearly find that the traditional Chinese education concept of overseas students is inconsistent with some foreign cultures, so it is difficult to carry out teaching smoothly. With the internationalization of higher education and the development of network technology, a large number of high-level brain drain increases. Therefore, China’s colleges and universities must change the educational concept and curriculum system, strengthen the training of teaching and management team, innovate teaching mode, strengthen scientific research cooperation, make good use of network technology, and make correct response measures to achieve success. Based on the problems of internationalization of higher education under the background of network education, this paper analyzes the current situation of internationalization of higher education in China and provides some help on how to deal with this change.

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

1. Introduction

The arrival and implementation of network technology will not only have a significant impact on all aspects and elements of existing educational activities, but more importantly, the popularization of the network will have an impact on the traditional educational ideas and ideas [1]. Under the promotion of network technology, people can meet their increasingly personalized education needs, and people no longer need to go to a specific place at a specified time to receive specific education [2]. At the same time, the impact of the network on education is not limited to the field of education. The network will make educational activities increasingly social, and the whole society can provide educational resources. The educated are not only students, but also educators and educatees [3]. The development of network makes it possible to realize educational equality and educational democracy [4]. The one belt, one road strategy can be used to promote the international music education and bring hitherto unknown opportunities from the perspective of educational internationalization [5]. Therefore, every leap of network technology has a huge impact on the traditional education; we have gradually entered the era of network education.

In recent years, scholars at home and abroad mainly focus on university evaluation, international component investigation, international strategic structure and overall report of higher education, and lack of thinking on international higher education strategy [6]. The research on the internationalization strategy of higher education can solve the deficiency of higher education in the internationalization strategy of higher education and has certain reference significance for the government and universities to develop the internationalization strategy of higher education [7]. Based on the Ministry of education’s international policies and scientists’ research on the international strategy of higher education, it is found that the elements of international higher education strategy mainly include international academic exchange, international learning network and evaluation of international universities, production of education industry, open international exchange, etc [8].

Since the last century, with the rapid development of economic globalization and network technology, the internationalization of global higher education has begun. More and more universities regard internationalization as an important school running concept [9]. It is the goal of colleges and universities to strive to build itself into a world-class university, to cultivate high-level and international talents with international concepts and rules, and to have first-class knowledge level and international competitiveness. This is both an opportunity and a challenge for domestic universities. Only by seizing the opportunity and adopting active and effective coping strategies is the only way for internationalization of China’s higher education [10].

Starting from the internationalization of higher education under the background of network education, this study analyzes the current situation of the internationalization of higher education in China and provides some ideas, discussion, and analysis on how to deal with this change, so as to make greater development of higher education in China.

2. The Understanding of Internationalization of Higher Education under the Network Education

2.1. Connotation of Internationalization of Higher Education

Internationalization of higher education is not a simple concept. It is a process of “integrating cross-border and cross-cultural perspectives with the main functions of universities, such as education, scientific research, and social services.” Economic globalization has laid a material foundation for the internationalization of higher education. Economic globalization has promoted the opening-up, exchange, and cooperation of various countries and made their education communication more closely. This is why economic globalization promotes the internationalization of education and makes it an old trend that education does not drift with the tide. The nature of higher education also determines the trend of internationalization of education. The purpose of higher education is to cultivate professional talents. It is different from basic education. Therefore, it must have an international perspective. This is why the task of cultivating international talents has always been in higher education.

2.2. Current Situation of Higher Education under the Background of Internationalization

Since the establishment of the College of network education in 1998, modern distance education and school network education have entered the ordinary academic education in colleges and universities. However, it is a common phenomenon that the relationship between traditional education and modern network education cannot be well reconciled. The specific manifestations are as follows: (1) when parents and students hear that this kind of education is based on computer-aided learning, multimedia classroom, and network course learning platform, they will inevitably doubt it and do not have enough sense of trust. (2) Based on the current teaching environment and national policies, out of school learning is more trusted by parents and students than in school teaching, because parents and students do not know the courses and teachers of out of school learning, so they deeply doubt the quality of out of school learning. Everyone wants to be able to focus on teaching or training at the school headquarters. This is because parents and students have a serious misunderstanding of the construction and management of internet teaching. (3) Because the relationship between diploma and quality is not well handled in China, it is a common phenomenon to attach importance to academic qualifications and despise quality. If online education is added, students and parents will generally care whether the online education diploma is the same as the in school teaching diploma, and if the state and society admit that they can take the public entrance examination.

3. Experimental Ideas and Design

3.1. Experimental Ideas

Nowadays, with the rapid development of economic globalization and network technology, higher education in the world has been developing in the direction of internationalization. For example, there has been a large-scale upsurge of going abroad; international academic exchanges and academic conferences are gradually increasing. With the help of their own cultural strength, western countries and other countries are in the forefront of the internationalization of higher education, paying attention to the positive contribution and focusing on the import of talents; developing countries learn more from the ideas, systems, and models of developed countries, mainly focusing on the export of talents. According to the research under the background of education internationalization, the research of talent cultivation strategy in colleges and universities seems to present a one-way flow of talents. Therefore, in the case of unbalanced world education system, developed countries have stronger ability to attract talents. Developing countries must strive to cultivate international talents who can meet the needs of international exchange and development, improve education level, and narrow the gap with developed countries.

3.2. Experimental Design

For our country, the outstanding performance is a large number of high-level brain drain increases, facing a long period of brain drain situation. In the design, this paper adopts the form of literature survey, consulting a large number of documents and materials. Through the analysis of the survey results, the data as shown in Table 1 show that in the past 20 years, the number of all kinds of overseas students in China reached 1.7581 million, while only 500000 returned, with a return rate of 29%. This situation fully illustrates the serious brain drain in China. According to the literature, in the academic year of 2018-2019, the number of Chinese students in the United States has reached 185932, and the Chinese alone account for 30% of the total number of American overseas students, as shown in Figure 1, China is already the largest source country of American students. On the other hand, China cannot attract international students very well. Therefore, colleges and universities should adjust their methods and strategies according to the current situation of education, strengthen the concept of online international education in many aspects, build an international online curriculum system, establish a high-quality team of international teachers, and better cultivate students' internationalization ability of higher education.

Table 1

Questionnaire on the situation of Chinese students studying abroad in recent years.

Survey factors	Number of overseas students (10000)	Number of returnees (10000)	Return rate (%)
The situation of Chinese students studying abroad in the past 20 years	175.81	50	29
The situation of Chinese students studying abroad in recent years	76.15	17	23

[figure(s) omitted; refer to PDF]

4. Discussion

4.1. Application Analysis of Internationalization of Higher Education under the Background of Network Education

In the design, this paper adopts two forms: questionnaire survey and field interview. 956 college students and professional teachers were selected as the survey samples. There are college students and professional teachers among the interviewees. The purpose of this study is to explore the current situation of talent cultivation in colleges and universities under the background of internationalization of online education in China. Through the analysis of questionnaire survey and interview results, 203 students and teachers were analyzed and divided into two groups. One group represents the students, and the other group represents the teachers, respectively, which expounds their opinions on the current network education under the background of internationalization of university teaching. After one semester of teaching, we investigated and analyzed the degree of curriculum recognition of the two groups, and the results are shown in Table 2. Based on the survey results of the two groups, we find that there are some problems in the talent cultivation of colleges and universities under the background of the internationalization of online education.

Table 2

Investigation and analysis on the problems of talent cultivation in colleges and universities under the background of internationalization of online education.

Investigation factors	Students group (%)	Teachers group (%)
The impact of foreign culture, the emergence of the upsurge of studying abroad	72.6	89.3
The virtualization of network education environment	32.4	41.7
Chinese foreign cooperation in running schools is too simplistic	85.6	69.8
The domestic curriculum is not in line with the international standards	62.8	76.5

As shown in Figure 2, since the last century, Japan has kept up with the pace of the world’s education internationalization, and its education internationalization level is very high. The Japanese government attaches great importance to foreign students, who believe that they can strengthen their international competitiveness. Thanks to the efforts of the Japanese government, the number of foreign students in 2010 was 141771, compared with 6572 in 1980. In the past 30 years, the number of Japanese overseas students has increased by 95.1%. Japan also attaches great importance to participating in the education of international organizations and the educational development of developing countries. It believes that the purpose of internationalization of higher education is to promote the cooperation between domestic and foreign universities and nongovernmental organizations, so that the whole world can participate in international education development in an organized way. This is enough to show that under the background of online education, China needs to constantly improve its own competitive level, select appropriate development strategies, in order to cope with the tide of education internationalization, and remain invincible in the fierce international market competition.

[figure(s) omitted; refer to PDF]

From the background of network education, Chinese people’s demand for higher education resources is increasing day by day, which puts forward “strict requirements” for the internationalization of China’s higher education. The following statistical data can particularly illustrate the development of internationalization of China’s higher education. According to the statistical results of economic cooperation and development of OECD in 2010, as shown in Figure 3, in 2008, the output of educational talents in the United States, Britain, Germany, France, and other developed countries accounted for 43.35% of the world, with the United States accounting for 18.68% and the United Kingdom accounting for 10.05%. There are only 223499 Chinese students studying in China, accounting for 6.69% of the total number of students in the world, while 510842 Chinese students choose to study in developed countries, which are about 2.5 times of the total number of students studying in China. Opportunities for education are increasingly diversified. In recent years, the phenomenon of “three no’s” in college enrollment examination is becoming more and more common, that is, senior high school graduates do not participate in the college entrance examination and do not fill in the volunteer application form. If you do not get into the ideal university, you will not register. Then, more and more people choose to study abroad, and the brain drain in China is becoming more and more serious. Under the background of network education, the choice of internationalization of higher education has become a national development strategy, which is an important direction of higher education development in China in the future.

[figure(s) omitted; refer to PDF]

4.2. Countermeasures for the Internationalization of China’s Higher Education in the Era of Network Education

4.2.1. Strengthen the Research of Network Education Policy and Promote the Good Development of Network Education

Network education in colleges and universities is established and developed with the support of the government. It needs macrocontrol and self-restraint of policies. The basic premise of the development of network education is the overall deployment of the national government departments on network education policies and management. To support network education, network education can develop rapidly. Only by establishing corresponding legal system and regulating network education better can network education develop healthily. In China, network education is still in the early stage of development, and the teaching form of network education is still in constant exploration. Network education poses new challenges to the traditional school basic education, as well as to the management system, teaching mode and educational ideas, and ideas of colleges and universities. This is why it will inevitably lead to the reform of education system and management system, as well as a series of changes in education policy.

4.2.2. Make Good Use of the Concept of Network Education to Study the New Mode of International Cooperative Education

In today’s international cooperation, the world’s open universities have formed a variety of cooperation modes, including input and output mode and cooperation mode. These modes will become the reference authentication mode and resource sharing mode for the future development and cooperation of open universities in China. These international cooperation modes have been developed to different degrees in different countries and regions and have had a significant international impact It has positive reference significance for the construction of international cooperation education mode in colleges and universities. In China, the main task of Open University is to continuously improve and develop on the basis of absorbing foreign advanced ideas and experience and gradually form an international cooperative education mode suitable for the development of open education in China. The tasks include breaking away from China in some specific fields, using the existing high-quality educational resources of the International Open University to develop China’s unique teaching methods, exploring ways to improve the international influence of the Open University; establishing international certification of learning outcomes, developing new international cooperation methods, and further promoting the resource sharing mode by building an international resource sharing platform In the process of exploring the mode of input and output, certification, and sharing, the Open University will continue to improve and improve itself and effectively promote the internationalization of distance education.

4.2.3. Deepen the Reform of Higher Education System

We should eradicate some malpractices in the higher education system as soon as possible, such as single teaching base, rigid education system, old teaching mode, single investment system, and backward management mode. In order to solve these problems, it is necessary to accelerate the transformation of higher education to a flexible and dynamic diversified system, specifically to realize the diversification of public ownership in colleges and universities. We should exercise the right of education adjustment and development reasonably to ensure the security and development space of higher education. In terms of curriculum, international courses can be added appropriately, but according to the reality of our country, we should vigorously develop higher education courses with Chinese national characteristics. In terms of curriculum content, we must understand the essence of education from the free development of human beings. We should not only timely bring the frontier achievements of world science and technology development into the research system but also bring the essence of human civilization into the research system, so as to truly realize the universal value of advanced knowledge.

5. Conclusions

In a word, higher education benefits from the popularization and development of network technology, and the development and popularization of network technology also depends on the development of higher education. The network society must be a society with unprecedented development of higher education. The development of the network provides an international stage for the development of China’s higher education and creates a favorable environment for the international exchange of higher education. We have reason to believe that with the acceleration of the internationalization of China’s higher education, our higher education will certainly have greater development. China’s higher education is standing at a new historical starting point, ushering in a great era. We are full of confidence, comply with the call of the times and open up vast wisdom. We constantly overcome difficulties and constantly face problems, but the courage in our hearts makes us full of strength. We constantly open up a new situation of innovation and keep pace with the times.

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