Study tours abroad more hype than substance
Overseas study tours have become increasingly popular among Chinese students during the summer vacation. Two experts share their views on the issue with China Daily’s Yao Yuxin. Excerpts follow:
Parents in China believe overseas study tours can help prepare their children for receiving higher education abroad in the future. A decade-long study suggests children who travel overseas are more likely to study abroad when they grow up, as they can experience first hand what the best universities are like even during their short academic trips. The study also shows the United States remains the top destination for Chinese students for overseas studies, followed by the United Kingdom and Australia.
Middle-income families in China consider their children’s expensive overseas study tours as a wise investment, because it allows the children to come into contact with foreign cultures and helps broaden their horizon. Even though some study tours provide little opportunity for children to gather any valuable experience except that of traveling abroad, many Chinese parents believe such academic trips could inspire their children to set a higher goal in life and pay more attention to studies after returning to China.
Similar activities within the country are also considered normal as visiting top Chinese uniThe
versities such as Peking University and Tsinghua University is usually on the list of children touring Beijing.
But parents have to realize that sending their children to study abroad is not always the best choice, as they may not receive quality education, especially if they are admitted to second-rate schools. Besides, they should take their children’s educational performance and characters into consideration before deciding to send them abroad for higher education. For example, children who lack self-discipline may not be able to achieve their academic goals and meet their parents’ expectations.
Therefore, parents need to adopt a rational approach to short-term overseas study tours, not least because the charges are over-inflated. In addition, the government should encourage fair play in the overseas tour market, so eventually only the quality ones can survive.
Thanks to the years of hype by travel agencies, overseas study tours seem to have become a necessary holiday schedule for school children. Some parents even feel guilty if they cannot send their children abroad during the summer vacation.
However, parents should stop such comparative analysis and make decisions based on the family’s income and their children’s academic development plan, as short-term overseas academic trips play a limited role in their children’s academic and character development. In fact, overseas study tours may not be more rewarding than a visit to the countryside for some children.
Moreover, owing to the increasing demand, overseas study tours have become very commercial in recent years, as the thriving market has attracted all kinds of businesses to this sector of tourism. Normal overseas trips to foreign countries, espe- cially to Western countries, would actually provide greater experiences for children and help them in their academic pursuit.
Although it is important for the government to implement rules to ensure travel agencies operate within legal boundaries, it is up to parents to play a key role in deciding which overseas study tour, if any, their children should go on.
But since many parents seem to have accepted such overseas study tours as normal, they fail to ensure their children visit the right universities to gather the necessary experience to study abroad in the future. Which makes it easy for travel agencies to extract more money from parents to pay for the tour expenses of some teachers accompanying the children and the kickbacks some overseas schools demand to allow children to visit them, as well as to make excessive profits.
The need is to set up parent committees at the school level, which would give suggestions on the schedule, expenses and security issues for overseas study tours and monitor the entire process till the end of a trip. This can also help parents decide whether it is necessary for children to take overseas study tours even if they intend to send them abroad for higher studies in the future.
Many believe that the Chinese will be short of retaliatory targets since China exports far more to the United States than US exports to China. But a Bloomberg report suggests that China could punish the vast US investment in China, which would hit companies such as Apple, General Motors, Starbucks and Walmart.
A Deutsche Bank Research study shows that if you count both US exports and sales within China, the US has a surplus of $20 billion with China.
There should be no concerns that China may run out of ammunition. However, it is nothing worth celebrating because such a tariff war spells disaster for both nations and the world.
Returning to China a week ago after years of covering Washington, I was asked repeatedly by people of diverse background to make sense of Trump’s tariff actions.
I can’t. The many US economists I had talked to, including left and right leaning and centrist, can’t make sense of it either. Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro is probably the only US economist who believes “jobs and wealth are being given to other countries”, despite the rebuttals from numerous respected economists.
Benn Steil and Benjamin Della Rocca, two economists at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on Tuesday that Navarro and Trump are “logically and historically false” in their comments about the trade deficits of the US.
Their study proved that rising growth tends to expand US imports through high consumption. Thus the imports reflect the strength of the US economy, rather than giving jobs and wealth to other countries.
Many studies have also shown that automation and factory efficiency, rather than China, or India or Mexico, are the main reason for vast majority of jobs that have been lost in the US.
What is also true is that Trump’s tariffs, which are aimed at hurting the Chinese economy and blackmailing China, will inflict enormous harm on US consumers and businesses. Tariffs on China are simply new taxes on US consumers, not to mention China’s retaliatory tariffs on US exports.
The outcry by US farmers, ranchers, retailers, manufacturers, economists and bipartisan lawmakers against Trump’s tariff measures shows that those tariffs, whether aimed at China or other nations, are extremely unpopular and considered irrational and irresponsible. They harm the US at the same time they hurt other countries.
Trump’s tariffs are not only holding the Chinese and other economies hostage, they have seriously violated the global trade rules and norms, undermined the credibility of the US’ global leadership and eroded the moral high ground the US likes to claim.
There is too much at stake. Trump and his trade hawks must be brought to their senses.