TELLING AUTHENTIC CHINESE STORIES: A BCG MATRIX ANALYSIS ON CHINA’S INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION PROGRAMMES

Abstract. Since the first wave of Covid-19, China has been faced with an increasingly challenging international communication environment. One of the efficient and effective method to avoid misinterpretation or misconception towards China, the country and her culture, is to spread the authentic Chinese stories through international education programmes of Chinese language and cultural exchanges. It is a pressing task for researchers who work in China’s higher education system to examine the major categories of international education programmes and to recommend a promising route of development.

In China’s higher education system, there is a common-shared conception that educational programmes are not products on shelves for customers to choose. The nature of educational programmes are for human development and individual fulfillment, not proper to be marketed with well-designed promotional campaign strategies. However, such stagnant attitude has been eliminated by the exigent demands for successful intercultural communication. Only through successful intercultural communication could win a healthy globalised development environment for the country, for the nation, and for the people.

The aim of this research is to examine the four major categories of international education programmes in China’s higher education system, including programmes of Chinese-taught medical degrees, of Chinese- taught or English-taught general degrees, of Han language degrees (Chinese language major) , and of Chinese cultural study tours (short-termed language trainings). With analyses of the above categories of international education programmes based on the BCG Matrix (the BCG Growth-Share Matrix), the Profitable Market Share and the Market Growth Promises of individual programme are observed and examined.

The conclusion is that the prominent weight of promotional campaigns should be loaded onto short-term cultural study tours targeting at the source countries of international students. Cultural study tours energise mutual understanding and equal cooperation, which fertilises the further internationalisation of China’s higher education by telling authentic Chinese stories through visitors’ individual experience.

Keywords: internationalisation, higher education, Chinese stories, cross-cultural communication