I am French, not British, but more than ten years ago when I was at university, it was accepted that students who get selected for a year of exchange at a Chinese university would not do much, and no one expected much from Chinese students.
To put it simply, there was a principle of reciprocity: if the Chinese students passed their years, the French students would also pass theirs. If it became too difficult or the results were not as expected, it would become difficult for our students.
There were lots of tricks, with special exams in English or Chinese, catch-up work, etc. Who corrected the Chinese assignments in France? No idea.
It was also common knowledge that they had to bring back research documents to China. The lab manager left uninteresting documents lying around everywhere to control the phenomenon.
So nothing new, nothing has changed.
China has been very successful with its university rankings, with everyone scrambling to increase their foreign student numbers and collect tuition fees at the expense of academic results.
All this for the prestige of being ranked by a Chinese university.
To put it simply, there was a principle of reciprocity: if the Chinese students passed their years, the French students would also pass theirs. If it became too difficult or the results were not as expected, it would become difficult for our students.
There were lots of tricks, with special exams in English or Chinese, catch-up work, etc. Who corrected the Chinese assignments in France? No idea.
It was also common knowledge that they had to bring back research documents to China. The lab manager left uninteresting documents lying around everywhere to control the phenomenon.
So nothing new, nothing has changed.
China has been very successful with its university rankings, with everyone scrambling to increase their foreign student numbers and collect tuition fees at the expense of academic results.
All this for the prestige of being ranked by a Chinese university.