EASY ACCESS TO SCHOLARSHIPS AND LENIENT VISA REGIME ARE MAKING CHINESE UNIVERSITIES THE TOP CHOICE FOR A GROWING NUMBER IN AFRICA
BY JEVANS NYABIAGE
NAIROBI, Kenya, August 15, 2024 — When Kenyan international relations student Adhere Cavince wanted to pursue his doctoral degree, “studying in China came as a natural choice” because of his academic interest and China’s global ambitions.
Cavince – who won a Chinese government scholarship to Central China Normal University from 2019-2022 – is among thousands of Africans benefiting from Beijing-funded scholarships. Many others self-finance their studies in China.
Observers say a growing number of African students are choosing China as their top study destination because of its affordability in terms of both tuition fees and living costs, as well as a lenient student visa regime and easy access to scholarships.
They could become an army of influencers in the future that is favourable towards China and its activities as Africa’s largest trading partner and bankroller of multibillion-dollar projects through the Belt and Road Initiative, the observers said.
“I had an offer to study at a European university but my interest area drove me to study in China,” said Cavince, now an international relations specialist based in Nairobi. He added that China’s education system has improved in quality to match the skill levels in Europe and North America.
According to Cavince, the cost of living is much lower for foreign students, who are also looked after better, so that many parents who are willing to privately fund their children’s education abroad are increasingly looking towards China.
China was outranked only by France as the top overseas higher education destination for African students four years ago, when Chinese statistics about international student numbers were last released.
The US was in third place, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank headquartered in Washington.
In 2018 at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), Chinese President Xi Jinping promised Africans 50,000 scholarships and an equal number of training opportunities in China over three years.
The pledge dwarfed similar scholarship programmes for African students offered by France, Britain and the US.
According to the Chinese education ministry, there were 81,562 African students in China in 2018, with 6,385 of them pursuing a PhD – 17 per cent of its international student community and a leap from 2 per cent a decade earlier.
Enrolment numbers for international students at Chinese universities were hit by China’s strict zero-Covid policies during the pandemic. China only relaxed its lockdown rules in January 2023.
Unlike previous summits, China made no commitment on the number of scholarships at the 2021 FOCAC in Senegal, although Xi said in a virtual address that Beijing would continue to train professionals under the programme.
China is expected to make another commitment on scholarships for African students at the next FOCAC, planned for September in Beijing.
Sociologist Benjamin Mulvey from the University of Glasgow was cautious about the data on China’s international student numbers, pointing out that the country includes students on non-degree language programmes, while others tend to only count degree-level studies.
“So [China] might not be the second most popular destination,” Mulvey said. “In addition, they haven’t released any statistics for any academic year since 2018, so I am not sure if that would still be true.”
But he noted that African students perceive that Chinese language skills and an understanding of China’s culture will be valued in their home countries’ labour markets, because of the activity of Chinese enterprises across Africa.
“They tend to think that these skills would be valued for their rarity and make them highly employable,” said Mulvey, author of Mapping International Student Mobility Between Africa and China.
Cliff Mboya, another Kenyan who won a four-year scholarship to study for a doctorate in China, said his background in journalism and international relations “sparked my interest” in the country.
Mboya, who arrived at Shanghai’s Fudan University in 2016 to study international politics, said he was also intrigued by China’s massive engagement with African countries, which fed into his curiosity about China.
“My academic life was interesting. I learned a lot about the country, the people and culture. I realised how ignorant so many of us on the continent are about China and its people. It was an eye-opener and a wonderful experience,” he said.
According to Mboya, the Chinese student visa regime is open and “once you get your student admission or scholarship, it is almost guaranteed that you will get your visa to China”.
Obert Hodzi, a senior lecturer and associate professor in politics at the University of Liverpool, said admission requirements for most Chinese universities are less stringent than their Western counterparts.
African students can more easily gain admission to universities in China for medicine, engineering and other prestigious courses, he said. It is also relatively easier to get a student visa for China than it is to study in France, Britain or the US.
“This has been one of the major drivers as the anti-immigration drive grows stronger in the West, and more right-wing political parties push for reductions of illegal and legal immigrants, including students,” Hodzi said.
According to Yun Sun, co-director of the East Asia Programme and director of the Washington-based Stimson Centre’s China Programme, “China wants to gain hearts and minds” by offering opportunities like scholarships to African students.
“The familiarity and affinity from those opportunities are hoped to bring African youth and future generations closer to China,” she said, adding that the scholarships are an affordable way for students from Africa to receive higher education in a great power.
“The opportunities China offers also are very attractive,” Sun said.
The University of Liverpool’s Hodzi said the scholarships – mostly from the central government – are part of Beijing’s “long-term strategy to train and build an alumni of African students who have greater appreciation of Chinese education, culture, and way of doing things”.
X.N. Iraki, an economics professor at the University of Nairobi, said China is generous with funding and acts as a counterweight to the restrictions imposed by Western countries, particularly since September 11, 2001.
He speculated that Beijing may be adopting a similar strategy to the 1960 US scholarship programme partly arranged by then presidential candidate John F. Kennedy and African independence activist Tom Mboya.
“China could be emulating the US airlift for Kenyan students before independence and for Soviet republics students after the end of the Cold War,” said Iraki, referring to the US scholarships offered through the programme.
“By educating such students, you get ambassadors who can give your country a positive image and increase the propensity to buy Chinese products and services. It can be seen as soft diplomacy. It’s a purveyor of Chinese influence,” he said.
However, when it comes to absorbing African trainees into the Chinese job market, there are fewer opportunities, the Stimson Centre’s Sun warned.
“The language barrier, the relative closeness of the society, and the difficulty to find jobs with local Chinese employers are all factors,” she said.
According to Sun, the expectation is that international students will return home and promote relations between their countries and China from there. “Staying in China is not part of China’s aspiration.”
Mboya – currently in South Africa where he is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Africa-China Studies at the University of Johannesburg – said more students return home after their studies because that is how the programmes have been designed.
“You are meant to go study and then go back to your country … to serve your country,” he said.
Nevertheless, there are avenues opening up that allow foreign students in China to obtain work visas, particularly in hi-tech sectors, according to Cavince.
“As China internationalises its education and research fields, we see young Africans finding work opportunities in specialised research institutes dedicated to African affairs,” he said.
NOTE: Kenyan journalist Jevans Nyabiage is the South China Morning Post’s first Africa correspondent. Based in Nairobi, Jevans keeps an eye on China-Africa relations and also Chinese investments, ranging from infrastructure to energy and metal, on the continent.
