The internationalization of higher education is a major trend around the globe at the moment. One of the manifestations of this phenomenon is that Western universities are setting up programs and entire branch campuses in countries that wish to enhance the quality of higher education that they offer as a means to both benefit local students and to attract foreign students.
Singapore is one of many places in the world that is actively engaged in this process, and the recent establishment of Yale-NUSCollege is an example of that.
Today I was looking at an old newspaper from Singapore called the Straits Chinese Herald (22 January 1894, Page 3) and found an article that was about a related topic – a proposed “Chinese university” in Singapore in 1894.
This is what the article said:
“Mr. Huang Zunxian, the Chinese Consul-General here has proposed to build a college in Singapore for the purpose of admitting advanced boys, irrespective of colour, who have been educated in the English Schools in the Straits Settlements.
After the students have passed the required standard which would principally be advanced English, Chinese characters, and the Mandarin language, the students will be able to obtain employment in the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs and Telegraphic Offices in all parts of China.
The fee for board and tuition of each applicant will be decided by the Committee who will demand according to the circumstances of the applicant’s parents. Mr. Huang proposed the building and up-keep of the college partly by the Chinese Government, and partly by raising subscriptions from the Chinese merchants in Singapore.
Mr. Huang has communicated this to the Government and a suitable site has been applied for. The Chinese Minister in London has also been communicated with.
This is like establishing the Emperor of China’s scholarships in Singapore, and those boys who fail to obtain the Queen’s scholarships which only number two in a year ought to be glad to be admitted into this college where they will receive further and higher education.
As China is not an island of fourteen miles in breadth, there is every chance for those who give satisfaction in the discharge of their duties to the Chinese Government to be promoted to high positions in the empire, which is certainly very much better for those who fail to obtain the Queen’s scholarships than to become ordinary clerks in the Straits Settlements, which will lead to nothing.
We hope the suggestion which is a laudable one will be successfully carried out before long.”
In the late nineteenth century, there were scholarships called the Queen’s Scholarships that were offered to a very small number of local Chinese in Singapore to study in England. Huang Zunxian, meanwhile, had served as a consul in London and San Francisco before taking up the post of consul-general in Singapore in the 1890s.
At that time, the Qing Dynasty had a policy of not allowing Chinese who went overseas to return. Huang Zunxian saw this as a great loss for China (what we would today refer to as a “brain drain”) and he succeeded in getting the court to end this policy.
I had never heard of this proposed college in Singapore, but it is a logical outgrowth of Huang Zunxian’s ideas, as it was a way to get Chinese outside of the country to go back, by educating them and employing them.
What is interesting is that the way that Huang Zunxian was proposing to do this was by getting the Qing Dynasty government to invest in establishing a university of its own overseas.
In many ways this proposed college fits with the type of things that are happening today with the internationalization of education, but in some ways it is different.
Today there are Chinese universities that are seeking to emulate colleges like Yale and set up campuses overseas in places like Malaysia and London.
The goal this time does not seem to be to bring people to China, as was the case in the nineteenth century, but to extend China’s influence into the world.
As far as I know, Huang Zunxian’s proposed university never materialized. I wonder how successful the current efforts will be?
A Chinese university was recently established in Vientiane, Laos and it has now enrolled thousands of students in this country. This move is a part of the internationalisation of education but also a way to spread China’s influence in the Asian region. It is also a response to the increasing demand for higher education in the region, particularly among those who now see doing business with China would probably take them to a better future. Perhaps this is the first Chinese university outside of China that is active and is fast growing.
In this post, it is so interesting to see that those days the Chinese and English languages were seen as going hand-in-hand. I think the idea embedded in the proposal was perhaps much more thoughtful than so many policies involving mediums of instruction and what should be offered in our current internationalisation trends.
Ok, we have to remember though that although the term “college” was being used here, in reality it was just going to be a specific set of courses to train people to work for a specific branch of the Qing Dynasty government – a branch that required people to interact with both foreigners and Chinese.
The Maritime Customs was basically taken over by the British (after one of the opium wars) and there were Englishmen who ran the customs service for the Qing Dynasty. These guys knew Chinese as they had to interact with Chinese who did not know English. At the same time, they also dealt with foreign traders as well.
So the idea that people in this “college” would need to know both Chinese and English was very practical, because in their work they would need both languages.
That said, I agree with you that the (over)emphasis on English these days ignores the fact that there are many (intelligent) people out there who don’t know English that the people who are getting higher degrees in the English medium will have to interact with.
So yea, in the 19th century, colonialists learned the languages of the colonized (so that they could understand and control them), and now in the post-colonial era there is a race to learn English throughout the former colonies (so that people can differentiate themselves from the people around them who don’t know English).
Language is power.
Language is indeed one of the most effective soft power these days!
Maybe I am exaggerating here but I have met so many people enrolling in international programs across multiple disciplines who don’t seem to have really mastered any language (including their first language) at the level that can allow solid scholarship/knowledge to be exchanged and produced.
It’s so common to see people stop growing in their first language around high school time or early years at the university level, while the foreign language they use for their ‘international’ degrees (mostly in English) is not good enough for high levels of knowledge gain, absorption and production.
I acknowledge that there are other ways to look at this issue, and would welcome responses. Thanks!
I agree, but we should be careful not to idealize this “college” as I don’t think people there would have necessarily had language abilities “for high levels of knowledge gain” either. They would have been trained to just collect and record whatever traders had to pay as taxes on their goods, etc.
I guess what I found interesting about this is the way that Singapore’s colonial status was proposed to be used by the Chinese government, and the ways in which this need was not “pure” but was itself the result of China’s “semi-colonial” status.
China needed people who could speak English because part of its government (Maritime Customs) was under the control of foreigners, so the Chinese consul-general in Singapore suggested setting up a “Chinese college” there to train such people since Singapore’s colonial status meant that there were people there who knew English.
It’s all “colonial” but it is a kind of “globalized colonial.” I find that interesting, as it’s more in line with the unequal relations that have existed in the “post-colonial” or “neo-colonial” era.