The ongoing industrial transformation is fundamentally reshaping the global demand for engineering talent. This paper provides an analysis of the evolving competence profile required of future engineers. It first establishes the dynamic landscape of industrial change and its impact on engineering roles, then introduces a tripartite conceptual framework that moves beyond the traditional technical/non-technical binary. It includes: hard competencies - the technical expertise in fields; soft competencies - the interpersonal and collaborative capabilities essential for cross-cultural and team work; and meta competencies - the higher-order capacities for lifelong learning and adaptability to rapid change. Subsequently, it examines two pioneering educational responses to this competences gap, MIT’s NEET program and China’s strategic initiatives with Future Technology and Modern Industrial Colleges. Finally, it critically discusses the persistent challenges facing engineering education, such as rigid curricula and the theory-practice gap. It concludes that cultivating engineers equipped with integrated hard, soft, and meta competencies is not merely an educational objective but a cornerstone of global industrial resilience and sustainable development.
Although many studies have addressed the impact of limited digital access on learning opportunities for students from disadvantaged backgrounds in industrialized countries, this is not the case in emerging economies. This study explores the relationship between digital access and academic performance among secondary school students in China and three major cities of the Colombian Caribbean. Data used for this study was retrieved from open secondary and alternative sources, including PISA results, results of national assessments, and several international education indicators. A single hypothesis was developed to examine the impact of digital inequality on academic performance in both countries. To operationalize and test the hypothesis, a series of operations and tests of reliability, correlation analysis, and regression analysis with interaction effects were employed. The results of the study suggest that limited digital access has a greater negative impact on academic performance in the Caribbean than in China and contributes to comparative education discussions about the concept of digital equity in emerging economies.
International student mobility is increasingly framed through economic and security logics, yet less is known about how international study becomes consequential for civic and institutional practice after return. The analysis draws on in-depth interviews conducted between May 2023 and September 2024 with 393 internationally educated returnees across 68 countries, spanning social, political, and economic contexts. Return is treated as an analytic vantage point that reveals how comparative experience is carried into familiar institutional settings. Interviews are analysed interpretively, focusing on judgement and meaning-making. The study identifies five generative mechanisms through which international study becomes consequential after return: reflexive agency, civic understanding, knowledge translation, transnational social relations, and intercultural understanding. These mechanisms operate unevenly and in varied combinations, shaping how returnees judge what is possible and legitimate within constrained contexts. The analysis also introduces presence as a sustained reflexive and relational stance through which engagement, shaped by these mechanisms, may be held over time, even when institutional responsiveness is limited. The findings indicate that international student mobility matters not as a guarantee of transformation, but as a source of capacities that may support sustained judgement and engagement in the slow, cumulative work of institutional life.
Many university students in China are suffering from mental health problems, and the need for preventative well-being trainings has been recognised. Given limited resources, innovative approaches are needed to increase university students’ well-being skills. The present case study aims to explore the change in Chinese university students’ psychological flexibility, well-being, and study-related burnout during an ACT-based online course and explore the differences in the changes between wellbeing initial well-being profiles. In addition, the objective is to explore how students themselves reflect the effects of the course. An online ACT-based course was offered to two Chinese universities in 2024. The study applied a mixed methods approach combining paired t-tests, mixed ANOVA and inductive content analysis. The data were collected through pre- and post-questionnaires (n = 35) and students’ reflective journals. Quantitative results revealed significant increases in students’ scores on psychological flexibility and a decrease in burnout. In addition, the study suggests that students with low initial well-being benefit from the course more. Students’ reflections included several different benefits from the course related to well-being and studying.
This study investigates Chinese language education in Norwegian lower and upper secondary schools, with a particular focus on how teachers interpret and enact the most recent national curriculum reform (LK20). Drawing on a mixed-methods design, this study combines survey responses from 13 Chinese language teachers with follow-up semi-structured interviews with seven of them. The analysis examines classroom practice, resource use, assessment, and perceived sustainability of Chinese as a school subject in Norway. Findings highlight three recurring tensions: (1) limited resources alongside high teacher autonomy and innovation; (2) curricular openness, especially the flexibility granted to non-European languages such as Chinese, versus persistent uncertainty about assessment standards and progression; and (3) motived but shrinking student cohorts, which threatens long-term program viability. Teachers describe rebuilding teaching materials each year, navigating small-group funding thresholds, and adapting LK20’s cross-disciplinary and digitalization aims under uneven institutional support. This study argues that Chinese education in Norway currently survives through teacher-driven improvisation rather than system-level stability. It contributes a Nordic perspective to the global literature on Chinese as a Second/Foreign Language (CSL/CFL) by showing how small-cohort languages negotiate curriculum reform, accountability pressures, and declining enrolment in mainstream public education.
This study investigates the experiences of 40 international doctoral student mothers (20 STEM, 20 non-STEM) across 18 countries in Chinese universities, examining how motherhood intersects with academic pursuits under China Scholarship Council (CSC) provisions. Through qualitative narrative inquiry, we identified four key themes: idealized maternal-academic identity construction and compliance, the intersection of multiple identities, coping and resistance strategies, and influence of social-institutional support systems. Employing Foucauldian concepts-disciplinary power, biopower, technologies of self, resistance, governmentality, and normalization, alongside structural-functionalism, the analysis revealed how institutional policies and infrastructural gaps operate as biopolitical mechanisms governing reproductive choices. Participants simultaneously internalized impossible maternal-academic standards while engaging in micro-resistances, building informal peer networks challenging institutional individualism and asserting collective solutions to structural problems. Findings demonstrate that comprehensive policy reforms (family-friendly scholarship packages, campus childcare, maternity leave entitlements, extended timelines, supervisory training) are essential for promoting academic success, retention, and gender equity, benefiting both students and institutions while transforming structural barriers perpetuating educational inequalities.
A paradox shadows the promise of technology-enhanced education: as learning becomes more efficient and programmable, meaningfulness often becomes thinner and more fragile. Students complete tasks, accumulate credits, and touch content streams at unprecedented scale, yet struggle to weave enduring structures of understanding, transfer insights across contexts, and anchor learning in values and life narratives. Meaningism Learning Theory (MLT) addresses this paradox by repositioning meaning–not information or short-term performance–as the central design target of education. Grounded in three axioms (3CEP: learning is change; change is meaning; education is the ethical promotion of change), MLT articulates **Dimensional Mastery** as the horizon competence for the AI era: the capacity to identify, integrate, regulate, and switch among meaning dimensions while preserving coherence and purpose. MLT operationalizes a Cultural–Action–Neural paradigm through four interlocking components: a triadic pathway from objects through relations to the active construction of meaning (Object–Relation–Construcgence, or 3LS), a Ten–Dimensional Meaning Space (10DMS) for design navigation, Six Change Catalysts (6CS) for orchestrating time, intensity, and context, and an Eight-Question Method (8QM) that standardizes inquiry and reflection. The theory translates into a five-phase instructional rhythm and a “dual tuning” strategy balancing difficulty with meaning density. Assessment emphasizes delayed retention, far transfer, process evidence, and narrative transformation. We propose falsifiable claims and a multi-site research agenda, while clarifying ethical guardrails and human–AI division of labor. The aim is to invite constructive international dialogue around a Chinese-origin theory presented with humility and transparency, open to scrutiny and co-development in diverse cultural and resource contexts.
Current curriculum reforms in China have positioned pre-service teacher education as indispensable to the development of a high-quality, professionally grounded teaching force. While professional development agency (PDA) is fundamental in teacher professional development, limited attention has been paid to the dynamics and determinants of Chinese pre-service English teachers’ PDA during the teaching practicum. To bridge this gap, this mixed-methods study investigated the status and determinants of PDA among 275 Chinese pre-service English teachers and conducted follow-up semi-structured interviews with 12 participants. The findings revealed a moderate level of PDA among the participants. Social-relational factors within the practicum ecology, particularly the interactions with practicum peers, students, mentors and pre-service teachers' practicum view, were identified as the primary predictors of PDA, while the university-based factors were not significantly related to its development. These findings underscore that PDA is not merely an individual attribute but a socioculturally situated construct shaped by the practicum ecology. The study offers significant implications that fostering pre-service teachers’ autonomy and constructing collaborative social networks are essential for optimizing talent cultivation and supporting the professional identity construction of future educators.
With the rapid evolution of educational technology and the resulting changes in the academic environment, the application of artificial intelligence in higher education not only involves technological change but also represents the generational transformation of educational concepts and culture in Asia. This study thus sheds light on how cross-national and generational factors influence instructors’ beliefs, classroom practices, and the implementation of artificial intelligence in Chinese language education at the university level. Based on the Technology Acceptance Model, Cultural Context Theory, and Generational Theory, we adopted an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design (survey: n = 98; interviews: n = 12) to study Sino–Thai educators across four generations. The research results have revealed two intersecting gradients: the first is the “national gradient,” which is reflected in the teaching approach of Thai instructors that is deeply rooted in local culture; the second is the “generational gradient,” which is characterized by the younger generation of instructors having a greater advantage in technological adaptability, and this generational characteristic transcends national boundaries. The intersection of these two gradients forms a complementary relationship between the stability of teaching culture and technological agility, laying a strategic foundation for the innovative development of higher education in China and Thailand.
This article explores the transformative potential of peace education in post-conflict contexts through a comparative analysis of Rwanda and Sierra Leone. Drawing on positive peace theory, the capability approach, and decolonial perspectives, it examines how education systems both contributed to historical conflicts and were later mobilised to foster reconciliation, social cohesion, and human flourishing. Employing a qualitative comparative case study design, the study analyses programme governance, curriculum content, pedagogical approaches, and the role of ICT in expanding access and participation. Findings reveal that both countries adopted hybrid strategies combining top-down state initiatives with bottom-up community engagement but differed in emphasis: Rwanda prioritised reconciliation and non-formal programmes, whereas Sierra Leone focused on systemic inclusion within formal education. Persistent colonial legacies, structural inequalities, and limited higher education engagement constrain the transformative potential of these initiatives. The paper argues that effective peace education requires integrating three interrelated pillars—educational innovation, human flourishing, and decolonised knowledge systems—to move beyond conflict prevention toward societal transformation. When applied across formal and non-formal education, this approach can cultivate culturally grounded, capable citizens and support the development of sustainable peace in post-conflict societies.
This study evaluates the efficiency of educational infrastructure investment in China and Colombia between 2020 and 2025. The research aims to measure technical efficiency, identify institutional and contextual determinants, and assess whether infrastructure investment causally improves educational outcomes. Using a dual-method approach—Data Envelopment Analysis and Stochastic Frontier Analysis—combined with panel Granger causality tests, the study analyzes provincial and departmental data from multilateral sources. Results show substantial efficiency variation within and between countries, with Chinese provinces operating closer to the efficiency frontier than Colombian departments. Diminishing returns to infrastructure investment are evident, while governance quality, urbanization, and budget execution rates significantly shape efficiency patterns. Causality tests confirm that infrastructure investment precedes improvements in educational outcomes.
This paper examines China’s 2025 White Paper on Smart Education as a governance-oriented policy framework for integrating artificial intelligence into the national education system. Rather than treating the document as a technological blueprint, the study analyzes its underlying governance logic, focusing on the role of the state, educational equity, and public digital infrastructure. Through policy analysis and selective institutional examples, the paper argues that China articulates a state-coordinated alternative to market-driven edtech models prevalent in Western contexts. While the paper does not claim immediate global impact, it suggests that this model holds analytical relevance for ongoing international debates on AI governance in education, particularly in Global South contexts.
Student success remains a central imperative for higher education institutions globally, yet traditional advising approaches struggle with the twin challenges of scale and specificity. This paper proposes a framework distinguished by its two-dimensional scale: vertical, spanning institutional role-player hierarchies from executives to students, and horizontal, enabling personalized reach across large populations through data-driven automation. A central attribute is a correlation-based needs assessment, foregrounding student voice, systematically linking self-reported challenges with academic outcomes to inform intervention selection and tailoring. Grounded in Improvement Science methodology, the framework creates closed-loop systems where effectiveness is continuously evaluated and refined through iterative cycles. Drawing on Student Integration Theory, Expectancy-Value Theory, and Self-Determination Theory, deployed as evaluative lenses for assessing platform design choices, we articulate how the framework addresses conditions for student persistence while respecting student agency. Contributions include an explicit theorisation of two-dimensional advising scale that builds on and extends existing advising frameworks, novel integration of Improvement Science with automated advising systems, and the use of motivation and persistence theory as evaluative lenses for assessing platform design choices.
Internationalization of Curriculum (IoC) has been identified as a significant strategy to training graduates with awareness, skills and knowledge required to thrive as global citizens. In China, Chinese-foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (CFCRS) represents one of the most prominent and policy-supported education for advancing IoC. But even so, faculty engagement in curriculum internationalization is inadequate, which raise concerns about the sustainability and high-quality development of CFCRS. Drawing on Leask’s Blockers theory, this study adopts an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design to investigate the barriers that hinder faculty participation. A survey involving 442 faculty members from 14 CFCRS-hosting universities in Jiangsu Province, China, revealed significant difference in perceived blockers across academic fields and professional titles. Cultural and institutional blockers emerged as the dominant categories of obstacles, with disciplinary mindsets difference and perceptions of educational marketization representing the most influential factors within each category. Interviews with 20 faculty members suggested disciplinary dispositions, intercultural understanding, and interdisciplinary knowledge underpinning disciplinary mindsets difference, while revenue-driven enrolment policies and shift in educational missions supporting perceptions of educational marketization, can hinder faculty engagement. Recommendations are proposed to mitigate these barriers, offering insights for policymakers to enhance faculty participation and advance IoC.
Global uncertainty, amplified by unilateralism and anti-globalization, and the neoliberal transformation, is reshaping international higher education (IHE): traditional Euro-American destinations have imposed stricter policies (e.g., visa constraints), whereas East and Southeast Asia have emerged as key alternative hubs (with China as a regional linchpin). This study examines why Chinese students—the world’s largest group of full-tuition-paying international learners—are increasingly choosing emerging Asian destinations (China’s Hong Kong SAR, China’s Taiwan Province, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore) over conventional Euro-American options. Analyzing 31 semi-structured online interview transcripts (with 30 participants, lasting 40–60 minutes) and supplementary texts (both collected from February to March 2025), we identify the drivers of this shift. Our findings advance current knowledge of Chinese students’ mobility patterns and IHEs’ evolving global landscape.
The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into K-12 education holds significant potential for teacher empowerment, yet existing research often neglects the heterogeneity of teachers and the diverse pathways through which empowerment unfolds. This study investigates how AI empowers teachers in China’s K-12 sector, responding to national AI initiatives and addressing the overlooked diversity of teacher experiences. Using a qualitative multi-case design, five teachers were purposefully selected to capture variation in teaching experience, technical proficiency, subject specialization, geography, and pedagogical philosophy. Data were gathered through interviews, classroom observations, and AI usage logs over four months. Analysis reveals that empowerment is not linear but emerges through interconnected processes of efficiency-driven adoption, pedagogical innovation, and ethical reflection. The proposed three-tiered model underscores the situated and differentiated nature of AI integration, shaped by individual characteristics and contextual factors. These findings offer practical implications for policymakers and school leaders, highlighting the need for differentiated support ranging from technical training to ethical guidance. By foregrounding teacher agency and contextual variation, the study advances international discourse on AI in education and emphasizes that the transformative potential of AI depends as much on teachers’ values and professional judgment as on technological affordances.
Responding to calls for theoretically framing power in pedagogical partnership, we answer the question: How do students and teachers recognise cultural capital through intercultural dialogue? Data was collected from individual interviews, focus groups, documents, and non-participant observations of partnership project groups over 16 weeks. In total, 12 students and six teaching staff participated in this study. As a part of a larger focused ethnography, drawing on Bourdieu’s social field theory and communication accommodation theory, we conducted a reflective thematic analysis of the qualitative data set. In this article, we primarily report interview and focus group data associated with observational data. The findings reveal that participants recognised new forms of cultural capital by applying communication strategies to share meanings and negotiating different cultural norms in the ongoing dialogue. However, some found that maintaining effective intercultural dialogue was challenging, and simply engaging in partnership did not result in a productive exchange of knowledge or recognition of cultural capital. This article contributes to conceptualising intercultural dialogue as a process of negotiating capital that involves reshaping habitus and navigating cross-field tensions in partnership. We argue that recognising cultural capital requires deliberate efforts from participants to initiate and support ongoing dialogue with multiple communication strategies.
A well-considered pedagogical design can significantly enhance the implementation of playful learning in school settings. Teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and instructional practices play a decisive role in the success of innovative pedagogical approaches. This study explores Chinese primary school teachers’ perspectives on the design and implementation of playful learning pedagogy in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning. Eight teachers participated in a 1.5-month playful learning project that included workshops and a two-week classroom implementation period. In the workshops, the teachers were familiarised with the concept of playful learning and a preliminary Pedagogical Design Model. They then implemented playful learning pedagogy in their classrooms, involving a total of 320 students. Post-implementation interview data were collected and analysed using thematic analysis. The findings indicate that teachers perceived the pedagogical design of playful learning as a valuable yet somewhat ambiguous process, viewing it as an important tool for enhancing students’ EFL learning. Although the teachers provided generally positive feedback, they also expressed concerns about the systematic design of the playful learning process. The study provides valuable insights into the use of playful learning pedagogy in the Chinese primary school context.
