A non-DAC scholarship: knowledge, space and capacity of China’s higher education provision in the global South

This paper provides a reflection upon the existing norms, forms and politics of knowledge transformation in higher education in the global context. It is based on an empirical study that seeks what Chinese scholarships may distinctively bring to the future professions in the global South. In the international provision of scholarships, the SDG 4 monitors the scholarships offered by Western donors (mainly the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries) to developing countries. The scholarship flows among the developing countries themselves are not clearly indicated. While there are boosted existing studies on Chinese higher education internationalisation, limited discussion link its impact from the scope of international political economy (IPE). It is hoped that the paper and its empirical findings could provide some implications on the contribution as well as limitations of the ‘non-traditional/DAC donors’ such as China, in the knowledge transformation, particular on the knowledge of non-Westernised development in the post-2015 era. Specifically, the qualitative empirical data are based on voice of 39 university students from 26 developing countries, studying in 5 cities in China. The findings revealed an increasingly globalised HE teaching and learning approach and the persistent struggles such as language of instruction. When considering broader context, the ‘Chinese degrees’ demonstrated a higher level of satisfaction from post-graduate students and showed strong pragmatism which was seen particularly beneficial to students’ future employability. Therefore by analysing findings from a critical cultural political economy of education approach the paper looks at practice of education to politics of education, and rethinks the role of China in the global political economy from three dimension: (1) knowledge - how China challenges the knowledge production, prescription and transformation in the developing context; (2) space – how China challenges the orthodoxy of ‘oversea study’ geopolitics as a HE scholarship provider; and (3) capacity – can countries like China contribute to ‘quantity’, ‘quality’ but also ‘equity’ of education towards SDGs as well as global justice? The paper calls for a further critical examination on higher education and its relation to international development in an increasingly ‘normalised’ global context but towards a more uncertain future.