"Crossing the river by feeling the stones"
Ten minutes into the bullet train’s journey from Beijing South Station to Tianjin, an alert traveller might see a Tudor tower rising incongruously above the cornfields to the east. If the traveller were to alight and venture closer, he or she would pass through a set of ornamental gates into landscaped grounds where a collection of boarding houses and teaching buildings stand proud amongst the trees in the style of a great English public school.
The first-time visitor to Haileybury International School Tianjin could not be blamed for being a little confused. Walking across the quad, he or she would be greeted politely by Chinese students wearing the Haileybury uniform who would direct them up to the Common Room. Here, our traveller would enter a bicultural world, with English (often with an Australian accent) and Chinese being used throughout. Some of the classes in session would be in English, using the most modern western pedagogy, while others might be running in the modern or traditional Chinese style. Many classes would be alternating between the two. In time, our traveller would grasp that these students are being taught and trained how to function effectively in Chinese and English. These students plan shortly to join fellow-students from Haileybury Melbourne for their university years in Australia but will then return home to contribute to China’s development.
Haileybury Tianjin is a unique experiment in transnational education and embodies a fresh response to an important issue that Australian schools are facing today; how do we equip our students to find their place in the Asian century?
Much discussion has already gone into understanding what Australia’s role should be. Australia’s relations with Asia, and China in particular, are recognised as vital and complex, and all Australians must grapple with them in some way. In the educational domain, Australian universities are already committed to a future with China and are taking on Chinese partners establishing campuses in China and recruiting Chinese students.
Australian independent schools are already engaged with China. Mandarin Chinese is now widely taught. Student tours and exchanges to China are common. Chinese students are welcomed into many schools. A few schools have gone further. Caulfield Grammar School opened a Year 9 Campus in Nanjing twenty years ago that has seen a generation of students pass through since the writer lead its first study tour to Nanjing in 1996.
Haileybury entered the Asian century in a radical way. In 1999, its iconoclastic principal Dr Robert Pargetter committed to internationalising student experience. He understood clearly that this would require that the School first internationalise itself. Working with the writer and with the full support of the Board, he saw that the effective internationalisation of the School required deep change – well beyond the experience offered by the introduction of new languages, exchanges, sister-school relationships and study tours. It actually required that the thinking and practice of management should change, and that this could only occur if the School engaged energetically in complex international projects that pushed out the limits of what it could achieve. In this way, the school’s leaders would learn to lift their thinking beyond the horizon and apply a global dimension to all aspects of their work. Current Principal, Mr Derek Scott, continues to support this philosophy strongly.
Today, Haileybury is a global school. It operates Haileybury Tianjin, which is built on Haileybury’s values but is recognised as one of China’s leading independent schools. It also delivers its senior school curriculum (the Victorian Certificate of Education - VCE) through ten partner schools in China, the Philippines and East Timor and its teachers train teachers from these countries. Today, a third of Haileybury’s graduates undertake their schooling outside Australia. In addition, the School has sister-schools around the world, it teaches multiple languages, its staff and students undertake exchanges and overseas study tours and it welcomes international students to its Melbourne campuses. Haileybury students are immersed in a global organisation and are imbued with the values of internationalism, which they practise daily.
This article describes how, through a process of incremental learning, Haileybury developed a school in China and established itself as a leader in transnational education. In doing so, it was guided by Deng Xiao Ping’s words, “cross the river by feeling the stones”; that is, stay grounded, advance in small steps, learn from mistakes and feel the way forward through the uncertainty.
As Haileybury’s Vice-Principal, the writer visited China on an early student recruitment mission in 1998. At that time, Chinese parents were looking for universities rather than schools and few sought interviews at the Haileybury desk. However, a very different response was received from local principals. With China preparing for admission to the World Trade Organisation, the Ministry of Education had instructed schools to support the opening up of China by boosting the teaching of English and learning about western teaching methodologies, and encouraged them to support these objectives by establishing cooperative ventures with western schools. Chinese principals attended our exhibition in large numbers. It was clear that an opportunity existed to design a collaborative project that would benefit both Haileybury and Chinese schools.
As Haileybury’s strength lay in the successful delivery of the VCE, it seemed that a project could be designed in which Haileybury worked with a Chinese school to deliver the VCE in China. This idea was further refined: rather than using Australian teachers to do the teaching, which would be unsustainable over the long term, Haileybury would train the partner schools’ teachers in VCE pedagogy in Melbourne then support them through an online mentorship arrangement and annual conference. A Haileybury Director of Studies would visit the schools regularly to oversee the VCE’s administration, and would undertake quality assurance. The project was approved by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA), which has continued to provide strong support ever since. An adviser was engaged to work with Haileybury in China; Haileybury has now worked with Mr Luo Xiang for twenty years and acknowledges his expertise as critical to its success. Strong support was provided by Austrade and the Australian Embassy.
The program was pioneered at the Wansheng School in Tianjin, with the first graduates entering Australian universities in 2001. The VCE proved to be very suitable; it is much more flexible than A Levels or the International Baccalaureate and provides a low-risk pathway to overseas universities, particularly in Australia. Partnerships were established with a further ten schools in China, the Philippines and East Timor. Today, over 200 students graduate overseas each year with a VCE and over 90% receive a university offer, most from Australia. The Haileybury model has become the VCAA standard for the international VCE.
Ten years of working deeply in China brought three important benefits. First, Haileybury learned how to work in China. Second, it developed a web of relationships (guanxi) across China. Third, it developed a brand in China. Thus, when China’s private education system began to boom, Haileybury found itself at a considerable advantage.
Approaches began to be received to establish a school in China. However, based on experience, Haileybury established strict criteria for any business partner. A potential partner needed to be stable and financially strong, with a respectable business history, able to provide the bulk of the project’s investment needs and possess effective guanxi with government. Its strategic goals needed to complement Haileybury’s and it should accept a long-term cooperation, without a speedy return of its investment.
In the end, Haileybury partnered with Beijing Capital Land, a large, state-owned development company working in the Beijing-Tianjin area that was well connected to government at all levels. The company was developing an up-market satellite town for Beijing that was to be given an international flavour. Rather that create a domestic international school, the partner sought a prestige foreign school to support this development and so was prepared to build the school to Haileybury’s specifications before joining Haileybury in the management of the School. Importantly, it was prepared to give Haileybury executive control over the School, whilst retaining a long-term involvement at Board level.
The School opened in 2013 as an independent, coeducational, K-12 boarding school for Chinese students seeking a pathway to university overseas. Its students were drawn from Beijing and Tianjin. By the end of 2017, student numbers approached 900 and the school was operating profitably. It had produced two cohorts of graduates, with 90% receiving Australian tertiary offers.
Chinese policy encourages private schools and supports them legislatively, even allowing senior high schools (and kindergartens) to be run for profit. Typically, they are supervised by the District Education Bureau, under the guidance of the Provincial Education Commission. Haileybury has made a point of developing good relations with government officials and has received strong support from them. The Communist Party, which develops policy and supervises the government’s work at all levels, has backed the School, seeing it as a desirable cooperative venture between China and Australia that will bring considerable benefits to the area.
All Chinese private schools must offer the full Chinese curriculum from years 1-9 and Chinese History, Geography and Politics through to Year 12. There remains considerable scope for additional western subjects and, in Haileybury’s case, the VCE. Haileybury Tianjin’s teaching staff is a fusion of expatriates and bilingual Chinese teachers, which serves the School’s needs well. As students come from a variety of backgrounds, the School needs to draw upon a mix of pedagogies to meet their needs. The rich mix of staff mean that there are many opportunities for staff to learn from each other and a strong cross-cultural dialogue exists in the Common Room.
Education is prized in China and Chinese parents have high requirements. They generally choose a private school such as Haileybury for two reasons. Parents of students in primary school are looking for a less stressful style of education for their children, with a focus on learning English from a young age. Parents of older children are generally seeking to maximise their child’s chances of entry into a good foreign university. They will already have decided that the Chinese university pathway, through the Gaokao, is not for them. Compared to other foreign curricula, the flexibility of the VCE is particularly welcomed by Chinese students. Furthermore, the ATAR they will receive will make their entry into the Australian tertiary system very straightforward. This is a far simpler proposition that seeking admission into a US or English university. Once a student is in the Australian tertiary system, even at pre-university diploma level, there is the ability to move up through and between the universities. This is particularly attractive to less academic students. The effect is to make the VCE an attractive, low-risk option for Chinese parents.
The writer considers it a privilege to have worked with Haileybury on such a ground-breaking endeavour. Haileybury’s international activity allows it to call itself a world school as it works to embed Australian school education in China, support the flow of Chinese students to Australian universities and fulfil Chinese parents’ aspirations by making it possible for their children to achieve their dreams. The project’s success demonstrates that Australian education has a competitive advantage in Asia and that Australian independent schools are well placed to profit from it.
[Published in Independence, the journal of the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia, (May,2018) vol.43, no.1 at p.58]
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