This article was published in Edsurge on March 21,2016. Could China buy America’s top universities? When this question appeared on Quora a few years ago it was quickly dismissed as unworkable from a governance perspective. But the ambition behind the question remains: If Chinese investors could, they would. What else might China acquire from America’s […]
Read More China’s Next Act: From Hollywood to Harvard?“No need to listen for the fall. This is the World’s end.” — Rudyard Kipling, Kim During a long, cold flight to Almaty in the late 1990s I sat sleepless reading Peter Hopkirk’s landmark history of the region, “The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia.” My colleagues and I were about to spend the […]
Read More Central Asia’s New Silk Road: Game ChangersEditor’s note: a more concise article on this theme was initially published by EdSurge If the US is the world’s education technology leader, Asia is fast becoming its most critical testing ground. The reasons for this are unambiguous: Asia is home to the world’s largest pool of K12 and college enrollments, has acute needs for educational access coupled deep internet […]
Read More How Asia is Emerging as the World's EdTech LaboratoryEditor’s note: This post first appeared in the online publication EdReach. From A Nation at Risk to US Education Reform and National Security, education and economic competitiveness have long been part of America’s geopolitical calculus. But with an emergent China gradually moving toward deeper innovation and a smarter workforce, the stakes have suddenly become higher. In a recent New York Review of Books article, educator Diane Ravitch reassures us that China’s educational […]
Read More Will China be the Next Education Superpower?American MOOCs (massive open online courses) have always been geared toward large emerging markets so it is no surprise that leaders such as Coursera and EdX are now hurtling into China. It seems deceptively easy: MOOCs deliver course content from US universities through free or low-cost alternatives. They partner with Chinese University counterparts or ISPs […]
Read More MOOCs in China – Dream On?Chinese workers are dramatically outperforming their neighbors with important implications for Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand. (Pakistan’s stagnant productivity is not as surprising). Between 2000 and 2011, China’s output per employed person grew by approximately 280%. Vietnam’s 160% is a close second (see chart below). Is this a matter of Chinese productivity rising to higher output […]
Read More Why is Chinese Productivity Crushing its Neighbors?A recent article in the South China Morning Post is the latest to question China’s “competitiveness” through labor and, by extension, the RMB’s consistent appreciation against the US dollar. As many have argued, competitiveness is measured by labor productivity and, more specifically, the size of China’s future workforce as measured by a recent peak in the number […]
Read More What Will Determine China's Future Competitiveness?With the exception of New Oriental (NYSE: EDU), nearly every IPO of a Chinese education company has bombed since 2006 and most within the past four years, losing a range of 7% to 77% for investors. Let’s leave aside for the moment the problems with US-listed Chinese companies en masse and focus instead on cash on hand […]
Read More Chinese Education Companies: IPO Bombs but Cash Rich