Cambridge China Education Forum tackles AI and international student trends

The Cambridge China Education Forum (CCEF) took place at University of Cambridge.

Themed "Dialoguing with the Future: Educational Transformation through Culture, Innovation and Interdisciplinary Research," the four-day forum focused on four key themes: Dialogue, Culture, Innovation, and Interdisciplinary Research.

It aimed to explore global education reform and its local practices, bringing together leading scholars and emerging young researchers from China and the UK. The discussions included four main areas: educational technology, arts education, language and literature education, and philosophy of education.

AI in education

One of the key themes in the first two days of the conference was the role of AI in teaching and learning. Speakers took a cautious stance, stressing the need for thorough evaluation before fully adopting new technologies.

Many participants highlighted the necessity of improving the curriculum to match the AI era. Instead of asking students not to use AI to support their work, it is essential to teach them how to avoid relying entirely on AI.

"Everyone is talking about AI nowadays and the public is looking forward to seeing us use more AI in education," said Professor Christian Bokhove from the University of Southampton, one of the guest speakers for Ed Tech Panel.

Human and AI biases can consequently create a feedback loop, with small initial biases increasing the risk of human error, according to findings published in Nature Human Behaviour. Researchers stress that it is essential to ensure we are not creating biased data while training AI teaching or learning tools, which could negatively impact students. Professor Bokhove's research also found that AI-assisted learning tools can sometimes make mistakes. "We shouldn't just rush for it without more trial, ethical consideration, and a stable product coming up."

Reason behind the decrease in the number of Chinese students

According to the latest statistics from the UK Government, the number of international students is decreasing, which has led to financial challenges in several universities, as international students pay double the tuition of home students.

The overall decline was only 1%, but underlying that was a 7% drop in foreign enrolments. That dip was driven by significant decreases in some of the top overseas sending markets for UK higher education, including Nigeria (-36%) and India (-15%). Enrolments were also down by 4% from China.

One of the conference sponsors, Helen Guo, Founder of Lighten Education, shared her opinion on Chinese students, who, alongside Indian students, make up one of the top two international student groups studying in the UK each year.

"One of the main reasons is the economic slowdown. After the pandemic, the global economy is in recovery. Many families cannot afford to support their children in studying in expensive Western countries. Instead, they prefer more affordable countries such as Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia, where tuition is almost half the price compared with the UK, or Hong Kong, which is closer to home."

"Many Chinese families no longer prefer UK universities because they value flexibility in majors, double-degree opportunities, and stronger links between study and employment - advantages they believe U.S. universities offer, especially in fields like computer science and mathematics in the AI era," said Helen.

Leila Lai, a postgraduate student at the University of Cambridge's Department of Education, raised concerns regarding the lack of funding in her lab, which posed challenges to her research.

"Compared with the UK, there are more funding opportunities in the United States. However, our professor also thinks there are potentially more international students who will come to the UK for a PhD due to the immigration restrictions in the US. It sounds very scary."