Chinese colleges and universities remain attractive to international students after the pandemic, Russia's Sputnik reported by citing a Russian expert.

Nadezhda Polikhina, acting director of Sociocenter, or the Federal State Autonomous Scientific Institution Center for Sociological Research, said that the coronavirus pandemic challenges the higher education system worldwide, in terms of mobility of overseas students and how universities' ensure the safety of teaching without compromising quality.

The universal conversion to remote teaching as a reboot will benefit international education and make it easier to obtain an education, Polikhina, who is also the head of the Project 5-100 Office (a Russian academic excellence project), said.

According to her, China has everything possible to remain attractive to international students as proven by Chinese universities' ranking. Citing the QS World University Rankings 2019, she noted that 42 universities in the ranking are from the Chinese mainland, of which 24 are in the top 500 and six in the top 100.

China's Ministry of Education announced in April the establishment of an international online teaching platform, offering major universities' high-quality courses in English to global students. Such courses are also provided on international online teaching platforms, such as edX.org and coursera.org.

The unremitting efforts of Chinese universities to develop remote teaching and China's plan to build world-class universities implemented in the last 25 years will continue to make China attractive to international students after the pandemic, she said.

(Cover image: A file photo shows international students giving performance at a university in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province. /VCG )