Critics misinterpret our mission, says joint campus leader

The head of one of China’s most longstanding international joint venture universities has emphatically rejected critiques of the institution, saying they are based on a flawed interpretation of its mission.

Youmin Xi said critics of Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) misunderstood its ambition to be a “future-oriented” institution trying to fuse educational elements from the East and the West.

Xi, pioneer of a management theory that incorporates elements from the East and the West, said XJTLU – where he became executive president in 2008 – had experienced no shortage of “struggles, conflicts and criticisms” since its inception just over 20 years ago, as a cooperative venture of the University of Liverpool and Xi’an Jiaotong University.

But much of the commentary came from people who “don’t really know the situation”, some of whom were “not happy” after being “sacked by XJTLU”, he said.

“We don’t want to copy the University of Liverpool or the Chinese university,” Xi told Times Higher Education. “We are developing an independent international university in the Chinese context.

“We are trying to blend the best practice of the East and the West, to learn from the culture of the East and the West, and to develop a new educational approach that responds to future trends and demands.”

Xi’s comments come after THE reported concerns that XJTLU was jeopardising the validity of its UK degrees by ceding too much control to its Chinese parent. Staff and former staff, some speaking on condition of anonymity, denounced the institution over questionable teaching methods, mushrooming class sizes, grade inflation and students’ English language proficiency.

Some criticised a decline in quality assurance, although one said there was too much quality control rather than too little.

Xi said the institution’s results spoke for themselves. Some 98 per cent of employers had expressed satisfaction with XJTLU graduates, according to the institution’s 2025 survey. Among the mainland Chinese graduates who had sought to continue their studies elsewhere, 83 per cent had gone to universities ranked among the top 50 in the world, including 47 per cent enrolled in the top 10.

Xi said XJTLU’s educational innovations had “convinced experts” from the major global rankings, the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency and many other foreign organisations. XJTLU’s business school is accredited by eight overseas agencies and its actuarial, architecture, biology, computing, design, engineering, English language, materials science and teaching programmes also have independent external certification.

Annual delegations from Liverpool conduct “very strict” evaluations of XJTLU’s teaching, Xi said. When the university found the need to develop programmes that were not available at the UK parent, Liverpool arranged for a third university to review the curriculum. “We invited many external examiners to review our examination paper design,” he said. “Frankly, our quality now is much higher than many international peers.”

He said misunderstandings and “bumps” were inevitable in a union of institutional partners with different ways of doing things, citing a “serious argument” in early June 2006 when he was vice-president of the Chinese partner.

The institution had just received final approval from China’s Ministry of Education and the gaokao exams were due in weeks, leaving just a month to recruit students in time for the start of the academic year. XJTLU still lacked academics, official documentation and approval of its tuition fees. UK staff wanted to defer commencement, but Xi insisted on starting right away.

“I convinced them,” he said. “We started the recruitment; we got our first cohort of 160 students. In the September board meeting, our UK colleagues told me: ‘Professor Xi, you were right.’

“In China, we move very fast. Opportunity is critical for us. We are opportunity-oriented decision-makers. Our UK colleagues were risk-avoidance decision-makers. But we were doing business in China and we understood the culture. Sometimes, both sides are right. Both sides are trying to make the university better. But their background, their experience, their culture is different.”

He said there had also been conflict with Chinese officials, both provincial and in Beijing, as he and his colleagues worked to forge a “very unique university”. Xi had served the best part of a decade as professor of management and another decade as vice-president of Xi’an Jiaotong University. “I knew the Chinese weaknesses deeply – the weaknesses in the education system. I had a strong desire to change the situation. That’s why I insisted to use this university as a vehicle to do something innovative.”

Xi said Beijing’s “main purpose” in encouraging international joint venture campuses was to enhance Chinese domestic higher education. But the purpose “hasn’t been reached as expected”, as the public universities cling to a traditional educational “mindset”.

“There is a wall between the two systems,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a money problem. I think it’s a cultural problem. Perhaps it takes time for both sides to learn from each other.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com