1. Introduction

2. Basic Information

2.1 The Scale and Type of CIEET 2018

2.2 Scales and Levels of the Visitors

According to the statistics, the total number of visitors to CIEET 2018 in 5 cities reached approximately 32,000 with an increase of 44% over the previous year. 89% of the visitors were mainly from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The proportion of visitors from Xi’an and Chengdu was 11% among the total number. The number of visitors in each city was respectively 20,000 in Beijing, 1,500 in Xi’an, 2,000 in  Chengdu, 5,000 in Shanghai, 3,500 in Guangzhou.

A survey of the level of study abroad that the visitors were concerned about has shown that language courses account for 8%, the high school level account for 23%, the undergraduate level account for 31%, the masters and PhDs level account for 33%, and the other account for 5%. From this it can be seen that most Chinese students are more inclined to choose to study abroad at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

The audience intends to study abroad as shown in the following figure:

2.3 Thematic Lectures

During CIEET 2018, The Center organized 28 lectures in cooperation with the embassies and consulates of the major destination countries, the government educational institutions and some overseas universities participating in this exhibition. Those lectures emphasized on introducing the latest study abroad dynamics and policies, and the features and subject advantages of each university, thereby giving full play to the role of education exhibition as a publishing platform for studying abroad information. As the exhibition organizer, The Center provided consulting services to visitors at the exhibition site, including studying abroad project consulting, overseas (out-of-bounds) diplomas and degrees accreditation, records storage, and employment procedures of overseas returnees, to create an all-round and one-stop information consulting platform.

2.4 Special Events

In the period of CIEET 2018, The Center organized several high-quality special events to enrich the content of the exhibition. In addition to the previous publicity, The Center set up the separate area “The Pre-departure Orientation Project” at Beijing’s Exhibition site for the first time, launching and guiding various forms of training activities. At other four sites like Xi’an and Chengdu, The Center relied on local cooperative agencies to provide a series of practical training for a mass of self-financed overseas students. At the education exhibition in Xi’an, The Center organized a special event “From the Silk Road to the Wisdom Road” for the Italian Pavilion. Moreover, in mid-March of this year, The Center also held campus charity activities related to education exhibition in some universities’ campuses in cities holding the exhibition. According to the statistics, 24 public welfare consultation activities were held in five cities. While promoting the national studying abroad policy, it also enabled university students to learn more about this exhibition.

3. Highlights

3.1 The Pre-departure Orientation Project

In recent years, with the increasing number of students studying abroad, a diversity of overseas students and increasingly prominent young overseas students, the topic of study-abroad security has received a lot of attention under a complex international situation. Due to the demands, Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange launched a series of the pre-departure orientation service in this exhibition. More than 604,000 people were attracted to join in the online broadcast of Beijing’s exhibition, and both the scale and coverage have exceeded previous years.

The first exhibition in Beijing set up a 800-square-meter special area of “The Pre-departure Orientation Project”. It has launched a full range of both online and offline promotion through demonstrating, expert lectures, simulations, consulting evaluations and special interviews. Using the mode of "Internet+", online live broadcast via NetEase's Live Streaming Platform, so that the majority of students studying abroad learn practical knowledge and skills of studying abroad.

3.2 Area of International Schools (Project) Exhibition

In order to effectively meet the urgent needs of different groups of study-abroad for international quality education resources, the 23rd CIEET created an innovative exhibition model. By cooperation with Sina in this way, the exhibition creates a new area of international school (project) school-selection exhibition. While expanding the scale of the visitors at the Education Exhibition, the exhibition has also provided a channel for the school-age studying abroad group to choose international schools. The CIEET in five cities has attracted more than 9,000 families.

3.3 Unprecedented Media Publicity

Over 200 media reported the 23rd CIEET nationwide. The main media includes CCTV, Beijing TV Station, Shaanxi Satellite TV, Shanghai Education TV Station, Beijing Youth Daily, Global Times, The Beijing News, Cankaoxiaoxi, Morning Post, Sichuan Daily, Huaxi Metropolitan News, Chengdu Daily, Jiefang Daily, Wenwei Po, Xinmin Evening News, The Morning Newspaper, Shanghai Daily, Youth Daily, Guangzhou Daily, Yangcheng Evening News, Nanfang Metropolis Daily etc. These public reports played an important role in the success of the 23rd CIEET.

Moreover, major domestic media have also done a lot of publicity and reporting on this exhibition. Sina Education, NetEase Education, Tencent Overseas, Phoenix Net and Beijing People’s Broadcasting Station interviewed a lot of important officials and exhibitors. The coverage covered more than millions of people and received extensive attention from parents and students.

More detailed and relevant information of the 23rd CIEET report will be summarized on the CIEET official website. Please pay close attention.

3.4 Studying Abroad Information into Campus Series of Public Welfare Activities

For the sake of facilitating the students to visit the exhibition, the CIEET Organization Committee organized “Studying Abroad Information into Campus” activities at about thirty core universities in five exhibition cities. In the process of both online and offline activities, over 10,000 free tickets of CIEET 2018 had been distributed to students.

3.5 Italian Pavilion Supporting Activities in Xi'an Exhibition

One of the characteristics of CIEET is to organize supporting activities and provide more personalized services for the national pavilions. Approximately 50 representatives from 16 universities in China and Italy were invited to attend the Italian special activity “From the Silk Road to the Wisdom Road” that was held in Xi'an. The delegates seized the rare opportunity to explore and promote project cooperation, to exchange thoughts for education in depth, and to share successful experience in international cooperation. The meeting achieved the desired goals and good results. So far, The Center has organized two special exchange meetings for Irish national pavilion and Italian national pavilion. The meeting featured the idea of "small but fine, tiny but accurate" and received the remarkable results and well evaluation.

3.6 The First Presence of Cambridge University

This is the first time that the world-renowned university, Cambridge University, participated in CIEET, and is also the first appearance in China. Cambridge University took CIEET 2018 as the initial exhibition platform, which fully reflects the power of the CIEET brand. The debut of Cambridge University has aroused strong concern in the international education industry. CCTV and other authoritative mainstream media have conducted in-depth coverage about this.

3.7 The Distinctive UK Exhibition Area

At Beijing’s exhibition, the UK exhibition pavilion was zoned as five exhibition areas including area of “Russell University Group”, area of “Learning in Wales”, area of “China-UK Cooperative Education Project”, area of “British Continuing Education Institute”, area of “Winter/Summer Camp Course Demonstration”. These areas clearly reflected the diversity of UK education. The exhibition area of “China-UK Cooperative Education Project” has been exhibited for two consecutive years, aiming to introduce the successful cases of the China-UK cooperative education project and share the results of the British higher education promotion in China. The exhibition has received widely praised. Besides, the "Russell University Group" debuted at the education exhibition this year and attracted many parents and students to come to consult.

4. Background of CIEET

The China International Education Exhibition Tour began in 1999 and has been successfully held in more than 20 cities in China for 22 sessions. More than 2,000 colleges and universities and educational institutions from 55 countries and regions have participated in the exhibition. A total of 1.4 million people have attended the exhibition. Through years of development, CIEET has become an effective platform for face-to-face communication between foreign universities, education institutions, agents, students and parents, and has also contributed to the multi-directional exchange of information.

4.1 Government Support

CIEET aims to provide high-quality education resources for Chinese students and has received consistent support and recognition from the Chinese Ministry of Education and local authorities in China.

4.2 The Organizer

Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange (CSCSE), as the Organizer of the exhibition, has played an important role in building a bridge between Chinese and foreign educationalresources.

Since its establishment on March 31, 1989, the Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange has gradually evolved from its established five business units into its current 14 business units, two directly-affiliated enterprises, and 30 domestic and foreign sub-centers (28 of which are also certification bodies), and 51 certification agencies. The business involves 24 service contents in five fields including services for studying abroad students, services for overseas returnees, services for studying in China, international higher education cooperation and exchanges and educational foreign affairs service, etc.

4.3 The Co-organizer

Chivast Education International, established in 2000, aims to “provide Chinese students with high-quality overseas education resources” and strives to build a safe passage for Chinese students to study abroad.

Chivast Education International provides “one-stop” services including self-financed study abroad consultation, foreign academic degree certification, consultation of employment and settlement, education information consultation, exhibitions (CIEET, etc.), translation and language training, etc. Chivast Education International also provides services for Chinese and foreign universities with cooperation projects, studying in China and teacher training.

Chivast Education International sincerely welcomes educational institutions around the world to work together with us to provide valuable opinions and suggestions, so that we can constantly improve the exhibition services and provide a satisfactory platform for communication and cooperation among all parties in international education www.chivast.com.

4.4 Feedback

CIEET, as the largest education exhibition in China, is still the major channel for understanding and communication between the institutions, students and parents, which cannot be replaced by any electronic or print media.

While we are celebrating the success of this exhibition, admittedly there are certain aspects we can do better. The comments of exhibitors are essential to the improvement. We welcome all comments, positive or negative, from our exhibitors and we will do our best to exceed your expectations.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any comments on the Show or questions about the Report. We look forward to serving your institution soon.

* A PDF version is available for download.