French university aims to attract Chinese students in public policy and management

Europe has a very diverse culture and management systems which Chinese students can learn about, says a French scholar, explaining why Chinese students should study public policy and management there rather than in the United States.

Jean Pierre Landau, dean of the School of Public Affairs at Sciences Po, a world-renowned university in the social sciences and humanities, says that compared with the US, where many Chinese students seek to learn about public policy and management, Europe is more diverse.

It has Germany, France and many other systems and cultures that Chinese students could learn about, he says.

He says that as China is now a major power, and the second biggest economy of the world, it would be beneficial for the people who manage the government to know more about other people. Better access to people from different parts of the world, different traditions, different cultures and different values will help students be more open-minded.

Landau was in China learning about China's public policy and management education and to try to attract more Chinese students to Sciences Po.

At present, 46 percent of the students at Sciences Po are international, hailing from 150 countries. About 3 percent of the students in Sciences Po are Chinese.

A former Deputy Governor of the Bank of France, Landau says about two thirds of the professors in Sciences Po are high-ranking officials, or economists who hold other important positions and come regularly to give lectures to students. The school's alumni play an important role in both public and private sectors around the world, including for example, five of the last seven French Presidents.

Landau says that in the past few years, China's public policy and management education has been growing quickly and now it has hundreds of schools.

He says that as China opens up, they are happy to welcome more Chinese students.

"We would like more Chinese students, because we think Chinese students have helped teach our students," he says. "We want our students to be not only French, not just Europeans, we want them to be able to understand other cultures in the world…Chinese students can teach us something about China."

He says that nowadays because of rapid global change, managing has become more and more complicated and difficult.

 "The economies are more diversified, resources are more numerous, implementing and designing political decisions is more difficult, so we have to get people who have different expertise," he says.

He says people who have economic expertise, who know about technology, and have communication skills and negotiation skills are very important.