On December 15th, the second list of higher education institutions to qualify the Quality Accreditation for International Student Education was published, and Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) successfully made its way into the list.

Ministry of Education (MOE)announced in 2015 that it would “launch the construction of a quality assurance system for international student education”, and issued the “accreditation standards for international student education in higher education institutions” in that December. By evaluating institutions’education capacity and achievements, management of international student education and quality of service, etc., MOEaims to propel them to establisha concept of international education oriented towards improving the quality of talents. In this way, the policy of “scaling up, optimizing structure, standardizing management and ensuring quality” would be implemented to improve the overall quality of international student education in higher education institutions. China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE) was entrusted by MOE to implement this project.

Since we signed up to be one of the pilot institutions in the second list in last October, a self-evaluation committee with Vice President Yan Guohua as the director and heads of relevant departments and colleges as members was established according to the accreditation requirements, so was a working group comprising of relevant personnel from Overseas Students Affairs Office, School of Chinese Language and Literature, International Business School, and School of International Relations and Diplomacy. Over the past six months, wecomposed the self-evaluation report, modified it based on the comments collected, and went through procedures like reviews by the self-evaluation committee and CEAIE expert team. In the end, BFSU successfully obtained the accreditation.

This accreditation not only acknowledges BFSU’s achievements in international student education, but also played an active role in stimulating university development through evaluation. During the accreditation process, we comprehensively summarized the successes and failures in international student education, and identified the areas that need improvement and the corresponding approaches, paving the way for future improvement in quality, efficiency, and the level of international student education in BFSU.