The Chinese government is broadening its civil service recruitment avenues to include overseas graduates from top international universities. This move offers new career paths for Chinese overseas graduates while diversifying the talent pool within China’s civil service.

Traditionally, civil service jobs in China have been highly coveted for their stability, benefits, and prestige. Fresh graduates could either take national or provincial exams, which are extremely competitive, or opt for grassroots roles in less developed areas as a pathway into the civil service, a route only previously available to graduates from elite domestic universities such as Peking University and Tsinghua University. However, several municipalities and provincial authorities are now opening these positions to Chinese overseas graduates.

For the upcoming 2024 civil service recruitment cycle, Shanghai has expanded its eligibility criteria to include graduates from 73 colleges located outside mainland China. Meanwhile, Beijing is taking an even more inclusive stance by accepting applications from recent graduates of the top 100 universities in the world, as according to the Shanghai 2023 World Universities Rankings.

Other provinces across China have also made moves to broaden their civil servant recruitment scope. Officials in Sichuan Province in Southwest China recently announced plans to hire new graduates who have studied abroad through a specialised track known as "selected and assigned graduates." These graduates must have majored in one of 24 academic fields that are currently in demand, such as electronic information, equipment manufacturing, digital economy, modern agriculture, and aerospace engineering, and they are also required to have graduated from one of 52 approved foreign universities, which encompass Ivy League schools and other prestigious institutions in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

Sources:

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202310/27/WS653b1797a31090682a5eb086.html

How this affects the UK education sector

The desire for civil service roles has spiked among Chinese graduates due to economic slowdowns and uncertainties in the corporate sector. With a record 2.83 million people applying for China’s national public servants’ exam, which will take place in November, 2023, and less than 39,000 vacancies available nationwide, the competition is stiffer than ever. The change in policy may raise the appeal of degrees from leading foreign institutions as it offers Chinese students studying a degree abroad a tangible pathway to prestigious government positions in their home country.