Beijing. The academic exchange between Mexico and China has been recovering after the coronavirus pandemic. Even with budgetary limitations, about 20 students move between the two countries every semester; but the potential that this Asian nation represents for those studying engineering and basic sciences has not yet been exploited, explains Adalberto Noyola Robles, director of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) Headquarters in China.
We are betting that more and more science and engineering students will come. China has made a lot of progress and we in Mexico have not realized it, says the academic in an interview with La Jornada. So far, the exchange program has been most requested by students from the faculties of Law, Accounting and Administration, Economics, Philosophy and Letters, as well as Political and Social Sciences, he adds.
The management of the UNAM headquarters in China – whose official name is the Center for Mexican Studies – hopes that the attraction of this country for students of humanities and social sciences will not cease, but that future engineers, physicists, mathematicians, doctors and students of other biological sciences will join them. China has a lot of potential there, reiterates Noyola Robles, who has made a career as a researcher in environmental engineering.
Pause due to the pandemic
The academic says that after the pandemic, which brought everything to a halt, academic mobility has been recovering, but it is not so easy for Mexicans to dare to go to China. The main impediment is not the language, since several universities offer programs in English, with the aim of attracting foreign students, but the economy. In reality, what is stopping us, unfortunately, is money. Coming here is expensive, he adds.
A round trip flight from Mexico City to Beijing costs around 40 thousand pesos; That is, three, four, and even six times more than what it can cost to move to a city in the United States or Europe. This is the main deterrent for those who were thinking of taking a semester in China.
Although the semester mobility programs, which are under the supervision of the General Directorate of Cooperation and Internationalization, involve the provision of a scholarship, this resource is barely complementary, since it does not include the plane ticket and in many cases is insufficient to cover full maintenance outside of Mexico.
Due to budgetary limitations, UNAM has relatively few spaces for exchanges due to the size of the student population, explains Noyola Robles. Each semester, the largest university channels around 250 students to the whole world. “It is very little for 370 thousand students between undergraduate and graduate (…) less than one percent,” she says. If we could allocate more money, without a doubt, mobility would be enhanced.
When assessing the budget problem, Noyola Robles does not give up: China implies a great opportunity for university mobility, which is not exclusive to students. There is also a search to accelerate the exchange of academics – from short stays to sabbaticals – that result in collaboration agreements.
As an example, she mentions María Alejandra Bravo de la Parra and Mario Soberón Chávez, researchers at the UNAM Biotechnology Institute, who for more than a decade have accompanied their work in agricultural biotechnology with that of their peers at the Plant Protection Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. That is an excellent way to start moving collaboration, says Noyola.
On the other side of the world, the interest is no less. The UNAM-China headquarters is at the Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU). From there, it has channeled Chinese students from that school, from Renmin and from the University of Beijing, to do stays in Mexico.
We see a lot of interest from the Chinese in going to Mexico. Despite the news that is known here (it is always bad news that reaches abroad, about violence and organized crime, which are known to exist), they still want to travel because Mexico is still very attractive for students and many go, says the environmental academic.
Accustomed to approaching the Spanish language through the culture of Spain and not Latin America, many Chinese students experience a change of perspective when they arrive at Ciudad Universitaria.
Noyola explains: When they go to Mexico, the world opens up to them. They see many things of great interest. They have all returned very happy, many wanting to return and, unfortunately, many also with an episode of theft. Even so, they return wanting to return.
Source: jornada
