Background Information
Feb 24, 2010
在中国的留学教育市场日益扩大的今天，留学荷兰的学生数量也在快速增加,2007年到2009年共增加了60%，其中2009/2010学年有10%的赴荷留学生来自四川和湖北。成都和武汉，两个中国腹地最具活力和辐射性的城市，成为了我们这次“留学荷兰”项目的重点推广地。其中成都站的活动会在今年上半年3月到4月集中展开。
China is a booming market for not only overseas education industry, but also culture and business related fields. It is a remarkable fact that the number of Chinese students applying for a Neso Certificate[1] has increased by 60% from year 2007 to 2009. When checking the studying origins of these students, it is not difficult to find that in addition to the large cities (e.g. Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou) and a few developed coastal areas, 2nd tier cities [2] in China also play an important role. The 2nd tier cities, like Chengdu and Wuhan, receive great attention and support from Chinese central government. According to the internal data from the Assessment Section of Neso China, 10% of the students going to the Netherlands for the academic year 2009/2010 graduated from universities in Sichuan and Hubei. However, compared with the larger cities, the 2nd tier cities have less knowledge about the Netherlands. The image of the Netherlands as a country, let alone as an attractive studying destination in these areas is still very ambiguous. Taking the strategic importance of the aforementioned areas and the relatively lower well-knowness of the Netherlands there into account, Neso China intends to focus more on the 2nd tier cities in the next stage.
As a result, a new promotion tool named “the Orange Wind Campaign (OWC)” is recently planned. This campaign is essentially an image-building project. A clear positive image of the Netherlands as an attractive studying destination is supposed to be built in the aforementioned areas through the campaign in cooperation with national and local partners.
[1] A procedure to verify the English language proficiency of the applicants and is indispensable for the MVV application
[2] 2nd tier city: less developed areas, compared with the large municipalities, e.g. Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, but with great potential to explore, also received high attention and support from the central government.