(Source: "China Higher Education Research" Issue 3, 2025)

Abstract: Systematically define the theoretical connotation of important education centers based on the perspective of economic network analysis, explore and propose the concepts and paths for transforming from a single-center model to a multi-center model, and believe that new education center forms will be derived during the evolution of new centers. Therefore, the new form of education center should be the target form for the construction of important education centers in our country to reach a new level. The new world education outlook provides conceptual support for the new form of education centers by leading the transformation of educational paradigms. By analyzing the dynamic trends in educational development and open cooperation practices at home and abroad, the study reveals the opportunities and challenges faced by the construction of important education centers. Discuss the new direction of the policy path for building an important education center with global influence, which is to uphold the new world education outlook and deepen foreign exchanges and cooperation in education, improve systems and mechanisms to empower talent cultivation to "bring in" and "go out", and promote the modernization of the foreign-related education security governance system and governance capabilities.

Keywords: Educational power; important education center; new form; new world education outlook

1. Introduction

General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly pointed out at the 2024 National Education Conference that the educational power our country wants to build should have strong ideological and political leadership, talent competitiveness, scientific and technological support, people's livelihood security, social synergy, and international influence. The above-mentioned "six forces" together constitute an organic whole. Among them, international influence is an important manifestation of the country's comprehensive strength and provides important guidance for the practice of building a strong educational country. The "Outline of the Plan for Building a Powerful Educational Country (2024-2035)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Outline") further puts forward the work goals, strategic tasks and timetable for building a powerful educational country, clarifying that the construction of an important education center with global influence will reach a new level by 2027, and that the country will be built into a powerful educational country by 2035. From the perspective of strategic deployment, accelerating the construction of important education centers with global influence to a new level is an important prerequisite for building an educational power. The "new level" marks that the construction of important education centers has entered a new stage of high-quality development. It requires us to systematically promote the implementation of the goal of building an educational power with higher standards, a more international vision, and a more forward-looking action framework.

The “new level” has both theoretical innovation and practical guidance. On the one hand, it is not only the core yardstick for evaluating the construction process of important education centers, but also an intermediary mechanism linking the strategic goals and specific policies of educational power. The essence of reaching a "new level" is not a superficial concept of linear progress, but an evaluation system related to structural changes in the construction of important education centers, playing a pivotal role in coordinating the short-term goals and long-term vision of becoming an educational powerhouse. Specifically, the "new level" points to the transformation and upgrading of the education center form: its connotation goes beyond simple scale expansion and focuses on the three dimensions of improving the quality of education opening to the outside world, innovating educational concepts, and increasing global educational influence. On the other hand, the “new level” drives systematic changes in the educational practice paradigm, and the education center shape shaped by the new paradigm directly supports the coordinated realization of the goals of educational power and Chinese-style modernization through optimized resource allocation and innovative governance models.

Studying the evolution rules and development trends of the world's important education centers is not only of great significance to the development of theory, but also has a profound impact on practical operations and policy formulation in related fields. It is necessary to base on the new perspective of Chinese-style modernization, focus on the new stage of building an educational power, and use new concepts to clarify the goal form of education centers with global influence and the academic connotation of moving to a new level. Generally speaking, education centers refer to educational resources and activities that are relatively concentrated in specific geographical areas (at the national, city or regional level) due to government planning efforts or spontaneous evolution, and have formed an extensive network in the fields of education and training, talent mobility and knowledge exchange. It is the broadest concept discussed in this study. An important education center refers to an education center with important status and influence in a specific region or field, which is the result of the latter's quality improvement and increased influence. An important education center with global influence is an important education center that has significant influence and leading role on a global scale. It is the core concept of this study (hereinafter referred to as important education center) and is also the strategic goal of building a powerful educational country. The world's important education centers have similar meanings to important education centers with global influence. In the context of this study, they focus on referring to mature and important education centers that have formed widespread influence on a global scale. Judging from the practice of open education in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and other countries, they have generally experienced a development stage from cross-border mobility of students, cross-border mobility of learning projects and their organizers, to the expansion of functions such as knowledge innovation and global governance. They have accumulated strong global influence and belong to the conceptual category of important education centers in the world. Our country aims to build an important education center with global influence, but its substantive connotation is different from the existing form of the world's important education centers. Therefore, the concept of a new form of education center is an important basis for the construction of important education centers to reach a "new level". This study is based on the analytical framework of the new form of education centers, focuses on the practical paradigms and conceptual innovations in the process of a big education country becoming a powerful country, and systematically deconstructs the opportunities and challenges it faces, thereby providing theoretical support for accelerating the upgrading of education center forms and achieving the goal of reaching a new level in the construction of important education centers.

2. The connotation, evolution and form of an important education center with global influence

(1) The connotation of important education centers: based on the perspective of economic network analysis

The economic network analysis framework emphasizes that economic entities form network structures through multi-dimensional connections, which in turn affects resource allocation and market efficiency. The distribution characteristics of educational activities in geographical space are similar to those of economic activities, showing central agglomeration characteristics. Specific countries or cities have become core nodes of the network due to the aggregation of resources, and through various connections such as spatial proximity, personnel mobility, economic interaction and knowledge diffusion, they have generated positive externality effects of knowledge sharing, resource complementarity and collaborative innovation, and promoted network participants to achieve Pareto improvements. In economic networks, central nodes refer to node units with high connectivity and intermediary control, which have a dominant influence on information flow, resource flow and talent flow. The breadth, width and depth of connections between nodes determine their degree of centrality. Hub nodes with multi-dimensional and high-density connections have a higher level of centrality.

Referring to the definition of central nodes in economic network analysis, important education centers can be defined as: countries or cities that occupy a hub position in the global education network and its derived interaction chains (such as talent flow, scientific and technological cooperation, and knowledge sharing). Such centers need to meet three important requirements: ① Have extensive connectivity in global bilateral, regional and multilateral cooperation; ② Form high-density interactions in education, scientific research, culture and other fields; ③ Strengthen network influence through high-frequency resource exchange and institutional collaboration. In terms of constituent elements, the physical carriers of important education centers have broken through the traditional categories and include universities, clusters of scientific research institutions, and new knowledge production and diffusion hubs, such as digital education platforms (such as MOOCs), transnational think tank networks, and industry-university-research collaborations. Compared with existing studies that define centers from the perspective of the gathering and allocation of high-quality educational resources and the proportion of major achievements in the world, this study's definition of important educational centers places more emphasis on networked interactions, because the scope and depth of interactive connections in the education field can represent the degree of centrality of development.

The important education center adopts the trinity functional structure of "talent highland-innovation engine-governance kinetic energy" and relies on networked resource integration and collaboration model reconstruction to drive the transition of the "educational effectiveness-public goods" model of cross-domain collaboration, thereby generating global influence. From the perspective of functional attributes, the core role of important education centers is reflected in three aspects: ① As a talent highland, it attracts and cultivates the world's top talents through high-quality educational resources; ② As an innovation engine, it drives transnational academic cooperation and knowledge production paradigm changes; ③ As a governance momentum, it contributes cutting-edge concepts and practical solutions to global education governance to improve the effectiveness of global education governance.

(2) The evolution of important educational centers and the law of transformation of educational paradigms

Based on the perspective of economic network analysis, in the dynamic evolution process from a single-center network to a multi-center network, the rise of new important education centers is generally coupled with the systematic innovation of educational practice paradigms. From a structural-functional perspective, the core node of a single-center network usually dominates the flow path and direction of talents, knowledge and resources, and controls the right to formulate key rules and the right to allocate key resources. Driven by multiple factors such as technological progress, knowledge diffusion, market evolution, and policy adjustments, the intensity of connections between edge nodes has significantly increased, gradually forming a new multi-centered connection relationship. The strengthening of this type of connection is not entirely dependent on core nodes, but is based on the need fit, trust building and cooperation mechanisms between individuals, and then promotes the growth of edge connection paths through the self-organizing process. Similarly, in the global education network, with the accumulation of edge connections and the increase in network density, the polycentric structure gradually replaces the single-center structure, and the formation of new important education centers often evolves simultaneously with the transformation of cooperation models. Furthermore, the polycentric transformation of the global education network not only reconstructs the spatial pattern, but also promotes the emergence of new centers through the collaborative innovation of educational development strategies (such as education opening to the outside world) and practical paradigms (such as transnational degree certification systems).

The concept of paradigm change originates from the field of scientific philosophy, and specifically refers to the fundamental reconstruction of the original theoretical framework when the scientific community faces anomalies. This concept has now been extended to the scope of social science analysis to explain systematic practice transformation in education, culture and other fields. When existing theories cannot explain new phenomena, the scientific community will go through the paradigm replacement cycle of "normal science-crisis-revolution": old theories gradually lose their vitality under the impact of abnormal phenomena, and then new cognitive frameworks are established through revolutionary exploration. Similarly, paradigm changes in the field of education are also likely to follow the evolutionary path of "accumulation of problems - cognitive conflicts - restructuring of practices". Social and economic development, scientific and technological progress and cultural exchanges will also promote changes in educational paradigms. For example, the transformation from examination-oriented education to quality-oriented education, and the transformation from teacher-centered teaching mode to student-centered active learning are all paradigm shifts in educational practice. When the structural transformation of social needs (such as from skills training to innovation ability cultivation) creates tension with the knowledge production and dissemination capabilities of the education system, the transformation of the educational practice paradigm will have endogenous power.

Throughout the historical process of global education development, the evolution of educational centers has been accompanied by changes in educational paradigms. Early Italy, Germany during the Industrial Revolution, and the United States after World War II all became important education centers in the world because of their innovations in the field of education, and led the transformation of the global educational practice paradigm. As an important education center in Europe in the early days, Italy developed the earliest higher education institutions with the prototype of modern universities, leading the paradigm change of higher education in Europe since the late Middle Ages. On the one hand, Italy promoted the shift of higher education from religious instruction to professional ability training through the creative establishment of secular disciplines such as law and medicine; on the other hand, the establishment of a degree certification system enabled student mobility and teacher appointment to break through geographical restrictions, giving birth to the early form of academic communities. The Industrial Revolution set off a wave of industrialization in Europe. Germany began to implement a compulsory education system, leading the world to popularize basic education. It used Humboldt University as a prototype to build a modern university paradigm that "unifies teaching and scientific research." After the end of World War II, the United States relied on market mechanisms and open policies to shape the three-dimensional collaborative paradigm of "education-industry-innovation" in the era of globalization. The GI Bill expands access to higher education, relies on the "Silicon Valley-Stanford" industry-university-research symbiosis model to reshape engineering education, and uses market-based tools such as QS rankings to promote the internationalization of education. It builds an education paradigm based on the trinity of national strategy, market demand and global competitiveness, making the United States a global center for global talent circulation and knowledge capitalization.

(3) Transformation of educational practice paradigm and new form of education center

The historical evolution path of the world's important education centers and the systematic changes in educational practice paradigms jointly promote the iterative evolution of the education center form, and the generation of new forms is the coupling product of technological empowerment, paradigm reconstruction, and institutional innovation. The evolution of the global pattern of important education centers is by no means a linear process of spatial location adjustment or resource scale expansion. Its essence is the structural resonance of the reconstruction of educational concepts, the innovation of talent cultivation mechanisms, the transformation of knowledge production models, and the logical upgrading of international exchanges (such as multilateral collaborative governance). From the perspective of the evolution path, the construction of the new form of the education center shows three characteristics: first, openness and inclusiveness, reflected in the cross-border talent circulation mechanism and the mutual learning of multicultural symbiosis and civilization; second, innovation and integration, reflected in the innovation of independent knowledge systems and the blurring of disciplinary boundaries; third, collaborative governance, focusing on the supply of global educational public goods and the institutionalization of a multi-stakeholder consultation platform.

Furthermore, the new role of the education center has transcended the traditional "production-output" paradigm and shifted to a composite positioning of "symbiosis-co-creation-co-governance". This transformation can be understood in terms of a paradigm shift in three dimensions. The first is an open knowledge hub from one-way output to two-way interaction. The traditional internationalization of education follows the "center-periphery" diffusion logic, while the new form of center builds a two-way knowledge convection mechanism through the "academic partnership network" (such as the China-Africa Joint Laboratory) to realize the co-construction and sharing of intellectual property rights. The traditional model is deeply trapped in the monopoly of English academic discourse, and its knowledge output is often accompanied by implicit colonial logic. The new form promotes the diversity of knowledge production through "mobile academic communities" and distributed knowledge platforms (such as the Open Access Journal Alliance). The second is a collaborative innovation platform from traditional disciplinary division of labor to interdisciplinary, industry-university knowledge integration. Traditional education models tend to focus on specialized division of labor in disciplines, while new forms of education centers transform into interdisciplinary and cross-industry knowledge integration and innovation platforms, encouraging the breaking of disciplinary barriers and w88 casino-enterprise boundaries to conduct cross-field learning and research. The third is the transformation of the role of global education governance from “passive participation” to “active leadership”. The new form of education center will no longer be just a participant in the global education system, but will become an important participant, shaper and leader.

On the whole, compared with the new form of higher education driven by digital intelligence technology, the new form of education center is a more comprehensive form. The new form of the education center has broken through the traditional paradigm of "resource aggregation and rule dominance" and has become more open and inclusive, more innovation-driven, more interdisciplinary integration, more concerned about global challenges, and more digital and intelligent. The new form of education center is not only a talent cultivation center and a knowledge production center, but also a source of innovative ideas, a bridge for cross-cultural exchanges, and a leader in global education governance.

3. The necessity of transforming from a big country in education to a powerful country in education: shaping a new form of important education center

Between a large country in education and a power in education, there is not only a difference in total size, but also a deep-seated difference in structure, quality, equity and internationalization. A truly powerful country in education not only has a huge education system, but also takes a leading position in development strategy, education quality, innovation capabilities and global influence. In the process of moving from a big country in education to a powerful country in education, the construction of an important education center with global influence will reach a new level, which will inevitably require a new form of education center.

(1) The great goal of Chinese-style modernization puts forward higher requirements for educational development

Chinese-style modernization is guided by the goal of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Education to strengthen the country is the key to empowering the national rejuvenation with a strong foundation. Accelerating the construction of an educational power is a priority strategy for the country's overall development and a key support for achieving the "Two Centenary Goals" and national rejuvenation. The strategic attribute of education lies in its ability to provide intellectual support, talent protection and innovation power for Chinese-style modernization, which directly affects the country's position and future in global competition. This requires us to align the practice of building an educational power with the Chinese modernization process from the overall perspective of national development, put education in a priority position to promote education reform and innovation, and provide strong support for the realization of this ambitious goal.

To achieve the goal of becoming an educational power and supporting Chinese-style modernization, it is urgent to build a world-class talent training system to enhance the international competitiveness of talents. The international competitiveness of talents mainly refers to the ability of talents to develop competition, cooperation and exchange on a global scale, and is an important manifestation of talent competitiveness. Judging from the results, building an important education center with global influence will inevitably mean the formation of a relatively mature international first-class talent training model. The international competitiveness of talents is a natural result of this talent training model. At present, our country is accelerating towards the center of the world stage. The country needs a large number of talents with international vision and international professional skills to better support economic transformation and upgrading with an international talent reserve, better carry out international cooperation and exchanges, and better respond to global challenges. This urgently requires accelerating the innovation of educational practice paradigms, promoting the construction of important education centers with global influence and moving towards a new form of education center.

To achieve the goal of becoming an educational power and supporting Chinese-style modernization, it is urgent to bring together cutting-edge innovation elements from around the world to help enhance scientific and technological competitiveness. A strong educational country is not only reflected in the rich educational resources, the improvement of the educational system and the level of talent training, but also in its strong promotion of scientific and technological innovation. In the context of the increasingly networked development of global scientific and technological innovation, the improvement of scientific and technological competitiveness not only relies on the integration of domestic innovation resources, but also requires the gathering of global cutting-edge innovation elements and the formation of a global collaboration network. Because globalization has led to increasingly frequent cooperation and exchanges between countries in the field of science and technology, the spread of cutting-edge technologies and innovative ideas in the global network has accelerated. Gathering global innovation elements can promote cross-border, cross-field and cross-disciplinary cooperation, and accelerate major cutting-edge scientific and technological innovations and breakthroughs. A new form of education center can often attract the world's top scientific research talents and form a high-level scientific research team, and provide a wealth of practical application scenarios for the transformation of scientific and technological innovation achievements, shortening the lag time from technological innovation to industrial implementation, thus providing a solid foundation for gathering global cutting-edge innovation elements.

(2) The inevitable requirements for achieving qualitative changes in my country’s education system

As a systematic transition process, the construction of an educational power follows the evolutionary logic of "scale accumulation - structural optimization - quality and efficiency leap": it not only relies on the supporting role of education scale layout (such as the breadth of resource coverage), but also needs to go through deep-level changes such as quality improvement (such as teacher specialization), structural transformation (such as discipline ecological reconstruction), and openness and improvement (such as international exchanges).

From the perspective of development foundation, our country has built the world's largest education system, the level of educational modernization is steadily advancing, digital education is developing rapidly, and a good education ecosystem has been initially formed. According to data released by the Ministry of Education, as of the end of 2023, there were 498,300 schools of various types in our country. Educational institutions at all levels and with various academic qualifications accommodated 281 million students, and there were 18.9178 million full-time teachers. According to relevant empirical research, my country's global ranking in the Education Power Index has risen from 49th in 2012 to 23rd in 2022, making it the country with the fastest improvement in global rankings within the sample interval. In recent years, with the government attaching great importance and vigorously promoting it, my country's digital education has developed rapidly. It has made significant progress in three aspects: digital education system construction, digital literacy cultivation, and digital resource construction and application. It has built the world's largest national smart education public service platform, and the digital education development index has jumped from 24th to 9th in the world.

Our country’s education system has a solid foundation to move towards a higher quality development stage. The new form of education center is the inevitable result of full coverage of institutional resources, digital technology empowerment, system coordination and quality improvement. As the theory of complex systems reveals, qualitative change is not water without a source or a tree without roots. Instead, after the components of the system accumulate in number and interact to a certain extent, unpredicted new characteristics and functions will emerge in a specific direction. Specifically, the huge scale of education provides vast space and abundant resources for the construction of new forms; the development of digital education provides technical support for the intelligent transformation of new forms; and the continuously improving education system and governance capabilities provide institutional guarantees for the high-quality development of new forms. It is the long-term accumulation and interaction of these system elements that make the emergence of new forms of education centers inevitable.

As a key carrier for the leap from an educational country to an educational power, the new form of education center is not only the crystallization of the accumulated results of quantitative changes in the previous stage, but also the driving engine for a new round of qualitative changes. In the primary development stage, scale expansion (such as college enrollment expansion) lays the foundation for quality improvement; in the new development stage (2012 to the present), quality breakthroughs (such as the construction of "double first-class") feed back scale optimization (such as the reform of classified examinations in higher vocational colleges), forming an evolutionary closed loop of "quantitative change laying the foundation - qualitative change leading - new quantitative change iteration". For this reason, the new form of education center plays a connecting role in taking the construction of important education centers to a new level and building a powerful educational country.

(3) The inevitable manifestation of high-quality education’s opening up to the outside world and its global influence

Opening up high-quality education to the outside world is an important way to shape global influence. It is not only the introduction of superficial elements (such as curriculum introduction, teacher exchanges), but also a systematic opening based on model innovation (such as Sino-foreign cooperative education) and strategic coordination (such as the "One Belt, One Road" educational initiative). The focus of high-quality education opening to the outside world is to achieve triple upgrades through cross-border and cross-regional education collaboration: optimizing education quality, promoting educational equity, and deepening exchanges and mutual learning of cultural civilizations. By reconstructing the two-way flow mechanism of resources, knowledge, and talents, high-quality openness not only promotes the improvement of local education levels, but also accelerates global collaboration in knowledge production. Through cultural dialogue mechanisms and the practice of mutual learning among civilizations, high-quality openness has formed an exemplary cooperation network, promoting the transformation of the global education landscape from "center-periphery" to "multi-center collaboration". Opening up high-quality education to the outside world is not only a strategic choice for China’s education development, but also an important way for China to shape its influence on a global scale.

my country's education opening up to the outside world continues to advance with high quality, education "bringing in" continues to make new progress, and education "going out" continues to achieve new results. Opening up high-quality education to the outside world is very important. It not only helps enhance international exchanges and cooperation, improve the quality and influence of education, but also provides broad vision and resource support for talent cultivation and innovative development. Our country attaches great importance to the opening up of education to the outside world. Since the new development stage, it has placed the opening up of education to the outside world in the overall national strategy of opening up to the outside world. It has introduced a series of policies to support the better "bringing in" and "going out" of education. As my country's attractiveness as a study abroad destination continues to increase, the number of international students in China continues to grow. As early as 2016, it has become the world's largest overseas study exporting country and an important study abroad destination in Asia. It has established cooperative education projects with many countries in multiple subject areas, and the "introduction" of educational resources has continued to make new progress. At the same time, China's education "going global" has also continued to achieve new results, such as the "China-Arab 10+10" cooperation plan with Arab countries, the "China-Africa Vocational Education Cooperation Plan" with African countries, and "Luban Workshop" and other vocational education "going global" efforts have continued to achieve new results. Our country has established a multi-level educational external exchange mechanism, signed mutual recognition agreements on academic degrees and degrees with 61 countries and regions, and 85 countries have incorporated Chinese into their national education systems.

The new form of education center is an inevitable manifestation of the opening up of high-quality education to the outside world. The opening up of high-quality education requires the role of Chinese education in the global education system to change, from learners and followers in the past to participants, leaders, and ultimately an important setter of rules for global education development. This role change means that Chinese education must significantly enhance its international competitiveness in talent training, scientific research, cultural exchanges, etc., and be able to provide the world with high-quality educational resources and solutions. Moving towards a new form of education center marks that Chinese education has initially acquired the ability to deeply participate in global education governance and lead the development trend of global education. This fully reflects the new pattern of global influence shaped by the opening up of high-quality education. In this sense, the new form of the education center is the natural result of the accumulation of elements such as talent cultivation, knowledge innovation, and international exchange platforms. It is an inevitable manifestation of the long-term development and accumulation of results of high-quality education opening to the outside world. The construction of a new form of education center marks China's transformation from a participant to a leader in the global education field, and also provides a solid foundation for China to play a greater role in global governance and building a community with a shared future for mankind.

(4) New form of education center for an educationally powerful country: Generative logic and profound connotation

The new form of education center is a new carrier for the transformation of my country’s education system from quantitative change to qualitative change. It is also an inevitable form that supports the construction of an educational power with high-quality opening to the outside world. It is not only a complex process of interaction between external drive and internal evolution, but also an inherent requirement of a new educational development logic that is rooted in China’s educational practice, serves national strategies, and participates in global governance. From the perspective of external drivers, the great goal of Chinese-style modernization and the strategic choice of opening up high-quality education to the outside world together constitute the background of the times and the driving force for development of the new form. From the perspective of internal evolution, the agglomeration effect of talent highlands, the driving effect of innovation engines and the improvement effect of governance kinetic energy promote each other and jointly promote the formation of new forms. The synergy of these external and internal factors ultimately promotes the transition of important education centers from traditional models to new forms.

The new form of education center for an educationally powerful country has achieved paradigm changes at the educational level, and its profound changes are mainly reflected in three aspects. First, resource integration has shifted from simple physical superposition to aggregation of chemical reactions, emphasizing the systematic integration of global education resources (such as students, teachers, data, technology) through high-intensity network connectivity to achieve deep integration and synergy of resources. Second, model innovation has shifted from local experimentation to system reconstruction, emphasizing transnational cooperation models (such as transnational training projects, joint degree projects, virtual laboratories) and driving cross-domain (country, discipline, industry) collaborative innovation, thereby achieving holistic and systematic innovation in education models. Third, quality evaluation has shifted from a single indicator to a comprehensive classification, emphasizing the multi-dimensional, differentiated and developmental nature of education quality evaluation, ultimately improving the efficiency of talent training and the conversion rate of scientific research results.

China has built a new form of education center, and its new connotation is mainly reflected in three aspects. The first is to implement new guiding concepts. It practices a new world education outlook guided by the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, placing education at the height of serving global common interests. Although various existing education centers also advocate international cooperation, they are more motivated by safeguarding their own national interests and emphasize the role of education in serving the country's economic, political and cultural development. The second is to practice new communication methods. It has developed a multilateral and two-way academic partnership network, focusing on equal cooperation with countries in the Global South to achieve mutually beneficial sharing of knowledge, talents, and technology. However, various existing education centers mainly focus on the one-way output of knowledge, technology, standards, etc., and the knowledge flow model presents an obvious center-periphery structure. The third is to practice new global roles. It actively participates in consultations on co-building the global education governance system and contributes Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions to solve global education challenges. However, various education centers have advocated more for maintaining existing international rules and standards, and have paid more attention to maintaining their own influence in the field of international education.

4. New World Education Outlook: Leading the Change of Educational Paradigm

The transformation of the educational practice paradigm promotes the formation of a new form of education center, but the transformation of the educational practice paradigm itself does not exist in isolation. It is closely connected with the transformation of educational concepts. In the process of education opening to the outside world, educational concepts fully absorb the outstanding achievements of human civilization and progress to form a new world education outlook, and educational practice paradigms are the concrete embodiment of educational concepts at the practical level. Taking the new world education outlook as a practical guide is more conducive to the formation of a new educational paradigm, thereby better adapting to the needs of high-level education opening to the outside world in the new era. Therefore, understanding the logical relationship between the new world outlook on education, the transformation of educational paradigms and the new form of education centers is of great significance for better moving towards the new form of education centers.

(1) The new world education outlook is guided by the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind

The practice of a new world education outlook guided by the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind is the need of the development of the times. Today's world structure is undergoing profound changes, global challenges are increasing day by day, and the international community continues to be troubled by issues such as governance deficit, trust deficit, peace deficit, and development deficit. To promote the opening up of education in a complex and ever-changing international environment, we must face global challenges and answer the questions of the times. As the core concept of Xi Jinping's diplomatic thought, the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind provides China's answer to "what kind of world should we build and how to build this world?" The fundamental question of education is who to train, how to train people, and for whom. Therefore, the mission of education points to a grand goal, which is to build a better world and cultivate talents who can build this world. Based on this, the opening up of education must be guided by the concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind. It must not only focus on the development of the education system itself, but also serve the common goal of human progress.

Building a community with a shared future for mankind is the strategic direction of China’s foreign exchanges in the new era. It also provides the fundamental basis for the opening of education to the outside world and the construction of an important education center. Building a community with a shared future for mankind is the general outline for formulating and implementing various foreign policies. Important initiatives such as the Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and Global Civilization Initiative are Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions that contribute to solving global problems under the guidance of the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind. The opening of education to the outside world is an important component of the country's overall foreign relations. It must serve the country's overall foreign strategy and enhance our country's influence through foreign exchanges and cooperation in the field of education and participation in global education governance. Our country's construction of an important education center with global influence is a great project for a new round of opening up to the outside world to promote the construction of an educational power. The political nature of education means that the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind provides the fundamental basis for the construction of important education centers.

The concept of a community with a shared future for mankind emphasizes the interdependence of countries and the new thinking of global development that transcends zero-sum games, and advocates a new global development order of peaceful development and win-win cooperation. This provides a broader vision and a more positive value orientation for the new world education outlook. The concept of a community with a shared future for mankind is based on the fact that all countries in the world are interconnected and interdependent to an unprecedented degree, and advocates an interdependent global view of mankind living in the same global village. Guided by this, education opening to the outside world must not only focus on the development of individual countries, but also take a broad view of the development of all mankind, including providing assistance and assistance to other less developed countries and regions within its capabilities. The concept of a community with a shared future for mankind advocates that countries can achieve mutual benefit, common development and common prosperity through cooperation, transcending the traditional zero-sum game thinking of mutual competition and confrontation. This provides value support for open exchanges and cooperation in global education. Developed countries and countries in the Global South can provide support for achieving a more equitable and balanced global education development through educational resource sharing, cultural exchanges and mutual learning, and transnational cooperation in running schools.

The connotation of the new world education outlook is in line with the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind. The new world education outlook takes a global perspective, openness and win-win, collaborative innovation and mutual learning among civilizations as its core elements. It advocates that education should uphold the values ​​of global interconnectedness and common destiny that transcend national boundaries, be guided by peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom that all mankind cherishes, promote openness and sharing, and win-win cooperation as the path to improvement, participate in the global education governance system with the spirit of collaborative innovation, and encourage equal dialogue and exchanges and mutual learning among different civilizations as the guideline for external exchanges. The new worldview is highly consistent with the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind in terms of value foundation, action path, and mutual learning among civilizations. Through various mechanisms and interactions such as value shaping, students' cross-cultural communication ability cultivation, opening up cooperation platforms, and participation in global education governance, it provides an ideological foundation, talent support, and intellectual contribution to the realization of a community with a shared future for mankind. Under the guidance of the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, the new world education outlook has more contemporary significance, theoretical contribution and practical value.

(2) Educational paradigm change is the practical requirement of new educational concepts

The transformation of educational concepts provides a direction guide for the transformation of educational paradigms. Educational philosophy is an abstract, universal and instructive view on the nature, purpose, educational content, educational methodology, educational evaluation and other structural elements of education. As a model framework for educational practice, educational paradigm is the operationalization and concreteness of educational concepts at the practical level. The educational paradigm stipulates the basic processes, methods and evaluation standards of educational activities, and its direction and characteristics of change directly reflect the changes in educational concepts. In essence, changes in educational concepts reflect the self-renewal and improvement of educational philosophy in the development of the times, and are the key to understanding the transformation of educational value concepts and the effectiveness of educational practice.

Advanced educational concepts can provide direction for educational practice and ensure that education moves toward the right goal. Educational concepts and their changes in any era do not exist in isolation and develop automatically. They are generally dominated by national ideology, are condensed into consensus under the influence of the transmission of social values ​​​​and technological progress, and continuously gain feedback and vitality in educational practice. Because education is part of the superstructure, its fundamental concepts and goals are determined by national ideology. The transmission of social values ​​​​and technological progress have played an important role in promoting it. The interaction of common values ​​​​and overall importance of technological progress largely determines the direction of educational concept change.

(3) Moving towards a new form of education center will inevitably require the practice of a new world education outlook

Moving towards a new form of education center will inevitably require the practice of a new world education outlook, which fundamentally lies in the dialectical and unified relationship between educational concepts and paradigm changes. New educational concepts can provide motivation and direction for educational paradigm changes, and educational paradigm changes can promote the implementation and continuous development of educational concepts. In the context of the superposition of globalization and digitalization, the structural system dominated by the West in the traditional education model has been unable to adapt to the needs of knowledge production involving multiple subjects. It is necessary to use new concepts to guide model reconstruction and technological empowerment to break resource monopoly and institutional barriers, thereby improving the overall efficiency of education. Practicing the new world education outlook will help build a new form of education center and promote the construction of important education centers to a new level. The key is that the new world education outlook is not only a revision of traditional educational concepts, but also a forward-looking plan for the future development direction. It has profound theoretical connotations, clear practical orientation, forward-looking strategic vision, and an innovative spirit that keeps pace with the times.

To realize the transformation of the educational paradigm and form a new form of education center, it is necessary to practice the world education outlook. Changes in educational paradigms are the result of the interweaving, interaction and feedback of multiple factors, including changes in technology, globalization and social structure. For example, in the process of transformation from examination-oriented education to quality-oriented education, changes in educational methods, educational evaluation and other aspects reflect the role of student-centered and student-centered educational concepts in promoting students' all-round development in promoting the transformation of educational paradigms. Taking engineering education as an example, some studies believe that the transformation of educational paradigm is not only a change in course content and teaching methods, but also requires the redefinition of the core concepts and practice framework of education. Under the combined influence of globalization, informatization, knowledge economy and other era characteristics, the new education paradigm pays more attention to international exchanges and cooperation in education, and uses digital technology to realize distance education and online learning. In the context of globalization, the connections between countries are becoming increasingly close. Expanding education opening to the outside world and exchanges and cooperation have become inevitable requirements for cultivating international talents with a global vision. The rapid development of information technology has broken the time and space limitations of education and provided new tools and platforms for educational activities. Distance education and online learning are becoming more and more accessible. Only by accelerating the practice of advanced educational concepts that adapt to the trend of the times can we promote the overall transformation and upgrading of the education system and the transformation of practice paradigms.

In the new journey of building an educational power, the new world education outlook serves as a concept to guide the transformation of educational paradigms, and then shapes a new form of education center with global influence. The three constitute an organic whole that promotes each other and spirals upward. From the perspective of ideological origin, the new world education outlook is rooted in the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, and emerged in the process of responding to the challenges of the times and grasping the laws of educational development. It clarifies the value pursuit of education opening to the outside world in the new era and provides a basic guideline for the transformation of educational paradigms. From the perspective of the reform process, the new world education outlook leads to the accelerated transformation of the traditional education model and promotes profound changes in the educational paradigm. This change is reflected in the innovation of talent training models, changes in knowledge creation links, and participation in the global education governance system, providing a practical path for the new form of education centers. Judging from the development results, the profound changes in the educational paradigm eventually formed a new form of education center with global influence. This new form is not only a highland for the accumulation of educational resources and an engine for the emergence of knowledge innovation, but also an important driving force for global education governance. It carries the values ​​​​of a new world education outlook and contributes Chinese wisdom, Chinese solutions and Chinese responsibilities to solve global education challenges.

5. Opportunities and challenges coexist in taking the construction of important education centers to a new level

(1) Opportunities for building an important education center

Towards a new form of education center aims to promote the construction of an important education center with global influence to a new level. It faces a series of important opportunities, covering multiple favorable conditions and development windows to improve quality, enhance international competitiveness and influence. Such opportunities stem from the endogenous advantages of domestic development, are rooted in the endogenous demand for realizing Chinese-style modernization, and also come from the exogenous driving force of global change. They are deeply in line with the requirements of the times for the transformation of the global governance system. The interaction between the two has jointly laid the strategic foundation for accelerating the formation of new forms of education centers and helping important education centers to reach a new level. Specifically, it can be analyzed from the following three dimensions.

First, a new round of global industrial revolution driven by artificial intelligence and digital technology has profoundly changed the demand structure for talents in industrial development and provided important market opportunities for moving towards a new form of education center. Currently, the world is embarking on a new round of industrial revolution, with rapid development of technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things. With the rise of new industries and the transformation of traditional industries, new professional needs have emerged, and many traditional professional roles have changed. Changes in market employment demand are transmitted to the education side, causing major changes in global education demand. The integration of industry and education education model that focuses on integrating theory with practice and comprehensive quality training, flexible learning methods and the concept of lifelong learning are increasingly valued. The major task of building my country into an educational power emphasizes promoting the reform and development of colleges and universities according to basic w88 casino orientation classifications such as research-oriented, application-oriented and skills-oriented, and accelerating the construction of a modern vocational education system to improve the training of skilled talents, which is highly in line with the development trend of changing global education needs. At the same time, our country is also accelerating the construction of a learning society and an educational power, using educational digitalization to open up new development tracks and create new development advantages. Changes in global education demand have provided major opportunities for our country to build an important education center with global influence.

Second, countries in the Global South attach great importance to China's development experience and are willing to cooperate, which provides important opening opportunities for moving towards a new form of education center. As countries in the Global South face increasing challenges in economic and social development, including poverty, backward infrastructure, and a single industrial structure, they are paying more and more attention to China's successful experience in developing education, poverty eradication, infrastructure construction, economic transformation, and technological innovation. China's achievements in basic education, vocational education, higher education and other aspects have important reference significance for the vast number of underdeveloped countries. China's educational philosophy of integrating theory with practice and cultivating practical abilities and innovative spirit is in line with the needs of countries in the global South to improve their development capabilities. The leap-forward development of China's education, especially the powerful system that supports economic growth through the advanced development of education, not only provides abundant human resource support for economic development, but also supports scientific and technological progress and industrial transformation through knowledge innovation. Overall, China can contribute to achieving common development and building a community with a shared future for mankind by actively sharing its own development concepts and experiences, opening up educational resources and building cooperation platforms, and deepening educational cooperation with countries in the global South.

Third, global challenges such as climate change, energy transition and public health urgently require strengthening global education governance, which provides important cooperation opportunities towards a new form of education center. In the face of continued global challenges, countries have an increasing demand for talents in climate scientists, energy engineers, public health experts, vaccine developers, and global health governance. However, many countries have problems such as insufficient training capabilities and shortage of professional talents in the above fields. At the same time, the uneven distribution of global education resources and the lack of international cooperation mechanisms have made it difficult to effectively share and utilize knowledge transfer in related fields, further highlighting the urgency of strengthening global education governance and promoting knowledge sharing. In this context, China can rely on its educational advantages in related fields to actively participate in international talent training cooperation, build a platform for professional knowledge sharing and technical experience exchange, and promote the transfer and application of knowledge on a global scale. To seize this opportunity, the focus is on how to transform its own resource advantages into global public goods, accurately meet the needs of international education, and make substantial contributions to the progress of human civilization through a mutually beneficial and win-win mechanism. By deeply participating in global education cooperation and governance practices, China can provide systematic solutions for the sustainable development of global education and continue to enhance the international influence of our country's education in the process.

(2) Challenges faced in building an important education center

Towards a new form of education center. To promote the construction of an important education center with global influence to a new level, it also faces a series of challenges, including challenges brought about by external factors, internal factors and their interaction. The main challenges can be analyzed from the following three aspects.

First, the global competition for talent has escalated. The competition for high-end talents, scientific research teams and innovative resources has become the core area of ​​competition between countries, which is directly related to the efficiency of national scientific and technological progress, the quality of economic development and the improvement of comprehensive national strength. With the deepening of global education openness, countries with superior educational resource endowments are accelerating the internationalization of higher education and consolidating their competitive advantages by absorbing international students and integrating high-quality academic resources. The United States, the United Kingdom and other countries rely on their existing advantages in education quality, scientific research strength and international reputation to systematically attract international students and high-end talents through institutional tools such as visa policy adjustments and immigration threshold optimization. Taking the United States as an example, it uses the H-1B visa policy to attract international students in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields. At the same time, it imposes access restrictions on international students in sensitive subjects such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing on the grounds of national security review. As the global competition for talent intensifies, my country is facing pressure to attract international students and retain high-quality talents. It urgently needs to build a more globally competitive education system through upgrading education quality, innovating international systems, and optimizing the talent service ecosystem.

Second, the security governance capabilities and governance system construction of foreign-related education need to be improved urgently. While opening up education to the outside world promotes international exchanges and cooperation, it may also bring about a series of foreign-related education security risks. These include educational ideological risks, information security risks involving the personal data of students and teachers, possible academic misconduct risks in international scientific research cooperation, and campus security management risks that may be brought about by the introduction of foreign students and teachers. At present, my country's research and development in the classification management of foreign-related education security risks, security risk assessment and emergency response mechanisms are still relatively insufficient. The legal, regulatory and policy frameworks are still lacking in systematicness and completeness. Preparations for effectively dealing with the increasingly complex international education environment and continuing to expand the scale of international students in China need to be accelerated and improved. Effectively reducing foreign-related education security risks is of great significance to accelerating the establishment of an important education center with global influence.

Third, the construction of international communication capabilities of my country’s educational concepts and educational practices urgently needs to be strengthened. Our country’s education has achieved historic leaps and bounds and won a wide reputation in the world, but its global influence has not yet effectively matched its domestic practical results. It is necessary to expand the international dissemination of educational concepts, promote cross-cultural educational dialogue, and promote the international community's understanding and acceptance of China's educational model and core values. The current international dissemination of my country's educational concepts and practices needs to be further coordinated in terms of channel construction to form a good mechanism for collaborative promotion between government-led official platforms and university think tanks, international student groups and non-governmental organizations, and the resource integration advantages of digital communication channels should be accelerated. International communication capacity building is of great significance for the full transformation of China's educational modernization achievements into a voice in global education governance, its attraction to international students and top scholars, and the strategic process of "study in China" brand building. In addition, there is room for optimization in the communication system. For example, some media’s subjective interpretation of the “examination-oriented” basic education in China, or their shallow interpretation of the higher education evaluation system, may affect the integrity of my country’s education image.

6. Practical directions for taking the construction of important education centers to a new level

(1) Adhere to the new world education outlook and deepen educational exchanges and cooperation with foreign countries

In the new stage of development, promoting the construction of important education centers with global influence to a new level is crucial to achieving the goal of becoming an educational power. Therefore, it is necessary to implement the new world education outlook, promote changes in the way education opens to the outside world, and accelerate the move towards a new form of education center. Create a global educational resource sharing platform, build an open and shared online education platform, gather high-quality resources from around the world, and reduce the educational inequality between the north and the south of the world. Consolidate the technical foundation, increase the construction of digital education infrastructure, break through physical limitations and digital divides, and ensure the global accessibility of inclusive education resources. Promote institutional innovation, establish a governance framework for multilateral participation, break down resource monopoly and institutional barriers, and achieve balanced resource allocation and benefit sharing. Improve the collaboration network, activate the ecosystem for market entities to participate in collaborative innovation, and form a resource co-creation network in which governments, universities, and enterprises collaborate and participate. Build an innovative education ecosystem across disciplines, fields, and countries. Support the establishment of global education innovation alliances, research centers and innovation incubators featuring innovation and integration, and provide an open communication and collaboration platform for scholars, students and researchers from different disciplines and cultural backgrounds around the world. Establish an interdisciplinary and cross-country research fund to support teachers and students in conducting research across disciplines and countries. Create an international academic exchange platform, hold high-level international academic conferences, forums and seminars, and promote academic exchanges and cooperation. Promote the establishment of a new global education order that is more equitable and inclusive. This is not only an inevitable requirement to narrow the global education gap and achieve educational equity, but also a necessary way to respond to global challenges and promote global education cooperation. Adhere to the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind as a guide to deepen North-South cooperation and South-South cooperation in the field of education, and promote the joint construction and sharing of high-quality educational resources. Actively participate in global education governance, reasonably increase educational assistance to developing countries, and bridge the digital education gap.

(2) Improve the system and mechanism to empower talent cultivation to “bring in” and “go out”

Improve the three-in-one collaborative mechanism with talent visas, platform carriers and ecological services as the pillars, solve the difficulties of not being able to introduce, retain, and use high-end talents, and empower talents to better "bring in" and "go out". Benchmarking the international first-class talent training environment, we insist on independently cultivating a group of innovative talents with international competitiveness. In the context of increasingly fierce competition for global talents, in order to ensure that the country can independently master key technologies in urgently needed strategic and emerging fields, it is necessary to strengthen the ability to independently cultivate international talents based on the international first-class talent training environment. It is necessary to rely on the construction of "double first-class" universities to increase the cultivation of innovative talents in strategic fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Through measures such as benchmarking the curriculum system against world-class universities and shortening the iteration cycle of laboratory equipment, the gap in training conditions at home and abroad is narrowed. Provide a steady stream of expert talents who are familiar with international rules to international organizations. Experts with professional knowledge and familiarity with international rules can participate in the formulation process of global rules and better accurately convey national positions and safeguard national interests on the international stage, thereby enhancing the country's voice in global governance. Promoting global solutions to global problems through experts' participation in international cooperation can also help enhance the country's international image and influence. Using the dispatch of interns to international organizations as a driving mechanism, we will systematically cultivate experts who are proficient in climate change negotiations, digital w88 rules and other fields, systematically enhance my country's voice in global education governance, and effectively safeguard educational sovereignty and national interests. Attract a group of leading talents who explore major cutting-edge scientific issues. Modern scientific and technological innovation involves the intersection of multiple disciplines and the support of complex technical systems. Independent training of domestic talents alone may not be able to quickly meet the needs of cutting-edge scientific and technological breakthroughs. Build an international talent big data platform and expert database service system to achieve accurate two-way matching of talent supply and demand. Improve the talent visa system, allow high-level foreign scientific researchers to remotely participate in projects and graduate training in China, and simultaneously simplify permanent residence standards and procedural requirements. Introducing leading talents with experience in researching major cutting-edge scientific issues can not only lead the team to directly achieve scientific research breakthroughs, but also help establish and expand global network connections and knowledge sharing among scientists. Rely on cutting-edge scientific research platforms to attract leading scholars with experience in major scientific research breakthroughs and vigorously promote the transformation of results. At the same time, the joint training model will promote the growth of local young scientific talents and significantly enhance the ability of independent scientific and technological innovation.

(3) Promote the modernization of the foreign-related education safety governance system and governance capabilities

Improve the safety governance framework and execution mechanism for foreign-related education. Establish and improve the implementation mechanism of foreign-related education security governance, clarify the goals, principles and specific measures of foreign-related education security governance, establish a cross-departmental collaboration mechanism, and ensure the coordinated implementation of policies in education, diplomacy, security and other fields. At the same time, strengthen the training of teachers and students to improve their safety awareness and enhance their ability to deal with safety risks. In addition, use modern information technology to build a foreign-related education safety monitoring and feedback system to promptly discover and resolve foreign-related education safety risk issues. Tell Chinese stories well and spread Chinese educational concepts well. The concept of a community with a shared future for mankind emphasizes tolerance and sharing in an open environment. Building an important education center with global influence should also embody this spirit and implement a new world education outlook that adapts to the educational orientation and practical framework of an open world economic system. By displaying the successful experience of Chinese education, typical cooperation cases and the growth stories of representative international talents in international exchanges and cooperation in education, we will enhance the international community's recognition of China's educational concepts. At the same time, modern scientific and technological means and diversified communication channels are used to actively tell Chinese stories, promote mutual cultural learning and understanding, and enhance the global influence of Chinese education. Strengthen theoretical research on foreign-related education security. Through in-depth research on the theoretical basis and practical cases of foreign-related education security governance and educational concept dissemination, we focus on the identification, assessment and response mechanisms of foreign-related education security risks, explore effective paths and methods for the dissemination of educational concepts, and provide scientific basis and theoretical support for policy formulation.

[Huang Baoyin, Secretary of the Party Committee and Researcher at the w88 casino; Chen Jianwei, Researcher at the World Important Education Center Research Institute of the w88 casino]