The French government has been offering part financial support to schools overseas with its education authorities providing curriculum help. Besides, France has special ministerial-level organizations to take care of such schools worldwide. The French government has also sent 6,500 educators worldwide who work with 15,000 local teachers in about 500 French schools that provide education to about 330,000 students. In fact, France says no other country runs such a big education network overseas.

The United States, the UK, Canada, Japan, Germany and other major economic powers have also opened such schools abroad, which offer more options to their citizens working overseas to get their children educated in their language and culture.

China is a latecomer in this area. Only a couple of decades ago, especially in the previous 10 years, Chinese businesses started expanding abroad and employing Chinese nationals. But since the number of Chinese enterprises and nationals abroad have increased sharply in recent times, we should study and follow the examples set by France and other countries.

Indeed, China has opened many Confucius Institutes in other countries but they mainly work in cooperation with foreign universities. Primary and secondary school education remains neglected while the demand keeps rising by the day. It is thus time the Chinese government considered remodeling its overseas education network and raised it to the level befitting the world's second-largest economy. In this regard, apart from focusing on how to finance basic education for Chinese children overseas, the government should also design incentives to attract private partners to ease its financial burden.

Of course, it will not be easy to get the support of foreign countries for the move or design tailor-made curriculum to meet demands. Perhaps China should use a mutually beneficiary way to win over the other countries' support, citing the example of Beijing and Shanghai, which already have many foreign schools. The idea should be to move gradually forward by, say, opening pilot primary and secondary schools in New York, London, Paris and Berlin.

The author is deputy editor of China Daily European Edition. [email protected]