Zhang Weiqi, founder and CEO of Blue Oak Edutech, discusses a liberal arts education. [Photo by Liu Wei/chinadaily.com.cn]

In the classroom, about twenty high school seniors sit in a semi-circle around a large table, with the teacher at the head. He is leading a lively discussion on the works of Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen master and peace activist.

"We do not try to arrive anywhere. We only make peaceful, happy steps," reads a student from "Peace is in Every Step", while the class breaks into giggles.

"I hear a lot of laughter, why is that? Do you disagree with what he says?" asks the teacher.

"I think this is how to be a good monk, not how to be a good man," explains a student. "In life, we have to fight for college, we have to fight to earn money...monks fight to be a good Buddha, but we have too many goals. How can we have inner peace?"

"Inner peace may be dangerous in governing a company, it may lead you to be less aggressive and find excuses for poor behavior," pipes up another, while yet another student chips in with a story on how her mother's friend went on a Zen meditation retreat for a year.

The discussion style is typical of a good liberal arts college in the United States, but it is taking place at Dalton Academy, the international division of the Affiliated High School of Peking University, and the teacher is Jesse Field, its humanities director.

The division, which offers the International Baccalaureate, is one of a burgeoning number of such international branches of prestigious state high schools. It is five years old and caters to about 100 students per class year, all of which are headed abroad for university.

They are part of the huge wave of Chinese students aiming to study abroad, especially in the United States, which saw 304,040 Chinese students studying in its borders in the year 2014-2015, a threefold increase from 2008-2009, according to the Open Doors report, which is supported by a grant from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the US Department of State.

"We are really seeing an internationalization of education in China," says Zhang Weiqi, CEO and founder of NextGen Parents (www.xxjz.org), a Chinese online information platform for parents to discuss education run by Blue Oak Edutech, a Shanghai-based education start-up.

"Chinese kids are going abroad in increasing numbers, and Chinese schools are responding," adds Zhang.

"As an American liberal arts college is increasingly seen as the ideal, there is a demand for that model of education in Chinese high schools, a demand that is not being met," says Oxford-educated Edwin Black, principal of Liuyin Academy, which offers enrichment classes in the humanities to select high school students.