The School of International Chinese Studies of East China Normal University (ECNU) plays a crucial role in the professional research of international Chinese language education in China and in the training of Chinese language teachers at home and abroad. With high standards, quality curriculum, and strong teaching and research capabilities, it continues to exert influence both domestically and internationally. There are currently more than 90 full-time teachers and more than 1,800 students enrolled, including more than 1,200 international students.   

The School has been dedicated to the education of international students since 1964. In 1984, the Ministry of Education approved the establishment of an undergraduate program in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) to train international Chinese teachers, and ECNU was one of the four founding universities of the program. In 1990, ECNU was the first to enroll master's and doctoral students in the Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages (TCSOL) program. In 2008 and 2018, it was among the first institutions to offer professional master's and doctoral degrees in TCSOL, respectively. The School has four academic doctoral degree programs (i.e., Literary Theory, Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Chinese Philology, and TCSOL), six academic master's degree programs (i.e., Literary Theory, Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Chinese Philology, Ancient Chinese Literature, Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature, and Comparative Literature and World Literature), one professional doctoral degree program (i.e., TCSOL), and one professional master's degree program (i.e., TCSOL).

At present, the School has three academic institutions, namely, the Department of TCSOL, the Department of Chinese Language, and the Chinese Language Teacher Training Center, and three national bases, namely, the National TCFL Base, the Chinese Language Teaching Base of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, and the International Chinese Language Teacher Training Base. It is the initiator and chairman of the Joint Committee of Principals for BTCSOL in National Universities, and the secretary-general of the Professional Committee for Teacher Development of the International Society for Chinese Language Teaching (ISCLT).