The 9th General Assembly of CJIC Was Held at HBU

From April 25th to 27th, the General Assembly of the Chinese-Foreign Joint Institutes Committee (CJIC) was held at HBU. The Assemblywas guided by the Department of International Cooperation and Exchange of the Ministry of Education, PRC, hosted by CJIC, and organized by HBU-UCLan School of Media, Communication and Creative Industries. The theme of the conference is to thoroughly study, publicize, and implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, accelerate the modernization of education, build a powerful nation of education, and run a good education to the satisfaction of the people; strengthen the exchange and mutual learning between Chinese-foreign joint institutes; promote the high-quality development of Chinese-foreign cooperative education in higher education; and better play the role of Chinese-foreign cooperative education in promoting the modernization of Chinese education.

Tao Hongjian, a Level Ⅰ Counsel from the Department of International Cooperation and Exchange of the Ministry of Education, PRC, attended the meeting and gave a guidance speech. Hou Jianguo, a Level Ⅱ Counsel fromtheHebei Education Department, and Wang Jingyao, the deputy director of the International Supervision and School Management Office of the Department of International Cooperation and Exchange of the Ministry of Education, attended the assembly. Zhao Yanzhi, the president of Shenyang University and CJIC, gave a work report. More than 360 relevant personnel from over 150 Chinese-foreign joint institutions and programs across China attended the conference. The delegates discussed new ideas on the development of high-quality Chinese-foreign cooperative education and the role of Chinese-foreign cooperative education in promoting the modernization of Chinese education under the theme of “learning and implementing the spirit of the 20th CPC National Congress and promoting the modernization of Chinese education through high-quality Chinese-foreign cooperative education”.

CJIC held thepreparatory meeting of the Presidium and the first meeting of the Expert Committee on the afternoon of the 25th. Tao Hongjian attended the expert committee meeting and delivered a speech. He emphasized the need to give full play to the active role of experts in Chinese-foreign cooperative education, strengthen high-level expert consultation, improve the level of strategic consultation and guidance for cooperative education development, serve the high-quality development of Chinese-foreign cooperative education, promote common progress, and further explore institutional and mechanism innovation to improve the quality of talent training.

The opening ceremony of the Assembly was presided over by Shen Shigang, a member of the Party Committee and Vice President of HBU. Guo Jian, Secretary of the Party Committee of HBU, delivered a speech in which he introduced the history and operation of HBU. He proposed to promote the high-quality development of Chinese-foreign cooperative education that highlights Chinese characteristics and reflects the world level, so as to make new and greater contributions to the early construction of an education power. Hou Jianguo shared his experience in his speech on the development and coordinated promotion, assessment standards, and exemplary review of Chinese-foreign cooperative education in Hebei.

Tao Hongjian gave a guiding speech. He pointed out that after decades of development, positive results in promoting education reform, innovating talent training mode, and serving the national strategy of opening up to the outside world have been achieved in Chinese-foreign cooperative education. It is emphasized that in the new stage of development, Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools should comprehensively strengthen the leadership of the Party, adhere to the principle of cultivating people with morality, not forget the original intention of running schools, promote institutional innovation, promote educational openness, and promote the modernization of Chinese education through high-quality Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools.

Zhao Yanzhi presented a work report. He announced two resolutions passed by the Preparatory Meeting of the Presidium: one was to change the name of the Joint Committee to “Chinese-Foreign Joint Institutes Committee”, and the other was to establish an Expert Committee of CJIC. Besides, he emphasized that the next step of CJIC is to substantially promote the evaluation of Chinese-foreign cooperative education to help, reward, and support excellence, form a group of high-level demonstration cases of excellent Chinese-foreign cooperative education, and promote and lead the high-quality development of Chinese-foreign cooperative education.

Three representatives from Chinese-foreign cooperative education institutions delivered keynote speeches at the conference, sharing excellent educational experience. Xiao Songshan, the assistant to the president of Tianjin University and the Chinese director of Georgia Tech Shenzhen Institute, Tianjin University, shared his experiences in running schools and proposed to adhere to a systematic concept and lead high-quality development on behalf of Chinese-foreign cooperative education institutions in the field of engineering. Ke Yuehai, the dean of Zhejiang University-University of Edinburgh Institute, based on theChinese-foreign cooperative education practice of Zhejiang University, advocated the path of international innovative talents training in medical science in the new era; Lv Yi, the dean of HBU-UCLan School of Media, Communication and Creative Industries, advocated from the perspective of art disciplines to improve the quality of art talents training through inheritance, development, integration, and innovation.

Four parallel sub-forums were held simultaneously. The delegates fully discussed four topics: high-level personnel training, high-level faculty construction, high-level quality assurance system construction, and high-level development of Russian-Ukrainian-Belarusian cooperative education, and explored feasible paths to achieve high-quality development of Chinese-foreign cooperative education in the new era.

Meng Tao, Dean of the International Business College of Dongbei University of Finance and Economics and Secretary-General of CJIC, presided over the closing ceremony of the conference. Assistant to the President of Dalian University of Technology (DUT), Secretary of the Party Working Committee, Director of the Management Committee of PanJin Campus of DUT, Secretary of the Direct Party Branch, and President of the Leicester International Institute, DUT; Zhan Jingjing; Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and Dean of Beijing-Dublin International College of Beijing University of Technology, Wu Wenying; Deputy Dean of SWJTU-Leeds Joint School, Zhao Duo; and Deputy Dean of Hangzhou University of Electronic Science and Technology, Shengguangji Joint College, Wang Jian, made sub-forum summaries, respectively. Zhao Yanzhi made a summary of the conference.

The delegates also investigated the HBU-UCLan School of Media, Communication and Creative Industries and gave high praise to its construction in various aspects.

CJIC was established in August 2014, under the guidance of the Department of International Cooperation and Exchange of the Ministry of Education, PRC, with the voluntary participation of the main directors of Chinese-foreign cooperative education institutions. It aims to promote the healthy development of Chinese-foreign cooperative education in higher education institutions, improve the quality of talent cultivation in Chinese-foreign cooperative education, unite the strength of Chinese-foreign cooperative education, and better play the important role of Chinese-foreign cooperative education in promoting the process of internationalization of higher education in China.

The 9th General Assembly of CJIC is of great significance to enhance the influence of Chinese-Foreign Cooperative Education at HBU in China and further exert the demonstration role of HBU-UCLan School of Media, Communication and Creative Industries in the field of Chinese-Foreign Cooperative Education.