Comparative Education in China

On December 13, 2016, the International Workshop on Mutual Recognition of Credits among Universities in the APEC Region was held at Beijing Normal University. The workshop was jointly organized by the APEC Higher Education Research Center and Beijing Normal University, and was supported by China’s Ministry of Education, and ministries of education as well as embassies of various countries in the APEC region. Numerous administrators, scholars and researchers attended the workshop.

The beginning of the workshop witnessed the unveiling of the nameplate of APEC Higher Education Research Center which was established under the 22nd APEC Economic Leaders’ Declaration: Beijing Agenda for an Integrated, Innovative and Interconnected Asia-Pacific. The secretariat of the center is set at IICE, Beijing Normal University.

The theme of this workshop was the mutual recognition of credits among higher education institutions in the APEC region, aimed to explore and tackle the barriers preventing universities from mutually recognizing credits of each other, and to share the effective practices of mutual recognition in certain economies.

On the morning of Dec 13, ZHOU Zuoyu (Vice President of Beijing Normal University), WANG Yan (APEC Online Education Coordinator) and Ana Maria Quiroz Martin (Official from the Division of International Relations at the Department of Higher Education of Chile’s Ministry of Education) firstly addressed the workshop. Then, Katherine Vickers (Counselor from Australian Embassy to China), Hazman Shah Abdullah (Vice President of Malaysian Qualifications Agency), Supreedee Rittironk (President Assistant to Thammasat University), and Alyssa Peleo Alampa (Vice President Assistant to University of the Philippines) delivered keynote speeches, chaired by IICE Professor LIU Baocun.

The afternoon session was co-chaired by Trevor Goddard from Australian International Education Association and John Hope, Deputy Dean of School of Education and Social Work at Auckland University. Ana Maria Quiroz Martin from Chile’s Ministry of Education, Pearl J. Chung from the Department of International Cooperation of Korean Ministry of Education, CHE Weimin from Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange, Vu Ngoc Ha from Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training, and LIU Lengxin from Beijing Normal University Student International Education Center delivered speeches respectively.

A consensus was reached in the workshop committed to strengthening regional communication and promoting economic development through increasing student exchanges to developing economies. A goal was set that by 2020, trans-boundary exchanges in the APEC region should cover one million students per year.