On August 30, 2019, in Beijing, IICE Professor TENG Jun interviewed Mr. Serigne Mbaye Thiam, the Vice Chair of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Board of Directors, who is also Senegal's Minister of Water and Sanitation and former Minister of Education. The interview covered topics such as the important educational challenges facing the world, GPE’s responses to such challenges, China’s role in global educational development, and educational cooperation between GPE and China and between African countries and China. 

Mr. Thiam pointed out that providing quality education for all children remains one of the most challenging tasks in the field of global education, especially in many African countries where a multiplicity of school-aged children cannot access quality basic education at schools. Mr. Thiam complimented China on the achievement in universalizing basic education throughout the country over the past decades. He pointed out that at the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the illiteracy rate throughout the country was between 80% to 90%, but China went great lengths to combat illiteracy and universalize compulsory basic education within a fairly short period that ensued, and now have become a leading country in terms of the performance in Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), and world university rankings. Mr. Thiam expressed that GPE is working to promote Chinese experiences of eliminating illiteracy in many other countries and regions in the world. As for China’s role in global education, Mr. Thiam praised China’s initiation of Belt and Road Educational Initiative and Chinese Government Scholarship in contributing China’s strength to the international educational community. He hoped that the educational cooperation among GPE, African countries and China could be further strengthened in the future.