The Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) and South China Normal University (SCNU) have announced a new collaboration agreement on education research and post-graduate programmes. This is HKIEd’s first collaborative agreement over post-graduate programmes with a Mainland university.

Areas of collaboration being explored include exchanges of teaching and research staff, post-graduate exchanges and credit recognition.

Collaborative projects will be considered, planned and implemented under an agreement signed in Guangzhou on 8 May by HKIEd’s President Professor Anthony B.L. Cheung and SCNU’s President Professor Wang Guojiang.

At the signing ceremony, Professor Wang pointed out that education was a driving force of a knowledge-based economy. Nurturing innovative and high quality professionals was crucial to the economic society in China today, he said. Both HKIEd and SCNU are striving to become research universities. By bringing in research professionals of the two institutions, the collaboration will create synergy, reinforcing the leading positions of the two institutions in education research and injecting a new energy to the region’s education development.

Professor Cheung stressed that the collaboration is a major step in the Institute’s strategic outreach to China. He said, “In our transformation to a University of Education, mainland outreach forms one of the five strategic initiatives. We wish to establish ourselves as a leading university for education studies in the region, and to bring together the best of East and West. The Institute is in the process of setting up a new mainland development office to help in the pursuit of the objective.”

The two institutions have worked closely together for three years over student and academic exchanges, forming a solid foundation for further collaboration.

The new agreement fosters even closer cooperation on student and staff exchange. Other areas of cooperation being explored include collaboration in various forms of teacher training, exchange of students and staff, organisation of joint conferences and seminars, and other academic exchange initiatives.

SCNU’s School of Education Science has a leading position in China in integrated capacity and academic standards, while HKIEd’s strength lies in applied research on education policy and practice in Hong Kong and overseas. Currently, HKIEd offers Master of Education programme in 17 specialisations.

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(Please click the photo to get a higher resolution image)

HKIEd’s President Prof Anthony Cheung (left) exchanged the signed collaboration agreement with SCNU’s President Prof Wang Guojiang.

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