On April 18, Ms. Brooke Hartigan, Minister Counsellor of the Australian Embassy, China, visited CCNU to investigate CCNU’s international cooperation with Australian higher-educational institutions. President of CCNU professor Zhao Lingyun, and Vice Chairman of University Council professor Qin Hong held a meeting with her delegation. Representatives from the Development and Planning Department, the International Office, the College of International Cultural Exchange (CICE), and CCNU Wollongong Joint Institute were present at the meeting.
In his welcome remarks, president Zhao made a brief introduction about the history and status of CCNU as well as the interaction between CCNU and the Australian Embassy. Zhao extended his gratitude for the strong support Australian Embassy offered since former Counsellor Katherine Vickers’s visit to CCNU in March 2017. He said, in recent years, CCNU have paid great attention to international cooperation and exchange with Australian colleges. As a result of “CCNU Week of Australia” in 2014, universities such as Australian National University and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University have carried out close cooperation with CCNU in terms of teacher exchange and student exchange, research cooperation and the construction of joint institutes and Confucius Institute. Zhao noted that under the collaboration between CCNU and Newcastle University, one of the “Most Advanced Confucius Institute in the World” had been founded and offered courses of Chinese language and culture to over 5400 local residents. Zhao expressed his hope that the Australian Embassy could carry on with the support for the international exchange between CCNU and other Australian universities.
Brooke Hartigan appreciated CCNU's reception. She said this visit could be regarded as a further step after Vickers’ visit. Through this visit, the Australian Embassy wanted to investigate the existing cooperation among CCNU and Australian higher educational institutions. They would collect suggestions if any difficulty or problems had arisen in the previous cooperation. Hartigan reviewed the diverse cooperation between CCNU and Australian higher educational institutions. At present, CCNU have launched cooperatively-run programs in Pre-school Education, Social Work and Bio-Technology respectively with RMIT, GU and SUT. Talented students cultivated by these bachelor-degree programs are distinctive and competitive in the job-hunting market. In addition, CCNU and University of Wollongong established CCNU Wollongong Joint institute whose postgraduates are widely accepted and praised. Since the Memorandum of Understanding signed by China and Australia’s Ministries of Education has expired in 2017, the Australian Embassy hoped to collect the opinions from CCNU and perfect the agreement of cooperation between the two countries.
Qin Hong introduced the development of CCNU’s Sino-Australia cooperatively-run institute and programs. The Dean of CCNU Wollongong Joint Institute, Yu Xinguo introduced the current situation and recent student-recruitment of the institute and hoped the Australian government could offer more scholarship to support the students of the joint institute. Zhou Bo, Deputy Director of the International Office, noted that the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations was founded recently, which could make more differences in the educational communication and exchanges between the two countries. Sun Yan, the Deputy Dean of CICE made a brief introduction to the communication between CCNU and some Australian universities and wish the Australian Embassy could encourage more students to come to study in CCNU.
Hartigan extended her appreciation for the precious opinions and suggestions above. She emphasized that the Australian Embassy would support the international cooperation between CCNU and higher educational institutions in Australia as always.
After the conference, Hartigan paid a visit to the National Engineering Research Center for E-Learning at CCNU.
