Immigration to the UK focus on Immigration Education: On the eve of President Xi Jinping's state visit to the UK at the invitation of the British government, Minister of Education Yuan Guiren gave an interview to the media. Yuan stated that educational exchange and cooperation between China and the UK now comprehensively cover all levels and types of education, from basic education to higher education, yielding fruitful results and exerting a broad and positive influence on the people of both countries, playing an important role in promoting the development of China-UK relations.
The scale of student exchanges continues to expand
Yuan Guiren revealed that the Chinese government has increased the quota for Chinese government scholarships year by year. In 2014 alone, 2,400 students were sent to the UK for government-sponsored studies, and 224 British students were funded to study in China. By the end of 2014, the total number of Chinese students of various types in the UK exceeded 150,000. To encourage more British youth to come to China, the British government announced the "Generation UK-China" program, which aims to support 80,000 British students to study and intern in China between 2013 and 2020. In 2014, the number of British students studying in China exceeded 6,000, showing a significant growth trend.
China-UK educational cooperation projects are fruitful
According to Yuan Guiren, in the field of basic education, as agreed upon by both sides, China has been sending mathematics teachers from Shanghai to the UK for exchanges since 2014, while also hosting British teachers for exchanges in China. In the field of vocational education, the two sides have implemented the "Shadow Principal" project, where secondary vocational school principals are sent to partner schools to work alongside their counterparts. Simultaneously, they have launched modern apprenticeship pilots and joint development of vocational education curricula, advancing vocational education cooperation from multiple angles. In the field of higher education, China-UK doctoral student and research cooperation projects are ongoing, with both sides supporting high-level joint talent training and research cooperation in strategically determined areas.
In addition, China-UK cooperative education started early and has a good development momentum. As of August 2015, there were 17 China-UK cooperative education institutions and 240 cooperative education projects in China. At the same time, the pace of Chinese universities "going global" is also accelerating. In September of this year, the BNU-Cardiff Chinese College, established by Beijing Normal University at Cardiff University in the UK, was officially inaugurated.
Language teaching cooperation continues to develop
Yuan Guiren stated that China has the largest population of English learners in the world, and the UK has the largest number of Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms in Europe. Both governments attach great importance to language teaching cooperation. The British government is determined to significantly increase the scale and quality of students learning Chinese in the UK, and the Confucius Institute Headquarters will continue to support the integrated, connotative, diversified, and sustainable development of Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms in the UK.
Institutionalization of educational policy exchanges
Yuan Guiren stated that as early as 2004, the ministries of education of China and the UK formally established a ministerial-level consultation mechanism, holding regular annual meetings to exchange the latest progress in their respective educational reforms and development, jointly formulate annual cooperation strategies, and lead and promote educational exchange and cooperation. Since the establishment of the China-UK High-Level People-to-People Exchange Mechanism in 2012, the China-UK ministerial-level education consultation mechanism, as a sub-field consultation of people-to-people exchanges, has enriched the content of the annual people-to-people exchange meetings and promoted the continuous deepening of China-UK people-to-people exchanges. During the third meeting of the China-UK High-Level People-to-People Exchange Mechanism and the ministerial-level education consultation in September 2015, the two sides signed 24 cooperation agreements in the field of education.