In 2012, the Ministry of Education of China, Japan, and South Korea jointly organized and implemented the CAMPUS Asia project aiming to promote the in-depth exchanges of outstanding students in Asia and deepen the pragmatic cooperation between universities.
So far, 39 projects from 77 universities in China, Japan, and South Korea have been selected, including two normal universities from China.
In November 2021, East China Normal University (ECNU) collaborated with the University of Tsukuba from Japan, the Korea National University of Education from South Korea, Khon Kaen University from Thailand, the University of Technology from Malaysia, and the Bandung Institute of Technology from Indonesia on the theme of Development Program for Professionals in Educational Policy Management Contributing to Solving Global-Scale Issues, which was successfully selected into the third phase of the CAMPUS Asia project. This program also included university partners from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries in addition to China, Japan, and South Korea.
This is the first project on education policy among all CAMPUS Asia projects and the first one that explicitly indicated the goal of addressing global education issues.
The representatives of the six parties in this project hope that by carrying out this project, we could
This project spans three professional disciplines: education, innovative materials, and environmental science. ECNU gives full play to the strong advantages of the two “double first-class” disciplines, organically combines the research results in the professional field with educational policy, and adapts measures to local conditions from an interdisciplinary perspective. The goal of the project is to formulate and implement the goal of the project in a timely manner – to cultivate professionals in education policy management with a broad vision of “Contributing to Solving Global-Scale Issues.”
The professors and staff of the ECNU Faculty of Education actively participated in the design and construction of the core courses of the project. They offered students from six countries the first-stage core compulsory course “Social Problems and Education Policy” and the second-stage elective course “Education Policy and School Reform in China” in English, which provided solid quality assurance for the successful development of the project.
The curriculum systemically sorts out and displays the state-of-the-art progress of China’s educational reform, tells “China stories” of school reforms in the academic discourse, and promotes the dissemination of Chinese educational discourse.
The specific courses included content as follows:
On July 26, the kick-off meeting of the CAMPUS Asia Plus project was successfully held online. Affiliated teachers, staff, and registered students from the six universities of China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, attended the meeting.
The meeting was facilitated by Teruyuki FUJITA, Director of the Master’s Program at the School of Education, University of Tsukuba, Japan. In addition, the meeting was attended by Ms. Xiaoming TU the Program Officer of the ECNU International Cooperation & Exchanges Division, Professor Shuangye CHEN the Associate Dean of the ECNU Faculty of Education, Professor Shaoqiang CHEN from the State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy of ECNU, Professor Yue CHE from the ECNU School of Environmental Sciences, Professor Xinqiang PENG, Associate Professors Lin LI, Yun YOU, Lijia WANG, Xingyuan GAO, and the Director of the International Affairs Division Yue QIU from ECNU Faculty of Education.
At the meeting, Professor Mitsuyasu KATO, Vice President and Executive Dean of the Education Department of the University of Tsukuba, delivered the opening remark. He indicated that the CAMPUS Asia Plus project is an important platform for Asian universities to conduct international cooperation and expand the international horizons for students. The project will play an important role in solving international education problems, promoting educational policy formulation, and cultivating educational talents.
To deepen the understanding among teachers and students of the six universities, the participants of the six sides introduced themselves and briefly stated the basic background of each school’s historical evolution and discipline construction.
The students who participated in the project also did ice-breaking one by one, sharing their original intentions and expectations for participating in the project. The teachers and students of the six universities successfully completed the ice-breaking introduction of the CAMPUS Asia Plus project.
As the representative of ECNU, Professor Shuangye CHEN said in her speech that ECNU’s educational research is rooted in China, showing the Shanghai characteristics of “openness, inclusiveness, and innovation,” and actively telling the story of China to the world and making a Chinese voice; the ECNU Faculty of Education has always attached great importance to international cooperation and exchange and created brand activities such as the International Exchange Week and the Global Education Dean’s Forum, which are in line with the CAMPUS Asia Plus project, aiming to expand the international vision of teachers and students through a variety of international exchange projects and to help solve global education issues.
In the end, Prof. Shaoqiang CHEN from ECNU and Dr. Jungjoo SOHN from the Korea National University of Education delivered closing remarks respectively. They expressed their gratitude to the professors and staff of each university for their hard work and wished the project to be carried out smoothly and the students to achieve greatness.
Source: International Affairs Division of the Faculty of Education