The UK Secretary of State for Education, the Rt Hon Justine Greening MP, has agreed a joint ‘Action Plan’ on UK-China education collaboration with her counterpart Mr Chen Baosheng, China’s Minister of Education, at the ninth annual UK-China Education Summit in China, convened jointly by the British Council, the Department of Education, and China’s Ministry of Education.
The Action Plan sets out the priority areas of UK-China education collaboration beyond 2016 with the objective of supporting a golden era in UK-China relations.
The agreement will see both countries working together across basic education; higher education, including quality assurance; technical and professional education and training; sports education and training; language teaching and assessment; and two-way exchanges among students and education practitioners.
Examples of work that will be pursued in these areas include:
•boosting business–education links to accelerate the development of skills and qualifications in priority industry sectors;
•increasing collaboration on innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education, including the creation of subject excellence clusters and regional partnerships;
•working together on school curriculum development, such as by supporting and placing language assistants in schools to support the learning of Chinese Mandarin in the UK and English in China.
Furthermore, it was agreed to continue the UK-China Mathematics Teacher Exchange Programme for a further two years. This will see up to 140 maths teachers from England spending time in Shanghai to support their professional development and the translation of Shanghai’s high-quality approach to mathematics teaching into a meaningful model for schools in England.
Various other agreements were signed during the two-day visit (see Notes for details), representing both countries’ commitment to expanding collaboration across higher and school education, including languages, and to working closely together in supporting student mobility in both directions.
ANNEX - Signings at UK-China Education Summit
EDUCATION
Action Plan under the UK-China Partners in Education Framework
Agreement to operationalise the UK-China Partners in Education Framework, signed in September 2015 between then Minister of State for Universities and Science, Jo Johnson, and China’s former Minister for Education, Yuan Guiren. The Action Plan sets out the priority areas of UK-China education collaboration beyond 2016 across all areas of education, including: basic education, higher education, technical and professional education and training, sports education, language teaching and learning, and exchanges.
Memorandum of Understanding between the UK Department for Education and Shanghai Municipal Education Commission to continue the UK-China Mathematics Teacher Exchange during 2016/17 and 2017/18, supporting up to 70 teachers from England and up to 70 teachers from Shanghai in spending time in each other’s countries each year. This will strengthen UK-China collaboration in mathematics and teacher exchange, supporting the introduction of high-quality mathematics teaching approaches into English schools more widely.
Memorandum of Understanding between the British Council and the Confucius Institute Headquarters to further promote cultural exchange, educational collaboration, and language learning between the UK and China, including the development of locally based Mandarin teachers in the UK school system, and work together towards delivering the Department for Education’s Mandarin Excellence Programme, which aims to put 5,000 students on track towards a high level of fluency in Mandarin.
Memorandum of Understanding between University College London and Shanghai Normal University to explore opportunities for collaboration in the area of education and social sciences.
SPORT EDUCATION
Memorandum of Understanding between the British Council, the Premier League, the English Football Association, the Federation of University Sports of China, and the China School Sports Federation to jointly develop a UK-China Campus Football Coach Training Framework over the next four years.
Memorandum of Understanding between the British Council and the Federation of University Sports of China to co-host the 3rd UK-China University Sports Week in 2017, in order to promote exchanges in the field of university sports and support joint UK-China sports education development.
ENGLISH
Memorandum of Understanding between the British Council and China’s National Education Examinations Authority to conduct collaborative research on linking UK English tests to China’s Standards of English
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