In the evening of April 25, SZPT and Cote d’Ivoire National Institute of Technology held an online signing ceremony of Sino-African Vocational Education Cooperation Agreement. Mr. Adama Dosso, Ambassador of Cote d’Ivoire in China, Mr. Moussa Diaby, President of Cote d’Ivoire National Institute of Technology, Mr. Dennis Conan, Dean of the School of Public Works, Mr. Xue Nan, Head of AVIC INTL Cote d’Ivoire Representative Office, and Xu Jianling, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and President of SZPT, attended the ceremony. Representatives of teachers from the International Office and the School of Construction Engineering attended the online signing ceremony. The signing ceremony was presided over by Li Yue, Vice President of SZPT.

Xu Jianling said that since its launch, the project has received great support from the governments, enterprises and other parties of the two countries, and particularly expressed heartfelt thanks to the Embassy of Cote d’Ivoire in China and AVIC INTL for their attention and support. SZPT takes it as its own responsibility to be the first boat of innovation and development of vocational education in China, and has created lots of “No. 1” in China’s higher vocational education. It makes full use of regional and its own advantages to continuously carry out extensive international exchanges and cooperation, and contribute to building the brand of vocational education with Chinese characteristics. He hoped that by participating in “The Future of Africa – Sino-African Vocational Education Cooperation Program”, SZPT could jointly train highly skilled talents with African colleges to serve local economic development, set a model for Sino-African vocational education cooperation and add new connotation to friendly cooperation between China and Africa.

Mr. Moussa Diaby thanked the Chinese government and SZPT for their trust in Cote d’Ivoire National Institute of Technology. He stated that, Cote d’Ivoire National Institute of Technology is the first and largest higher vocational and technical college in West Africa. In recent years, with the growing demand for highly skilled talents in economic development, there are increasing requirements for vocational education in society. He was very glad that the institute could participate in “The Future of Africa – Sino-African Vocational Education Cooperation Program” and jointly train talents with Chinese vocational colleges, so as to empower the vocational education development and economic development of Cote d’Ivoire and even West Africa. The joint talent training program is well received by students, and the number of applicants is far more than the scheduled number of enrollments. He hopd that more students would have the opportunity to study in Shenzhen in the future and return to Cote d’Ivoire after completing their studies to make contributions to the national economic development.

Mr. Xue Nan, on behalf of AVIC INTL, said that they would continue to support the cooperation between the two colleges, give full play to the role of enterprises “going global” in Sino-African vocational education cooperation, and boost the cooperation of vocational education between China and Africa.

Ambassador Adama Dosso, on behalf of the Embassy of Cote d’Ivoire in China, congratulated the two colleges on signing the cooperation agreement. He said that China has become the largest bilateral financing partner and the third largest trade partner of Cote d’Ivoire, and bilateral cooperation projects on infrastructure and people’s livelihood have yielded sound economic and social benefits. The cooperation between Shenzhen Polytechnic and Cote d’Ivoire National Institute of Technology marks that the cooperation between the two countries has expanded to the field of vocational education. The Embassy of Cote d’Ivoire in China will strongly support the cooperation between the two colleges and push forward the Sino-African cooperation to achieve more tangible results.

Later, the presidents of the two colleges signed a cooperation agreement in the presence of Mr. Adama Dosso, Mr. Xue Nan and representatives of teachers of the two colleges.

“The Future of Africa – Sino-African Vocational Education Cooperation Program” is a key project under the framework of Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) to expand exchanges and cooperation in the field of vocational education in response to the needs of African countries for highly skilled talents at the initial stage of infrastructure construction and industrialization, aiming to give full play to the advantages of China’s vocational education and Africa’s population, and explore feasible ways to jointly train African highly skilled talents. As one of the first pilot colleges, SZPT will cooperate with Cote d’Ivoire National Institute of Technology to train applied talents for architectural engineering. The cooperation between the two colleges will adopt the mode of 1.5+1.5+0.5. Students will study in Cote d’Ivoire and China successively, and get graduation certificates from the two colleges after passing the examination. The program has officially started enrollment in September 2021, and the first batch of 25 students are scheduled to study in the School of Construction Engineering in February 2023.

(Li Simin, International Office)