On January 10, SZPT and Duale Hochschule Baden-Wuerttemberg (DHBW) held a cooperation seminar by form of both online and offline. Xu Jianling, President of SZPT, Li Yue, Vice President of SZPT, Tang Kesheng, Head of International Office of SZPT, Przywara, President of DHBW, Mahr, Vice President of DHBW, Illg, Head of International Office of DHBW, and other leaders attended the seminar. The seminar was chaired by Martin Fleischer, Director of Sino-German Higher Vocational Education Innovation Center.
The seminar began with speeches delivered by the president of each side. In his speech, Xu Jianling reviewed the history of cooperation between SZPT and DHBW, introduced the new developments and new situations of SZPT, and expressed the intention to deepen cooperation with the German side and learn the experience of vocational undergraduate education. Przywara expressed the willingness of DHBW to carry out deeper and higher level of cooperation with SZPT and sincerely invited SZPT to visit Germany for exchanges.
At the seminar, the two sides had detailed discussions on the five topics on the agenda. In terms of teacher-student exchanges, the two sides expressed optimism about the current policies and reached an agreement in hope of exchanging teachers and students and resume offline communication in the fall semester of this year. In terms of teaching resources, SZPT expected to introduce high-quality German teaching resources and curriculum standards for the six majors that would be promoted to the undergraduate level soon, and build specialized courses together. The German side stated that the engineering discipline of DHBW is relatively strong, which is in line with the said majors of SZPT, allowing to carry out cooperation from respect of teacher training. In terms of cooperative school running, the two sides found through assessment that the “3+1” cooperative school running mode would be acceptable mutually, though feasibility study still required. In terms of research and learning, SZPT proposed to interview German school leaders to learn the German vocational undergraduate education mode and higher education college management experience. German leaders attending the seminar unanimously expressed their support and consent. In terms of mutual visits, after discussion, SZPT preliminarily planned to form a delegate to visit DHBW in July, and DHBW would pay a visit to SZPT in October, and confirm the intention to sign a memorandum of cooperation.
In the end, Martin Fleischer delivered a concluding speech. He stated that the seminar produced fruitful results, setting the tone for the cooperation between SZPT and DHBW in 2023, and clarified the direction for the next work of the two sides. He looked forward to the offline meeting between the two sides as soon as possible.
It is reported that DHBW is the only national dual university in Germany. Its talent training mode combines theory with practice, providing vocational bachelor’s and master’s degree courses. The university has over 34,000 students and more than 200,000 alumni, recognized as one of the largest universities in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany. SZPT and DHBW signed a cooperation agreement in 2015, with frequent and in-depth exchanges since the formal establishment of the cooperation relationship, and jointly built the “Overseas Vocational Education and Training Center” in Germany in 2019. (Huang Qingyu, Sino-German Higher Vocational Education Innovation Center)