SPbPU experts advance cooperation with the Chinese cities of Tangshan and Shenzhen

On May 18-24, 2023, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, as a part of St. Petersburg delegation, took part in the program of events, aimed at development of cooperation between St. Petersburg and the Chinese cities of Tangshan and Shenzhen. The delegation included representatives of city universities, cultural sphere, tourism and business.

The organizer of the visit program was «Friendship Bridge» company — SPbPU’s long-term partner in the field of recruitment of foreign applicants and Tangshan Oriental Education School — co-founder of Joint Polytech-Tangshan Official Preparatory Center.

On May 18, 2023 in Tangshan was held a signing ceremony of the road map for cooperation between the Committee on Foreign Relations of St. Petersburg and the Office of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Government of the city of Tangshan. The program of cooperation will last from 2023 to 2025 and covers the areas of trade, economic and investment cooperation, culture and tourism, higher education and promotion of the Russian language.

On May 18, 2023, representatives of SPbPU met with Qi Xiwei, Vice-President of North China University of Science and Technology (NCUST) and Wang Xianzhi, Director of International Cooperation Department of NCUST. This university is one of the top ten universities in Hebei Province and the number of its students exceeds 50,000. The parties discussed opportunities for the implementation of joint educational programs for Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, academic exchanges between universities, as well as the participation of Chinese students in the International Polytechnic Summer and Winter School of SPbPU.

On May 19-20, 2023, the program included visits to three schools in the city of Tangshan. The students of Tangshan Oriental School, Tangshan Experimental School and Tangshan State Secondary School No. 1 received presentations on the educational programs and educational opportunities in Polytechnic University.

The cooperation between Polytechnic University and Tangshan Oriental School has been developing for more than 5 years. During this time numerous events have been held, among them: Russian Language Week, professional development programs for Russian language teachers, the establishment of the joint Polytech-Tangshan Preparatory Center and the opening of the joint Polytechnic-Tangshan preparatory program.

Today, more than 40 high school students study Russian in the joint program, which is implemented by the staff of the Higher School of International Educational Programs at SPbPU. In 2022, graduates of the Tangshan Oriental School successfully entered the bachelor’s degree programs at IIMET.

The second point of the program was Shenzhen, a large city located in southern China, near the border with Hong Kong. Shenzhen is a new and promising region in China for attracting foreign applicants to SPbPU.

As a part of the program, the first meeting of the St. Petersburg delegation with the staff of the Office of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Government of Shenzhen was held, during which the parties discussed possible areas of cooperation.

The St. Petersburg universities also visited the Shenzhen Hualang school, where they conducted presentations for graduate school students.

We hope that the signing of the cooperation roadmap between St. Petersburg and Tangshan, and in the future with Shenzhen, will be the beginning of a successful long-term project for Polytechnic University in promoting Russian language in China and attracting talented Chinese youth to our educational programs, said the Head of International Education Office Evgenia Satalkina.