To ensure the implementation quality of the“Campus Asia” program and promote the sustainable development of the program, theHigher Education Evaluation Center of the Ministry of Education held the “Meeting of CampusAsia” Program College and University Work Experience Exchange in Beijing onNovember 14. As a newcomer of the program, Shanghai Ocean University sent WangXi Chang, Executive Director of the Graduate School, Liu Xiaodan of theGraduate School and Sun Yuqiong of the College of International CulturalExchange, to attend the meeting.
At the meeting, representatives of eightpilot universities and colleges including Peking University, TsinghuaUniversity, Fudan University and Shanghai Jiaotong University introduced theirexperiences and shared their outstanding practices. Representatives from 9 newly-addeduniversities and colleges including Zhejiang University, Tongji University andCommunication University of China introduced their project characteristics andprogress. Representatives of colleges and universities exchanged views, offeredadvice and suggestions, and promoted the sharing of experience and information.
On behalf of Shanghai Ocean University,Wang Xichang reported to the meeting on the implementation of the CampusAsia program and its features. Nearly a year after the implementation ofthe program, our university held a program start-up meeting and five programwork meetings with Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology and KoreanMaritime University, signing a Memorandum of Understanding and ExchangeAgreement for Students and Credits with each other, carrying out a variety ofactivities such as short-term faculty and student exchange, summer schools,professor seminars and other activities, mutually sending the first DDP and UPstudents, actively participating in the Forum of Higher Education Cooperation amongChina, Japan and South Korea. The three parties have made active explorationand practice and achieved periodic results in terms of resource integration,personnel training mode, exchange of credits, multi-faceted and multi-modalcooperation and exchange.
The meeting also arranged a special reportsession for the leaders from the Department of International Cooperation andExchanges, the Higher Education Evaluation Center and the Academic Degree andGraduate Education Development Center of the Ministry of Education, offeringguidance to the Campus Asia program. The reports are rich incontent, reviewing the progress of the Campus Asia program in theearly period, analyzing the quality control of the pilot programs, affirmingthe strategic significance and achievements of the program. It also mapped outthe following development strategy in order to enhance the internationalinfluence of the program: centering on six core elements of “target-setting,organization and implementation, teaching activities, student service, qualityassurance and learning outcomes , adopting the tactics of “openness,flexibility and gradual progress , further broadening the openness of theprogram, expanding the program to all over Asia to achieve more flexiblestudent interaction, attract new program participation from colleges anduniversities, build a unified Campus Asia program informationplatform, promote the mutual recognition of academic degrees and credits andestablish internal and external Campus Asia program activities by promotinginter-university president, faculty and student seminars and take theopportunity of strengthening international cooperation in quality assurance ofhigher education to establish a system of more scientific and efficient projectquality evaluation and realize the goal of sharing the resources forquality education in Asia, improving the quality of international personneltraining, promoting cooperation in education research and enhancing theinternational competitiveness among universities . The reports pointedout that cooperation in running schools has been incorporated into the systemof evaluation of disciplines and all parties should pay much attention to thesereports. It was suggested that universities should incorporate the CampusAsia program into the universities’ strategic framework of internationaldevelopment and serve the “double first-class construction in China.
Participants also jointly discussed the problems encountered in theimplementation of the “Campus Asia program and put forward suggestionsfor improvement. Through exchange and learning, all colleges and universitiesinvolved developed a better understanding of national policies and operationalmechanisms related to the program and were fully aware of its goals anddirections. All colleges and universities were ambitious, striving to make Campus Asia a well-reputed brand.
The CAMPUS Asia, collectively called as CollectiveAction of Mobility Program of University Students, is led by the governments of China, Japan and the Republic ofKorea, aiming to promote cooperation and mutual understanding among thestudents of the three countries, contribute to enhancing the competitiveness ofuniversities and nurturing people to become outstanding talents of a newgeneration in Asia by way of various inter-university exchange programs.
In November 2016, the Campus Asia”program had its 9 new cooperation programs while maintaining its original 8pilot programs. The program jointly applied by Shanghai Ocean University, TokyoUniversity of Marine Science and Technology and Korean Maritime University succeededin the selection. The Campus Asia program of our university was calledIntegrated Sino-Japanese-ROK Common Education Program in Marine Science andTechnology and was eventually named Oversea Quality-assured Education in Asian Nations for OceanUniversity Students”.