The Belt and Road Shanghai Autumn 2023 Exchange Project was held in Shanghai from October 5 to 20, 2023. A total of 33 participants from 17 countries came to Shanghai for offline training activities, while 15 participants from 6 countries took part in online thematic activities.
Launched in 2017, the Program has been held annually. It aims to promote Chinese education to the world, cultivate educational administrators, scholars, and educators who understand and are friendly to China, exchange and share advanced educational experiences of various countries, and advance the development of education in China and other countries. To date, the Program has been held for 7 consecutive sessions, including 4 offline sessions and 3 online sessions, attracting over 130 international counterparts from 40 countries to Shanghai for exchanges.
During this session, the organizing center strived to build a comprehensive platform featuring high capacity, wide coordination, and multi-dimensional functions. This platform was designed to meet the needs of the transformative development of teacher education in schools and explore the application of the concepts of lifelong learning and sustainable development in teacher education. The Program included 3 large-scale academic forums, namely Theory and Practice of Integrated Pre-service and In-service Teacher Training, International Experiences and Local Practices in Teacher Education, and Vocational Training and Actions for Teachers Teaching Beyond Their Major; 2 participant forums themed on Teacher Development and Teacher Education; 3 cultural experience activities, including a visit to Shanghai Museum and a Huangpu River cruise, a tour of the ancient city of Shouxian, and an appreciation of Gu Embroidery and Jiangnan Silk and Bamboo Music; as well as visits to Shanghai Pudong High School and the Affiliated Primary School of Huainan Normal University.
Moreover, during this session, the center achieved a number of international exchanges and practical cooperation outcomes, and reached four in-depth cooperation intentions with various countries. These include: establishing a sub-center at Yogyakarta State University in Indonesia; implementing pre-service teacher survey projects in countries such as Kenya, Ghana, Nepal, and Pakistan; conducting in-depth cooperation with the field of teacher education in Uzbekistan in the future; and working together with Goroka University in Papua New Guinea to enhance the quality of teacher education in the South Pacific region. Meanwhile, the experience of this Program has been reported by many major mainstream media outlets, including People's Daily and China Education Daily.
Contributed by: UNESCO Teacher Education Centre (UNESCO TEC)
