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ERI: Countries - China

young Chinese girl with a chinese paper butterfly

Jinan High Tech Innovation Zone

In July 2018, ERI signed a contract with Jinan Innovation Zone (JHDZ) in China, to establish teacher professional learning hubs with the goal of reforming initial teacher education and teacher development. This will be a three-stage programme with the first year dedicated to conduct comprehensive training of in-service teachers and teacher educators, in line with our partnership sustainability approach. The Jinan High Tech Innovation Zone is based in the East of China within Shandong province with good connections to Beijing in the north and Shanghai in the south. With a goal to become a new economic, financial, logistics, scientific and technology centre, Jinan Innovation Zone will build an Innovation Valley, central zone, airport and ‘Free Trade’ zone.

In three years ERI aims to train 30 teacher educators who will successively train up to 12,000 teachers alongside establishing a framework for sustainable development and collecting research on the impact.

Peking University

ERI spent 2017 in discussion with the China Centre for Strategic Studies, Peking University with regards to numerous development opportunities and collaboration between the two Universities. This partnership was initiated in April 2017 and a scoping phase has taken place. The work is in Early Years Education and includes discussions about training, development and research. ERI has undertaken two visits, one by Head of Faculty, Professor Geoff Hayward and ERI Director, Professor Colleen McLaughlin and one in January by the ERI team and Jane Warwick, who leads the Faculty PGCE in Early Years course.

In November 2017, a ten day course was completed on Policy, Pedagogy and Practice in Early Years Education at the Faculty of Education by delegates from Peking University as well as policy makers and practitioners from both Beijing and Jinan. The focus was to develop kindergarten head teachers and early year professionals' understanding of education in the UK as well as surrounding policy. This visit consisted of lectures in the Faculty as well as visits to local schools looking at the importance of indoor/outdoor environments as well as 'physical' areas of learning and integrated practices. The course was very successful and ERI and Peking University are already planning for similar programmes in the future.