Senior education officials and representatives from China and the countries of central and eastern Europe (CEEC) held an exchange of views on education policy in the western Romanian city of Timisoara on Friday.

The agenda of the 7th China-CEEC Education Policy Dialogue included the role of university collaboration and exchanges in enhancing learning and teaching; strengthening collaboration in the field of language teaching; and promoting quality and excellence in technical and vocational education.

On behalf of the Chinese Ministry of Education, China's Ambassador to Romania Jiang Yu presented three proposals for further strengthening cooperation in the field of education.

She said that a "China-CEEC Educators' Leadership Program" and a "Joint Program between Chinese and CEEC Universities" should be launched to promote education policy exchanges and pragmatic cooperation in higher education.

She also proposed to comprehensively implement China-CEEC accurate education cooperation and build up a more precise "China-CEEC educational research cooperation chain".

Finally, she said that new areas should be explored in China-CEEC educational cooperation, especially in the field of vocational education. In this context, she said that China will encourage universities on both sides to jointly set up Luban Workshops to cultivate vocational talents.

Jiang also acquainted the participants with the achievements of China and the CEEC in educational cooperation.

According to her, 26 CEEC and 126 Chinese universities and colleges have joined the China-CEEC Higher Education Institutions Consortium to improve inter-school cooperation in research, talent cultivation and student exchange.

Currently, 5,418 Chinese students are studying in the CEEC and 6,188 CEEC students are studying in China, 1,582 of them are on Chinese government scholarships. There are 34 Confucius Institutes and 43 Confucius Classrooms in the CEEC, and Chinese universities have opened 14 undergraduate programs of CEEC official languages.

Jiang also told the participants that by the end of last year, China had signed 23 inter-governmental protocols and agreements on educational and cultural cooperation with 16 CEECs.

Agreements on the mutual recognition of academic degrees and qualifications have been signed with 8 CEECs, and similar agreements are being prepared with the remaining 8 countries.

The 6th Meeting of the China-CEEC Higher Education Institutions Consortium was a side event of the 7th China-CEEC Education Policy Dialogue. It attracted over 70 representatives from 39 Chinese universities, including the Renmin University and Beijing Normal University, as well as many of their peers in CEEC.