Taoiseach of Ireland Micheal Martin delivers a speech at an education cooperation and promotion event held in Beijing on January 6, 2025. Photo: Courtesy of Education in Ireland

Irish educational institutions have voiced strong interest and high expectations for deepening cooperation with their Chinese counterparts at an education cooperation and promotion event held in Beijing on Tuesday, where over a dozen partnership projects were signed or announced.

The event, presided over by Taoiseach of Ireland Micheal Martin, during his visit to China, brought together more than 100 representatives from government bodies and the education sector. Education has emerged as one of the fastest-growing areas of bilateral cooperation, underpinned by strong complementarity between the two countries, industry insiders said.

Over a dozen Irish higher education institutions signed or announced new and expanded partnership projects with Chinese counterparts at the event, highlighting the latest progress in higher-education collaboration between China and Ireland.

Speaking at Tuesday's event, which was hosted by the Embassy of Ireland in China, in collaboration with Enterprise Ireland and Education in Ireland, Martin said that he's been delighted to hear the really new and exciting partnerships that are being developed, and "the growing sophistication of those partnerships is particularly impressive." He highlighted the growing number of Chinese students studying in Ireland.

Diarmuid Hegarty, president of Griffith College, the largest Irish-owned private third-level institution, also participated in Tuesday's event. As a veteran in the Irish education field, he has long experience in China, which is manifested in his fluent Chinese. Compared with when he first came to China 30 years ago, he said he is impressed by the fact that Chinese education has grown enormously.

The infrastructure and curriculum have both changed for the better, he said, while noting that Chinese policy is very open to learning from the outside world, an important factor driving the development of the education sector. "That's also one of the reasons we want to come here again and again, because Chinese policy is very supportive of cooperation," Hegarty said. Currently, his college has built strong partnerships with several universities in China.

Hegarty is also impressed by China's huge investment in educational institutions, which led him to liken Chinese education to "growing so quickly like bamboo," making it highly competitive on the world stage today.

Another Irish educational institution, University College Cork (UCC), also expects to expand its presence and cooperation with the Chinese education sector, which it sees as having significant potential.

Home to Ireland's first Confucius Institute, it was also the first Irish university to offer full degree programs in Chinese language and culture. The institution has about 26,000 students, with more than 800 from China enrolled in the current academic year.

Ursula Kilkelly, vice president for global engagement at UCC, said on Tuesday that the university is committed to "further strengthening our long-established engagement and being part of China's very ambitious future plans for higher education, as outlined in China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), and specifically the 2024-2035 Master Plan on Building China into a Leading Country in Education."

In recent years, the bilateral joint education programs have maintained steady growth. As of July 2025, the total number of joint education institutions and programs between China and Ireland reached 110, with more than 12,000 students currently enrolled, according to data from the Irish government.

Cooperation spans diploma, undergraduate, and master's levels. With the continued launch of new projects, student enrolment is projected to exceed 15,000 by September 2026, the data showed.