China Seeks Education Link with San Diego

From http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/jul/15/china-seeks-education-link-with-san-diego

China seeks education link with San Diego
Wants foreign partnerships to improve its classrooms
by Maureen Magee
July 15, 2012

As China continues its path toward superpower status, its educational leaders are looking to San Diego and other cities abroad in forging partnerships that will reshape Chinese classrooms — from kindergarten to college.

Since 2010, China has sent more college students overseas than any other country. It is establishing international education collaborations and exchange programs at a dizzying rate.

Faculty members at Chinese universities are eager to form exchange programs in the United States, in part to learn what it takes to make a top academic program.

This fall, the University of California San Diego will open the Fudan-UC Center on China through a partnership with Fudan University in Shanghai, a venture that’s been billed as the first such initiative by a major Chinese university.

The center will serve all UC campuses by providing lectures, symposia and access to databases for researchers and students at the system’s 10 campuses — from San Diego to Davis.

Meanwhile, China has given New York University once-inconceivable access to its country by allowing the institution to operate a full, degree-issuing liberal arts campus in Shanghai next year. “Classes will be conducted in English and in accordance with the principles of academic freedom associated with American colleges and universities,” according to a news release issued by N.Y.U.

Other American universities have similar ventures in the works, including Berkeley, Yale and Duke.

Read the full article at http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/jul/15/china-seeks-education-link-with-san-diego