Hainan Strives to Promote High-Quality Educational Opening-Up
——Vibrant Vitality on the International Education Innovation Island
September 1, 2024
Source: China Education Daily
"Base education development and talent cultivation on the positioning given by the Central Government to Hainan; vigorously promote innovation in educational system reform to accelerate the improvement of Hainan's overall educational level." On September 17, 2018, the Standing Committee of the Hainan Provincial Party Committee convened a meeting to convey and study the spirit of the National Education Conference.
With high-level deployment, a commitment has been consistently upheld. Since the National Education Conference, Hainan has deeply implemented General Secretary Xi Jinping's important discussions on education and the spirit of the conference. Taking the construction of an International Education Innovation Island as a driving force, aiming to run education that satisfies the people and meets the needs of the Free Trade Port, Hainan is dedicated to serving major national strategies and regional economic and social development needs. It coordinates the integrated development of education, technology, and talent as a "trinity," continuously promotes educational opening-up, and optimizes the educational governance framework, disciplinary professional system, and talent cultivation supply that adapt to the construction of Hainan Free Trade Port. The construction of the International Education Innovation Island is thriving.
Exploring the "Hainan Path":
Opening up an Experimental Field for China's Educational Opening-Up
On the eve of the 2024 summer vacation, Hainan Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences released its admission brochure and held multiple admission consultation meetings to launch a new round of enrollment. The university plans to enroll 280 students this year, doubling the 140 students from last year. The educational and teaching work of this newly established university is gradually getting on track.
Hainan Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences is the first higher education institution in China independently run by an overseas university, and also the first higher education institution where a public German university runs a school in China. Its birth stems from the educational opening-up policies of the Hainan Free Trade Port.
Time nodes record Hainan's solid steps in advancing educational reform and development and accelerating the construction of the International Education Innovation Island:
· December 2018: The Ministry of Education and the Hainan Provincial Government signed the Strategic Cooperation Agreement on Deepening Educational Reform and Opening-Up in Hainan, promoting Hainan to take the lead in trials and active exploration in expanding educational opening-up, and advancing regional innovation trials for educational modernization.
· June 2019: The Ministry of Education and the Hainan Provincial Government released the Implementation Plan on Supporting Hainan in Deepening Educational Reform and Opening-Up, promoting the construction of Hainan International Education Innovation Island and building Hainan into a vivid example of open and innovative development of socialist education with Chinese characteristics.
· "Joint Review and Approval by the Ministry and Province for Sino-foreign Cooperative Education" has become a new approval model pioneered by Hainan for Sino-foreign cooperative education institutions at the undergraduate level and above nationwide.
· September 2022: The Hainan Lingshui Li'an International Education Innovation Pilot Zone, covering an area of 12.72 square kilometers, officially opened for education.
· September 2023: Hainan Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences, the first independent school-running project by an overseas university in China, enrolled students and started classes, marking a historic step and a milestone in China's educational opening-up...
From its preparation in 2019 to its official opening in 2022, the Hainan Lingshui Li'an International Education Innovation Pilot Zone has always taken expanding educational opening-up as its core mission, focused on the urgent needs of national strategies and the construction of Hainan Free Trade Port, and introduced well-known domestic and foreign universities to gather for education around the "1+3+N" key disciplinary fields. Based on summarizing the experience of university town education at home and abroad, it creatively proposed the "large sharing + small college" educational model, and through "large sharing," promoted international educational system integrated innovation represented by the "five mutualities and one common" talent cultivation model innovation, creating a first-class international education platform where diverse cultures converge, multiple disciplines integrate, and Chinese and foreign experiences learn from each other.
The pilot zone has simultaneously focused on infrastructure construction and university introduction and reform innovation, with basic conditions to meet the needs of 10,000 students already put into use. Up to now, 22 well-known domestic and foreign universities have signed agreements to be introduced (10 Chinese universities and 12 cooperative foreign universities), the Ministry of Education has approved 8 Sino-foreign cooperative education institutions (projects), and nearly 5,000 teachers and students from settled universities will join in the autumn of this year. Reforms and innovations such as curriculum and faculty sharing and credit mutual recognition have achieved breakthroughs, and the integrated development of science, education, industry, and education has started smoothly.
In addition, the independent of the Russian Moscow Power Engineering Institute in Hainan, introduced around the national aerospace strategy, has been approved for preparation by the Ministry of Education. The construction of the Swiss Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, introduced around the development of Hainan's international tourism industry, is proceeding steadily and orderly. The "education article" in the Hainan Provincial Party Committee and Government's proposal to do a good job in the "three articles of offshore consumption reflux" of duty-free shopping, medical care, and education is being carried out in an orderly manner.
Anchoring the "Strategic Attribute":
Cultivating High-Quality Educational and Technological Talents
Hainan has always adhered to running education from the grand strategy of integrated promotion of education, technology, and talent, closely focusing on the top priority of the Free Trade Port's closure operation, gathering all innovative elements and scientific and educational resources conducive to stimulating high-quality development vitality, and accelerating educational development.
The new replaces the old, and progress never stops. Reform has always been the fundamental driving force for the development of Hainan's education cause.
Exploring the construction of a national science and education integration innovation special zone, taking the lead in trials for integrated construction of education, technology, and talent and serving national strategies. Especially focusing on the two strategic tasks of "deep-sea technology" and "nanfan breeding," it promotes Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City to advance the "five commons" model of "joint construction of equipment and facilities, sharing of scientific research platforms, joint research on major projects, joint cultivation of postgraduates, and joint discussion of management" with the structure of "1+2+N+X," exploring the "Yazhou Bay Practice" path of science and education integration and industry-education integration where "education supports scientific research and promotes industrial development."
Continuously improving the quality of independent talent cultivation. Coordinating the collaborative innovation of higher education, vocational education, and continuing education, based on the development plan of Hainan Free Trade Port's four leading industries, focusing on the demand side of basic discipline talents, high-end engineering and technical talents, backbone talents in philosophy and social sciences, and urgently needed talents in science, engineering, agriculture, and medicine, prospectively
allocating educational resources, improving the scale and quality of talent supply, and accelerating the formation of a high-quality talent supply structure matching the industrial development needs of the Free Trade Port.
Adapting to the new development pattern, building hard power to support the country's long-term development. Nowadays, Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City has gathered 41 academicians, more than 700 leading scientific and technological talents, and more than 1,500 professors and tutors. It has built laboratories and 157 high-level scientific research teams around scientific and technological challenges, carrying out high-level scientific research and achievement transformation across universities, disciplines, and organizations. From 2019 to 2024, the science and technology city has fully played its talent cultivation function, accumulating more than 6,400 doctoral and master students in Hainan special programs (currently, two batches of graduates totaling 620 people have been produced). Relying on scientific research platforms and cutting-edge scientific research projects, it continuously cultivates master's and doctoral students in agricultural and marine fields for the country, continuously delivering fresh "blood" and injecting youthful vitality into the science and technology city.
Hainan has given full play to its regional advantages, built a "government-industry-university-research-application" cooperation platform, and driven domestic and foreign "inter-university-inter-enterprise-university-local" joint talent cultivation, key core technology research, and direct transformation and application of scientific and technological achievements by taking scientific research projects that solve industrial technical problems as traction. In recent years, the Hainan Medical College-Hong Kong University Joint Laboratory for Tropical Infectious Diseases, Asian Agricultural Science and Education Innovation Alliance, Tropical University Alliance, and Hainan University-University of Exeter "International Joint Laboratory for Human-Computer-Object Intelligence" have been established successively; in Wenchang International Aerospace City and Haikou National High-tech Industrial Development Zone, pilot zones for talent cultivation reform and rapid transformation of scientific and technological achievements have been created, building a collaborative center with efficient linkage of innovation chains, industrial chains, capital chains, and talent chains.
At the same time, comprehensively promoting the high-quality development of basic education, the "one city (county) two schools and one kindergarten" project for introducing high-quality basic education resources has provided more than 170,000 high-quality academic positions cumulatively, established 157 basic education groups, provided 250,000 high-quality，and achieved full coverage in 18 cities and counties. Transforming and applying the key research results of the theme education of "continuously deepening comprehensive education reform and accelerating the high-quality development of basic education," and deeply implementing the Implementation Opinions on Building a High-Quality and Balanced Basic Public Education Service System to Promote the High-Quality Development of Basic Education. In addition, well-known foreign primary and secondary schools such as Harrow International School and Shine Beidou School have been vigorously introduced to settle in Hainan, effectively solving the eager demand of local residents and various foreign talent children for attending high-quality international schools.
Tightening the "Responsibility Spring":
Innovating and Promoting Party Building and Ideological and Political Work
The key to a prosperous cause lies in the Party. Only by holding the rudder of direction can we sail steadily and far.
Hainan has made every effort to promote the simultaneous improvement of the quality and efficiency of Party building and ideological and political work in the province's education system, laying a more solid foundation for accelerating the construction of a new ecology and pattern for implementing the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education and cultivating new era talents capable of shouldering the great responsibility of national rejuvenation and the construction of a Chinese-style free trade port.
Hainan has always adhered to and strengthened the Party's overall leadership over education work. The Provincial Party Committee and Government attach great importance to education, incorporating it into important agendas The Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee and the Governor serve as the 组长 (leader) and first deputy leader of the Provincial Party Committee's Education Work Leading Group respectively, strengthening the overall leadership of major educational work in the province, and resolutely ensuring that when the Central Committee gives instructions and the Ministry of Education puts forward requirements, Hainan takes actions and the entire system implements them.
Solidly promoting the full coverage of the "Introduction to Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" course in colleges and universities, issuing the Hainan Province Implementation Plan for Comprehensively Promoting the Construction of "Great Ideological and Political Courses", organizing the compilation of the campus series Face-to-Face with Free Trade Port Knowledge covering different school stages from kindergarten to university, establishing a provincial research base for the integrated construction of ideological and political courses in primary, middle, and universities, and incorporating General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speeches and instructions on Hainan's work and knowledge of Hainan Free Trade Port construction into the important content of ideological and political courses.
Continuously improving the risk prevention and control system, combining the construction of the International Education Innovation Island, issuing the implementation plan for strengthening and improving the work of maintaining safety and stability in colleges and universities across the province, and further improving the ten work mechanisms for maintaining safety and stability, such as the risk and hazard early warning and prevention mechanism and the dynamic investigation mechanism for risks and hazards.
Under the leadership of the Hainan Provincial Party Committee and Government, and with the joint efforts of the province's education system and various universities running schools in Hainan, the construction of Hainan International Education Innovation Island has made important phased progress. In the 2023 evaluation of city and county governments' performance in fulfilling educational responsibilities, the public's satisfaction with education increased from 77.8% in 2022 to 86.6%, an increase of 8.8 percentage points, reflecting the public's recognition of Hainan's education work. (Correspondent Wu Yong, Special Correspondent Jin Haotian)
Hainan Education in Numbers
Since 2018, Hainan's education has achieved leapfrog development.
· 130 projects: A total of 130 educational cooperation projects at all levels and types have been signed, with a total investment of more than 42 billion yuan. 47 well-known domestic and foreign universities and 88 well-known primary and secondary schools have been signed and introduced.
· 52.5% growth: The total investment in education funds across the province increased from 37.834 billion yuan in 2018 to 57.715 billion yuan in 2023, an increase of 52.5%.
· 22 universities: In the Lingshui Li'an International Education Innovation Pilot Zone, the "five mutualities and one common" talent cultivation model of mutual learning between Chinese and Western, interdisciplinary integration, interconnection between arts and sciences, course mutual selection, credit mutual recognition, and joint management has been promoted, with 22 well-known domestic and foreign universities signed and introduced.
· Over 6,400 postgraduates: In Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City, the "five commons" model of "joint construction of equipment and facilities, sharing of scientific research platforms, joint research on major projects, joint cultivation of postgraduates, and joint discussion of management" has been promoted, with a total of more than 6,400 doctoral and master students enrolled in Hainan special programs.
· 51% increase: 6 new universities have been added, with 327,400 students in colleges and universities across the province, an increase of 110,900, a growth rate of 51%; 8 undergraduate universities have added 67 urgently needed majors and more than 100 professional points.
· 250,000 high-quality academic positions: A total of 157 basic education groups have been established, covering 311 schools under trusteeship, providing 250,000 high-quality academic positions; the coverage rate of inclusive kindergartens has increased from 50.53% to 87.79%.
· 23.6% growth: 71 secondary vocational schools have been optimized into 49, with the number of students increasing from 132,900 to 164,300, an increase of 23.6%, basically solving the problems of scattered distribution and small scale of secondary vocational schools.
· 23,000 trained: Through the national pioneering new model of "prosperous work and light study" continuing education for tourism skilled talents, a total of 23,000 people have been trained.
· 30% increase: The proportion of teachers with a bachelor's degree or above in compulsory education has increased from 50.73% to 70.5%, and the proportion of primary school teachers with a bachelor's degree or above has increased by 30%.
(Data source: Hainan Provincial Department of Education)