The Annual Education Cooperation Forum was successfully held at the Sino-British College of The University of Shanghai for Science & Technology on March 21 in the city.

With the theme "Enlightenment & Cultivation of Students Employability Competency from High School to University," the forum was attended by distinguished speakers and guests from the Chinese and British governments, key high schools and SBC's corporate partners, and the senior management team and student representatives at SBC.

Following the forum, an awards ceremony was held to give official recognition to six key high schools as SBC’s “Key National Bases for Talented High School Graduates”, including Shanghai Weiyu High School, Shanghai Jinyuan High School, Shanghai No. 1 High School Affiliated to Tongji University, Zhejiang Xuejun High School, Zhejiang Shaoxing No. 1 High School and Zhejiang Ouhai High School.

The annual event aimed to further develop the linkage between SBC and the key high schools around China and to enhance the cooperation between the schools and SBC (and its nine British partner universities) by sharing educational resources and strengthening academic collaboration in order to enhance students’ career employability.

Distinguished guests attending the event included Professor John Wilson, incoming Principal and CEO of SBC, Matt Burney, Director of the British Council East China and Consul (Cultural and Education) of British Consulate-General in Shanghai, Bao Xia, Vice Principal of Shanghai Wei Yu High School, Zhang Zhaohui, Party Secretary of No. 1 High School Affiliated to Tongji University, Li Jing, Academic Dean of Jin Yuan High School, Chen Ping, Party Secretary of Zhejiang Xuejun High School, He Hangjie, Vice Principal of High School Affiliated to Hangzhou Normal University Zhejiang, Lu Liaoya, Vice Principal of Zhejiang Shaoxing No.1 High School and Zhu Deli, Academic Dean of Zhejiang Ouhai High School.

Phil Roebuck, Executive Director of British Chambers of Commerce Shanghai, Beecher Ashley Brown, Senior Vice President of AJINGA (China) and Hu Weiyan, Director of Human Resources of Inchcape (China) were also invited to attend the event, sharing their views on students’ employability from the perspective of the industry.

The Sino-British College (SBC) is an international university college, jointly established by the University of Shanghai for Science & Technology (USST), and 9 leading British Universities: The University of Bradford, The University of Huddersfield, The University of Leeds, Leeds Beckett University, Liverpool John Moores University, Manchester Metropolitan University, The University of Salford, The University of Sheffield, and Sheffield Hallam University. SBC became a fully licensed university college on September 1st, 2006. It is the only Shanghai-based higher education institution to be awarded a license by the Chinese Ministry of Education to offer full degree programmes taught entirely in English to multiple overseas universities (the so-called "1 to N Consortium Model"), either taught entirely at the Shanghai campus, or with a period of study abroad. Graduates are awarded degrees from one of the partner British institutions.

Ever since its establishment in 2006, SBC has been committed to optimizing its student evaluation and admissions’ system as well as to improving student quality. SBC’s student evaluation and admissions’ system integrates practices from both British Universities and Chinese Universities and Colleges in its examination procedure and evaluative criteria. The system is focused on selecting outstanding Chinese high school graduates excelling in five major aspects academic capability, subject knowledge structure, mentality, English language proficiency and motivation for international education. As part of a new Gaokao Quota recruitment initiative, SBC started to recruit students from Gaokao Tier 1 category from 2009;
while for the college’s direct entry (Non-Gaokao Quota) recruitment, Gaokao criteria Tier 1 has also been applied since 2011.

It is the common educational views and student recruitment criteria held by SBC and high schools that promoted the establishment of the first phase of “Key National Bases for Talented High School Graduates” in 2013. Since then, SBC has cooperated with the initial 7 key high schools across China, including Hangzhou Senior High School, Hangzhou No.2 High School, The Affiliated High School to Hangzhou Normal University and Ningbo Xiaoshi High School, and formed a long term collaborative mechanism to share educational resources and facilitate academic communication and discussions with these schools.

During the past two years, the national bases have continuously offered abundant sources of qualified high school graduates, who became outstanding role models for their peers with the help provided by the international platform of SBC. The students’ academic performance as well as competence development demonstrated their adaptability and huge potentials, which demonstrated the mutual acceptance and smooth connection of teaching methods and educational concepts between SBC and high schools.

In 2014, the State Council of PRC made formal announcement on further developments in examination and student recruitment, which encouraged the exploration of national college entrance examination based, high school academic proficiency test and comprehensive ability assessment involved and multi-evaluation recruitment mechanisms. Shanghai and Zhejiang Province, as the pilot experimental areas in China, also announced implementation measures on furthering the integrated college entrance examination reform at the end of 2014 respectively. One of the measures proposed that, to ensure the freedom of students’ individualized development, more opportunities should be offered for students to choose from, and for permission to be given for decisions to be made on which subjects to take for the academic proficiency test according to students’ actual situation and interests. This requires elementary education institutions to improve student development guidance system and career life planning guidance. Meanwhile, it also requires high education institutions to share academic resources and assist students to understand and plan their profession and career development; hence, it initiates the co-operation and association between both parties.

The above academic cooperation model is exactly what is being conducted by SBC and the high schools. SBC Careers Service & Development Centre has a professional career development team with a well-established career service system. It has developed close relationships with various corporations in China and abroad, and is committed to enhancing students’ employability skills and competitiveness in the international context. So far SBC has introduced careers training sessions into Shanghai No.3 Girls' Middle School, Shanghai No.8 Middle School, Affiliated High School to Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou High School, Ningbo Middle School and Fuzhou No.3 Middle School. These sessions offered the latest information on subjects, career prospect and career development training in other countries, as well as graduate experience sharing, which offered great help on career understanding and planning to students in these high schools.

He Hangjie, Vice-Principal of Affiliated High School to Hangzhou Normal University Zhejiang said: “The suitable is the best. Making the right choice means half done with career success. Students should make a choice that suits himself in order to maximize personal potential and competitiveness. High schools and universities need to work together closely so that we can offer more choices to students and help them make the most suitable choices for their benefit.”

Professor John Wilson, Incoming Principal and CEO of SBC said: “As an international university college jointly established by one Chinese university and nine UK universities, SBC is committed to integrating the best practice in the British and Chinese education systems with a broader vision and innovative approach. It is a major responsibility of SBC and any other higher education institutions to produce and prepare quality and employable talents for the local community as well as the global society. To achieve this on a win-win basis, we realise that it requires joint effort and continuous cooperation between SBC and high schools by sharing resources with the common goal of fulfilling social responsibility.”