To date, more than 20 colleges and universities in Shanghai, including Fudan, Shanghai Jiaotong and Tongji, have begun programs in conjunction with more than 110 overseas universities, according to statistics from local education authorities.

The joint programs cover a wide range of fields, such as computer science, business management, sales and marketing, electronic engineering, biomedical science and foreign languages.

The overseas colleges and universities are mainly from the United States, Australia, Japan, Britain, Canada, France, the Netherlands and Sweden.

Currently more than 50,000 Chinese students are enrolled in the programs.

Educational cooperation helps meet the great demand for talents of certain specialties in China.

The first graduates in logistics, jointly educated by Shanghai University of International Business and Economics and Australia's Technology University, were all employed by large companies.

More than 1,400 masters of business administration have graduated from Sino-European International College of Industry and Commerce in Shanghai and about 10,000 managers and presidents have received short-term training there.

Many Shanghai universities have also set up branch schools abroad and have introduced Chinese featured courses.

Shanghai Television University in Sydney offers Chinese language and traditional Chinese medicine, to name just two. These courses are in great demand in Sydney.

Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Pharmacology (UTCMP) cooperates with educational institutions from 47 countries, such as Japan, the Republic of Korea and Australia. More than 5,000 doctors of acupuncture and moxibustion have received training at this college.

International education cooperation has made it easier for students to learn advanced foreign knowledge and experience of management at home instead of going abroad.

The Ministry of Education and other departments are discussing Internet-based education cooperation with foreign institutions and the possibility of enrolling for foreign courses on website colleges in China.

"The network is boundless. E-learning universities will probably become a main aspect of educational cooperation," said Zhang Yaoxue, director of Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education.

(China Daily 10/09/2001)