Towards a new model of education
cooperation with China
--A solution by the Finn-Sino Education
Cooperation Network
Yuzhuo Cai
CEREC, University of Tampere
25.4.2014
Main topics
 What is the network?
 How can the network help overcome the current
challenges faced by Finnish educational institutions in
cooperation with China?
What is Finn-Sino Education
Cooperation Network?
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Open platform initiated by CEREC and FERC
Governing/advisory board
Executive body
Operational units
Public/free service
Public funding, sponsorship, project funding
Ambition to become Nordic-Sino Education Cooperation
Network
Aims of the network
 To provide knowledge and information about both countries’ education
practices and policy development
 To analyse the relevance of one's education system and education
practices on the other
 To facilitate and support dialogues between key actors in both field
 To establish a database and network of key actors and resources in the
field
 To educate Finnish Chinese education expert and Chinese Finnish
education expert
 To team up interesting actors and apply external funding for ad hoc
projects
 To provide tailor-made services
 To monitor the cooperation and develop quality assurance standards
Challenges in Finland’s education
coopeartion with China
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Little knowledge about Chinese higher education
Ineffective approaches to promoting Finnish higher education
Lack of trust building with Chinese partners
Lack of successful experiences of developing joint degree
programmes with Chinese partners and particularly education
export
 Lack of coordination between Finnish higher education
institutions
 Insufficient motivation and commitment (especially on
education export)
 Unclear vision on international cooperation and education
export
The most essential problem
 Lack of cooperation and coordination among Finnish
educational institutions at the national level
Problems caused by the
ineffective cooperation
 Repetition in gaining basic
knowledge about Chinese
education
 Ineffective market approaches
and unaffordable marketing
costs
 Lack of information sharing
and network building
 Slow learning process in
education cooperation with
China
Solutions by the network
 High quality research in the
field by highly competent
teams
 Promotion of one Finnish
brand and development of
quality assurance system
 Network building mechanisms
and information sharing
channels.
 Studying existing cooperation
cases
Two examples
 Stimulating national coordination trough quality
assurance development: This is Finnish Education
 Capacity development trough training local experts.
”This is Finnish Education”
 A quality assurance system for training Chinese educational
professionals.
 Capacity building for Finnish training providers
 Based on the understanding of both Finnish and Chinese education
system as well as training practices, we will help Finnish education
providers to develop their capacity and skills for training Chinese
professional learners and list them as qualified operators under the “This
is Finnish Education Training Series”.
 Promote one brand and provide one stop shopping for Chinese
clients
 Meanwhile, we will promote the training series in China as a symbol for
high quality education training programmes in Finland for Chinese
customers.
 So the benefits for Finnish training providers: instead of hunting for
clients, the Chinese clients will find you.
Sustainable solution by the network
 Capacity building: Training more and more Finns to
become Chinese education experts
 Seminars/short term training
 Research projects
 MA and PhD education
 We are now more confident as FERC (Finnish
Education Research Centre) is joining the network!