CHANDIGARH: A couple of weeks after the Times Higher Education (THE) BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings 2014 placed Panjab University (PU) at the 13th position, a delegation from China’s Henan Province has shown interest in tying up with PU for academic cooperation, including teacher and student exchange programmes.
The delegation that was led by the deputy director-general, Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of Henan Provincial People’s Government, Hao Lijun, visited the PU campus on Monday afternoon. Meeting university officials, Lijun said Henan was interested in a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the university.
Lijun, who was visiting with an interpreter, said that while the delegation was visiting the country to look out for the best universities with which they could collaborate, Henan Province would be glad to have a formal understanding with PU, which has been ranked the best university of the country. He added that the delegation would communicate the same to the department and universities concerned, so that the two sides could have mutual exchanges.
Lijun said a number of Indian students were already studying at Zhengzhou University located in the capital of Henan. For Indian teachers visiting as part of the exchange programme, he said, the Province will provide interpreters to help them communicate with local Chinese faculty.
Officials from the Chinese delegation said that Zhengzhou University and Henan University were two famous universities in the state. In all, there are 120 universities only in the state of Henan imparting education to 30 million students. Officials said both Zhengzhou University and Henan University were open for collaboration on mutual exchange programmes.
Also accompanying Lijun were Zhao Jiayu, director of Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of Hebi City People’s Government, Henan; Huang Xia, director of Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs of Shangqiu Municipal People’s Government; Zhao Qing Shan, general secretary of Henan People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.
In response to the interest shown by the Chinese delegation, PU’s dean university instruction advised that the interested universities should write to PU so that the varsity can look into the possibilities of academic collaborations. Lijun also invited the PU officials concerned to visit both the universities.
News Source: TOI
