China’s Minister of Education, Huai Jinpeng, met with a delegation led by Fernando Alexandre, Portugal’s Minister of Education, Science and Innovation, in Beijing last week to exchange views on deepening educational exchanges and co-operation between the two countries.

Huai Jinpeng presented China’s progress in building a leading education system and formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for education development. He expressed China’s willingness to work with Portugal to improve mechanisms for educational co-operation, build on the traditional strengths of language co-operation and innovate talent-training models based on the “language plus major” approach. He also proposed jointly supporting leading universities in both countries in carrying out substantive, high-quality co-operation projects, particularly in areas such as marine sciences, life sciences and health, digital technology, artificial intelligence and the training of high-level engineers, with a view to promoting economic growth and industrial development in both countries.

Alexandre said that, as a Member State of the European Union (EU), Portugal attached great importance to educational co-operation with China. He expressed Portugal’s willingness to strengthen language co-operation, facilitate student mobility and work closely in areas of mutual interest, with a view to bringing educational co-operation between China and the EU to a deeper and more substantive level.

(Source: Chinese Embassy in Portugal, 12 August)