On October 26, the Conference of Shantou Regular High School Education and the headmaster forum were held by Education Bureau of Shantou City in Guangdong Israel-Institute of Technology. The conference, with the theme of “boosting high-quality, diversified and distinctive school education”, summarized the outcome and experience in enhancing high-level education, discussed and disposed the priority and goal in the next stage.

Prof. Lin Danming, Pro-Vice Chancellor of GTIIT gave the opening speech and brief introduction of the university. He said that the Gaokao reform brought opportunities and challenges to high schools and universities. He added that GTIIT hoped to take joint efforts with local basic education to advance university-school cooperation, further enhance high-level education, and facilitate high-quality development of education.

The conference called for a thorough study and implementation of guiding principles of Xi's speech at the national education conference, noting that the fundamental mission of education is to cultivate virtues and morality, and to advance high-quality development of high school education through innovation. High school education is of great significance for efforts to help consolidate universal access to compulsory education, strengthen the basis for sustained growth, and raise the overall quality of the population. High schools should follow development patterns of education to boost high-quality, diversified and distinctive school education; should give guidance on career development to help students in subject majoring; should guide students in university applications to enable students to be enrolled in the suitable universities and majors.

In the afternoon of October 26, the responsible persons of the Municipal Education Bureau, the Teacher Development Center, some general high schools and GTIIT, as well as GTIIT’s relevant staffs attended the headmaster forum. Keynote speaker Huang Huiyang, who is the board member of GTIIT and former Deputy Director of Shantou NPC Standing Committee, looked back at the history of Shantou’s education, and introduced the experience in university-school collaboration. Huang also introduced GTIIT’s performance from the prospects of talent development, discipline construction, etc. He noted that the first cohort of GTIIT graduates, with brilliant prospects, got high marks from the industry insiders.

The topic of university-school collaboration gave rise to a heated discussion. Educators from 17 high schools discussed about choosing majors and university application process, suggesting that GTIIT could guide the major selecting and career development of students, by taking the advantage of science and engineering courses. This would enable high school students to have a basic idea of majors and their future planning as soon as possible.

In recent years, GTIIT has carried out in-depth cooperation with major high schools in Shantou, including the Open Day, Campus Visit Program and Laboratory Tour, which open a window for local students to know the studying environment of the university. According to the high school headmasters, students were looking forward to participating in such experience programs, and were desiring GTIIT to open more laboratories for students to experience college life.

Text/Photos:  GTIIT News & Public Affairs