On March 28, leaders of Wuxi Automotive Engineering Vocational and Technical College (WAEVTC) and Southwest College (SWC) in Northern Ireland met online, the meeting being arranged and chaired by EFEC.
The meeting started the next stage of cooperation, building on the previous contacts between EFEC, WAEVTC and SWC with mutual visits, Confucius Institute SWC Mandarin project cooperation, joint online training all in the new plans. The overall aim is to achieve organic cooperation based on a more meaningful and diversified system of technical education in automotive and construction industries training.
Reflecting on her earlier visit to SWC in January, 2019, Principal Ji Lingli said that she was particularly impressed by the school’s automotive and construction programmes, when the two sides conducted in-depth exchanges on the college’s development vision, scale, curriculum design, teaching management, evaluation and certification, college -enterprise cooperation, skills competitions, international cooperation and other fields. The main persons in charge of both sides signed a memorandum of cooperation. This is a good foundation for building a cooperation platform for teacher professional development and students’ international education experience.
Recently, deepening the cooperation of WAEVTC with colleges overseas, has been identified as one of the key tasks of colleges directly under the Municipal Bureau of Education in 2023. In 2023, WAEVTC will broaden its horizons, promote international exchanges, introduce high-quality vocational education resources, participate in the WorldSkills Competition, and strive to contribute to the shining brand of Wuxi education in the international context.
WAEVTC is now a national skill-based talent training base and has been awarded many honorary and in recent years, the college has achieved many gold medals in national and provincial skills competitions. The college’s goal for its range of automotive courses has been set to be the national benchmark. The aim of the rail courses is to be the leading one in the province; and the aim of the construction courses is to be well-regarded within the province.
SWC is a leading College in the UK and has won many awards for its successes across all of its areas of study. It regularly scores top grades in inspections. The world-class Automotive Centre features the latest diagnostic and mechanical equipment. Construction is equally strong, running courses based on the fast-changing industry and benefitting from the fact that the College’s Erne Campus is the first Passivhaus Premium education building in the UK and won the AREEAM Public Sector Project-Design Stage Award.
All this sets the scene for the next steps when the leaders of the faculties of the two colleges will work up the more detailed international collaboration plan, starting with some online programmes.
There is another common goal in which automotive and construction play key parts – sustainability. This provides a strong basis for the international learning between the colleges and the businesses they work with.