Planes full of Chinese students are not expected to arrive, nor is that the intention, but the fruits of the protocol that the Faculty of Economics of the University of Algarve signed with the School of Economics da Southwestern University of Finance and Economics from Chengdu, China, namely the coming of Chinese master's students to the region, will begin to be felt as of the next academic year.
The welcoming of students from the populous city of Chengdu, which has nearly five million inhabitants and is the capital of Sichuan province, home to more than 100 million people, is just part of this agreement, signed about a year ago. week, following the visit of a delegation from that Chinese university to the Algarve.
More than promoting the exchange of students (eventually, UAlg students will also be able to choose to study in China), this act represents a strong bet of the organic unit of the Algarve university in the direction of an effective internationalization.
“We hope that this protocol will open several doors, within the scope of our objective, widely publicized by us, of achieving internationalization. Internationalization has several dimensions. One of them obviously has to do with the training offer and making our courses more attractive to the international audience. But it is also about the formation of research networks and also about outreach: why not pool resources to offer services that are useful, both for our local community and for China? The future will tell how far we can go», summarized the director of FE Rui Nunes, in a conversation with the Sul Informação.
“This was just a first step, which consists of their students coming here, not so much the other way around. But it may, in the future, evolve into joint training programs and sharing of research projects. Their willingness to go further was quite clear», added Jorge Andraz, deputy director of this organic unit at UAlg.
The visit of the delegation from Chengdu served, above all, to meet a potential (and now effective) partner. On the days when representatives of the Chinese university school were in the Algarve, it was possible to perceive that «there is a complementarity, even in the way we both approach the teaching component», which can be an advantage when attracting students from that country.
At the genesis of this agreement is the master's in Financial Economics that the FE is preparing to launch. This 2nd cycle course will be taught in English, so that it can attract international students, and is seen with great interest by the Algarvian faculty's Chinese partners.
But, after seeing what is done around here and the existing offer, there was the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics from Chengdu, a request to extend the agreement, also to the area of Tourism, a line that will be deepened shortly, since the directors and responsible for the master's degrees at the Faculty of Economics are already invited to travel to China.
Jorge Andraz and Luís Coelho, also a professor at the Faculty of Economics at UAlg, closely followed the Chinese delegation that was in the Algarve. Contact that allowed them to understand in concrete what are the aspirations of their Chinese counterparts, when signing this agreement.
«The Chinese delegation that was present here made it very clear that the ultimate goal they pursue, when it comes to students coming to Portugal, is to provide their students with a European experience and, eventually, a trip to the business world. It's because? Because, according to what they told us, the idea of most of these students is to return to China, to work», explained Luís Coelho.
At issue is the great competitiveness that exists in the labor market in China, which allows an experience in Europe to be "a differentiating element in their resumes".
This objective was, moreover, transmitted to the Sul Informação by Xiang Zhang, who led the Chinese delegation that visited UAlg. “Our students are interested in getting an internship here, not to enter the local job market, but to have a professional experience in Europe. This component is very important to us», he said.
«I think the University of Algarve has an excellent course in Financial Economics, well structured and with high quality teachers. I think that soon the exchange of students will be able to start and I think there will be many of our students who will want to come here, because Faro it's a very nice place. The idea is for them to have the opportunity to study, do an internship and experience what it's like to live here», he added.
When talking about students from School of Economics, we are talking about a universe of more than 3 students, in this organic unit alone, one of the 27 existing at the University of Chengdu. To realize the size, every year 600 new students join the courses offered by this school.
On the part of those responsible for the Faculty of Economics, there is every interest in welcoming these students, although there is no rush or desire to open the doors to a very large contingent of Chinese. “We have to be cautious, because we also have to test if things work well. We cannot immediately open many places for Chinese students, as we have to respond at various levels, not only in terms of training, but also from a social point of view», explained Rui Nunes.
“The creation of these conditions is not just in our hands. We have to involve other resources from the University and even from the region. There is a detailed work here, which will have to be done with consideration», he added. In the first year, the perspective is that there will be a contingent "around ten Chinese students", in what will be "a pilot experience".
Later, if all goes well, the protocol could be extended to include other schools at this university. «There are already contacts to extend this protocol to the school dedicated to Tourism. I'm happy that, a few days after they were here, they confirmed their interest in collaborating in this area as well”, illustrated Luís Coelho.
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