Between the 1st and 3rd November 2018, Deputy Director of the Centre for International Affairs (CIA) and a General Administrative Officer from CIA attended the 40th Anniversary of the Establishment of Hunan University of Humanities, Science and Technology (HUHST), People’s Republic of China.
HUHST and SUT have had an MoU since 2012. Since then, there have been many activities together, especially cultural exchange camps with SUT students going to HUHST and vice versa. However, with the initiatives from CIA, the collaboration has become more academic in the past year with HUHST providing one-year full scholarship to SUT students to study Chinese. At the moment, two groups of SUT students, twelve students in total, have joined to programme and are currently studying Chinese at HUHST.
During the visit, the SUT delegates had a chance to meet with Professor Bing Qing Jiang the Director of the Office of International Cooperation and Exchange in order to thank HUHST for providing the scholarships and for looking after SUT students.
The Director of the Office of International Cooperation and Exchange, HUHST and the Deputy Director of the Centre for International Affairs, SUT agreed to discuss further collaborations between the two universities. This can be summarised as follows:
(1) HUHST agreed to provide more scholarships for SUT students to study Chinese for a year at HUHST.
(2) With some support from SUT, HUHST would like to pursue a 4-week academic and supporting staff exchange.
(3) SUT asked whether it would be possible to have one or two Chinese teachers at SUT for at least a trimester/semester. HUHST suggested that final year students from the Language Department would need to do teaching internship which SUT thought would be suitable for Surawiwat School. This is something that will need to be pursued further.
(4) One term or one year student exchange where credits would be transferrable was also discussed.
We are hopeful that the relationship between the two universities will become stronger both culturally and academically.
