Shanghai’s foreign affairs department and her foreign sister cities have served as a bridge for the city to develop international exchange and cooperation in education. Each year some 600 to 700 people from more than 30 countries visit the Shanghai Education Commission, including foreign ministers of education. To date, the commission has signed exchange program agreements and letters of intent with 20 countries, 22 sister cities and 23 education boards or bureaus. These programs have been carried out in California of USA, Osaka and Nagasaki of Japan, Pusan of South Korea, Queensland of Australia, Hamburg of Germany, Rhone-Alpes of France, Quebec of Canada, Jalisco of Mexico, St Petersburg of Russia and Gdansk of Poland.

International students

Shanghai has carried out the Study-in-China Plan in line with the Ministry of Education’s strategy of “larger enrolment, better student mix, standardized management, and guaranteed quality.” It now offers Municipal Scholarships to outstanding foreign students and the student mix of local colleges has improved noticeably. By the end of 2010, Shanghai colleges and universities had enrolled 43,016 foreign students, a rise of 11.7 percent from 2009. Among them, 13,159 were degree students, an increase of 10.8 percent. The number of undergraduates, graduates and doctorial students was 9,616 (up 5%), 2,853 (up 32.5%) and 667 (up 22.2%) respectively. There were also 23 junior college students (up 15%). The top five countries of origin for international students are: South Korea (10,004), Japan (5,042), USA (4,565), France (2,451) and Thailand (1,511). Twelve local colleges and universities have more than 1,000 international students.


Joint-venture schools

Joint venture schools have become an integral part of China’s education system and are playing a key role in tapping excellent resources of foreign schools to improve the competitiveness of Chinese ones. Shanghai has made steady progress in developing joint venture schools and cooperative teaching programs. Such cooperation has gone from non-degree programs to degree programs, and more top-level foreign institutions are getting involved.

In 2010, Shanghai completed a survey of joint venture schools and cooperative programs. It now has 37 joint venture schools and 181 cooperative programs. Among them, 141 were approved by the Ministry of Education in 2008 and 48 were re-evaluated and approved in 2010. So far, 189 of them have been certified by the ministry.