International forum “Business Education in Post-COVID-19 Era: Challenges, Opportunities, and Prospects” successfully held
On the evening of December 17, the international forum “Business Education in Post-COVID-19 Era: Challenges, Opportunities, and Prospects”, sponsored by the Faculty of International Education of SBS, was successfully held. Vice President He Ying and Ambassador of Colombia to the People’s Republic of China Luis Diego Monsalve attended the forum and both delivered a speech. Keynote speeches were also given by Yan Yuping, Dean of the Faculty of Business Foreign Language; Karenina B. Romualdo, Associate Professor of the College of Business Administration and Accountancy, Central Luzon State University, the Philippines; Cong Tianluo, Professor and Deputy Dean of the College of International Education, Zhejiang Gongshang University; George A. Gabrielian, Professor and Director of the Office of International Exchange, Russian New University; Tian Xiaoyong, Professor and Deputy Dean of the School of International Education, Shanghai International Studies University; and Jose Pereyra, Professor and Director of the Office of Strategic Planning and Competitiveness, CENTRUM Business School, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. Deputy Dean Chen Wei attended also the forum. Deputy Dean Dai Ying chaired the forum.
The forum was conducted both offline and online. Teachers from a dozen of universities in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Armenia, Georgia, Albania, Russia, Peru, Colombia, Costa Rica, Argentina, and Dominican Republic and officials trained under our foreign-aid training program over the years participated in the forum online.
In the context of COVID-19, the forum aimed to analyze the challenges and opportunities faced by business education in the “Belt and Road” Initiative, look into the development direction of business education, explore new mechanisms for cultivating high-level business management talents in countries and regions along the “Belt and Road”, strengthen international exchanges between Chinese and foreign universities, and create a favorable atmosphere for accelerating transformation and development, thus building a platform for promoting academic exchanges, economic and trade exchanges, transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and sharing of educational and teaching resources for countries and regions along the “Belt and Road”.
In her opening speech, Vice President He Ying pointed out that the online international education forum was held to jointly explore new mechanisms for cultivating high-level transnational business management talents under the “Belt and Road” Initiative in the context of COVID-19, and promote school-enterprise cooperation and international exchanges between business universities, so as to build an open international platform for promoting academic exchanges, economic and trade exchanges, transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and sharing of educational and teaching resources for countries and regions along the “Belt and Road”. She also expressed the hope that this forum would push the cooperation under the “Belt and Road” International Business Education Alliance to a new height, and create a new situation of resource sharing, complementary advantages, and mutual benefit.
Luis Diego Monsalve, Ambassador of Colombia to the People’s Republic of China, addressed to congratulate the international education forum. He pointed out that, in the background of the “Belt and Road” Initiative, the exchanges and cooperation between the two countries were becoming increasingly frequent in many fields. It was his hope that further efforts would be made to strengthen their exchanges and cooperation in the fields of education, scientific research cooperation, talent training, cultural communication, etc.
Yan Yuping, Dean of the Faculty of Business Foreign Language, presented a speech entitled as “China Experience in Reshaping Higher Education in Business in the Post-COVID-19 Era”. She emphatically analyzed the trend of internationalization and the challenges to higher education and business education, introduced China’s responses in these fields, and expressed the expectation for participating in the exchanges between and co-building of global business universities, hoping to offer new ideas about business education for experts from various countries.
Karenina B. Romualdo, Associate Professor of the College of Business Administration and Accountancy, Central Luzon State University, the Philippines, once participated in a training program organized by the Academy for International Business Officials (AIBO), MOFCOM (Shanghai). After the training, she actively coordinated and promoted the cooperation between the two schools. At this forum, she put forward her views on business education in modern higher education from the perspective of a state university, analyzed the challenges and bottlenecks faced by business education, and examined the prospects of business education in the future.
Cong Tianluo, Professor and Deputy Dean of the College of International Education, Zhejiang Gongshang University, expounded the experience of the college in long-term, smooth intercollegiate cooperation in three aspects: innovating talent training mechanisms, actively promoting “Internet + teaching”, and serving national strategies. He also expressed the hope that experts from all over the world would explore a new pattern of integration, co-building, and sharing in the international construction of universities.
George A. Gabrielian, Professor and Director of the Office of International Exchange, Russian New University, analyzed the hardware and software skills to be trained and the talent training mechanism of universities in the future, put forward some suggestions on the cooperation and resource sharing between universities, and looked forward to the development mode of future international education. Russian New University has established close scientific, educational, and commercial cooperation relationships with leading educational institutions in Europe, Asia, North America, and Latin America.
Tian Xiaoyong, Professor and Deputy Dean of the School of International Education, Shanghai International Studies University, delivered a speech on “Technology-enabled Transformation of Business English Teaching and Learning”, in which he pointed out that scientific and technological applications constituted the key to internationalization in the post-COVID-19 era. He hoped that, with the introduction of technologies into the teaching processes of universities, business English would be able to transcend national boundaries, overcome the obstacles and difficulties posed by the pandemic, and contribute to all-round exchanges and development.
Jose Pereyra, Professor and Director of the Office of Strategic Planning and Competitiveness, CENTRUM Business School, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, discussed the opportunities to strengthen the cooperation between Latin American and Chinese business schools under the “Belt and Road” Initiative, put forward some ideas on how to strengthen the cooperation between business schools and the possible fields and ways of cooperation at both macro and micro levels, and looked into the future prospects of the cooperation between Latin American and Chinese universities.
At the meeting, experts and scholars from different countries took turns to express their opinions on the future development of business education in the post-COVID-19 era. They agreed that the “Belt and Road” Initiative is a well-received international public good and international cooperation platform, and that international education cooperation has a bright future.
Contribution: Sun Ya
Photography: Zhang Wen, Shi Xiaomei
Audit: Chen Wei