Training of Excellent Talents in the International Environment 

-------Selected Opinions from “International Forum on Training Excellent Talents & Enhancing Social Contribution” 

【Editors’ note】 On May 17, the international forum held by our university (BISTU) brought together a broad of presidents of colleges and universities and outstanding enterprise leaders from home and abroad to exchange views on training excellent talents and enhancing social contribution, which has been considered as a lasting topic to discuss in higher education. It provided an opportunity for those present in the forum to state their concepts of traning talents and modes of exploring practices, which not only promoted exchanges of experiences, but also sublimated mind ideologically. Some essential ideas, in accordance with the on-spot records and PPT of lecturers, had been sorted out, in hopes of providing active references, examples and enlightment for traing talents in our university. 

Prof. Mary Ellen Mazey, President of Bowling Green State University of the U.S. 

 

Adhering to the spirit of innovation, Bowling Green State University of the U.S. would become a model of group learning in America and welcome the challenges from the region, the state, the country and even the whole world on education, economy and social development. The so-called group learning had a great influence on the developments of individuals and communities who could shape their futures and promote their recognition of life values by means of learning, exploration and cooperation. The students of Bowling Green State University of the U.S. had been making efforts to achieve their lifelong career planning, fulfill their civil responsibilities and lead the global socialization. Group learning played an important role in establishing a multi-cultural environment, comfortable and safe, and provoking the creative ideas and entrepreneurs’success, which would benefit both the country and the world, apart from the Green State itself. 

Zhang Yong, Director of ZTE Center of Education Corporation 

 

“Excellence Initiative” has been carried out for two years, as a member of which, ZTE has been working on cooperating with universities to improve talents training in full force, take a wide attempt and fruitful practices. A joint center ‘Applied Research and Development Center of ZTE’ launched a new scientific research mode which reads ‘Enterprise leading, Teachers and students participating, Campus implementing, Market applying’ to settle the difficult cooperation issues of science and technology. Meanwhile, it also tackled the problem of cultivating excellence engineers when the enterprises began to cooperate with campuses. ‘Excellence Initiative’ should focus its attention on cultivating talents for small and medium-sized enterprises for they desired talents higher than large enterprises. The way to solve the problem was to train teachers and students, and approve relevant projects.  

Yao Lide, President of Taipei University of Technology (Taiwan) 

    

 

Alumni with high quality was the main driving force of school development. The graduates from Taipei University of Technology are most welcome by enterprises ranked among the first thousand---cheer magazine. In 2012, ten percent of founders of stock companies, chairmen of boards and CEO all graduated from Taipei University of Technology. 

The university cooperated with the most popular entrepreneur magazines and held a social gather once a month, providing a good platform to exchange views and build social networks. 

Jiang Yijian, vice president of Beijing University of Technology 

Establish four platforms: Basic Education platform, Professional Education platform, General Education platform, Practical innovation platform. 

Establish three modes: cooperation with leading enterprises of Beijing on the basis of science and research; board of director system; innovative experiment areas jointly built by universities and enterprises. 

Implement four combinations: Combine with professional certification of engineering education; Combine with a full-time project master's training; Combine with students’ extracurricular activities; Combine with the construction of campus cultures. 

Provide five securities: system security; organization security; fund security; policy security; condition security.  

Liu Deguo， vice president of Lenovo Group 

 

Universities should be the cradle for creative talents and the incubator for innovative enterprises. Universities also need innovation, through which can they become “Open Universities”. Meanwhile, basic research should be strengthened, and the cooperation with big enterprises should be enhanced.  

Characteristics of talents in 21st century: with good ownership and a strong sense of responsibility; be good at study and with spirit of creation and motivation; with perseverance and endurance; with good ability to communicate with people from different countries and different cultures; be adapted to evolution and innovation; with Good team player and corporate attitude. 

Pan Jiling, Principal of Institute of Technology, Taiwan Chaoyang University of Technology 

 

  

Curriculum should meet the need of industrial development, which can improve students’ practical ability and employment ability; meanwhile, a customized cultivation mode should be built. And the University also initiates the “University+ University+ Cooperation” mode between universities in Fujian and enterprises in Taiwan. 

Universities concentrate on cultivation of students’ ability to work abroad and on building an environment for students to study and to know how to face the future job abroad, including the design of a curriculum mode involving five courses. Two relative professional labs should be built. Select some teachers to go abroad to study and visit foreign enterprises. Organize lectures by senior leaders of transitional enterprises and by schoolfellows overseas. Organize interschool simulated International trade fair competition. Select students to practice in enterprises overseas in summer holiday. 

Yang Guiliang, vice president of China Putian Information Technology Research Institute  

Urgent problems on cooperation of University and enterprises: 

“Outstanding Engineering Project” adopts the joint training mode run both by the school and the enterprise. Enterprise should transform itself from previously employing graduates only to jointly training its potential employees, so it’s a new project for enterprise’s transformation. Higher institutions aim at educating students, whereas enterprises aim for profit-making. The in-depth involvement of enterprise requires of its practical devotion and financial support. Thus a win-win area must be located by both the higher institution and the enterprise, for which there must be clear and sustainable ideas and plans for cooperation.     

Professor Diarmuid Hegarty, principal of Griffith College Dublin of Ireland 

  

 

The Five Consciousness Students should possess to Success: 

Analysis Consciousness: the ability to digest main school theories and skills. 

Comprehensive Consciousness: the comprehensive ability for different school theories. 

Creative Consciousness: the ability to find and distinguish new problems and new phenomena.  

Respect Consciousness: understand and respect the difference between different people and different groups. 

Moral Consciousness: the responsibility consciousness as a worker and citizen.  

Ke Wang Sunpeng, deputy principal of Taiwan Chienkuo Technology University 

 

Practice Regulation outside the University: 

Evaluation and Selection System of Practice Institution 

Cooperation and Distribution System of Practice outside the university (application, interview, distribution) 

Contracts should be signed by the university and practice institutions. 

Tutoring System of Practice outside the university (before and in the process of practice) 

1. Records of training and tutoring to students by practice institutions. 

2. Records of visiting and tutoring of tutors. 

3. Records and reports of practice work by practice students. Benefit Evaluation System after Practice. 

The Eight Regulations of Practice outside the University 

1. Visiting record  

2. Tutoring record  

3. Record of interview of students  

4. Evaluation of conformity in future work  

5. Record of interview of practice institutions  

6. Working diary  

7. Achievements report  

8. Evaluation 

Klaus Lochmann, President's Special Envoy, German University of Applied Sciences Jena 

 

Requirements and the aim of study in the university before study of MB in German university of Applied Sciences Jena. 

 1. Admission requirements (with quota limit, score: ≤2.0) 

l Having passed the 9-year high school graduation exams or having equivalent education experience; 

l Having completed related vocational training (such as those of fitters, plumbers, mechanics, electricians, electronic engineers, etc.), or having at least a 12- week internship experience in mechanical manufacturing enterprises meeting the requirements; 

2.      Studying at University  

l Attending practical-skill-oriented lectures and seminars devoting to certain subjects, and finishing assignments to discover students’ unique interests and strong points) 

l Participating in professional practice to be held in Semester Five for students to obtain a Bachelor Degree of Engineering) and finishing the graduation paper in Semester Severn required of for a bachelor degree.  

3.      About Practical Work 

l Students should acquire the ability to apply new achievements in natural science into practice to meet people’s need.(including income security) 

l New enterprises will be built under suitable conditions (promote innovation through FreistaatThüringen or German) 

   

Alistair Borthwick, Dean of the Department of Civil Engineering, University College Cork 

 

China and Ireland both enjoy a brilliant history of engineering, especially in hydraulic and electric engineering. More importantly, Mr. Hu Jintao and Ireland’s James Dooge share the same major of hydraulic engineer. Apart from a good command of basic skills, talented engineers should have creative and innovative initiatives and be capable of communication, cooperation and business management. Therefore, modern engineers have to assume the roles of professional experts, cross-sector integrators in complex environment, and creative reformers in challenging situations. No doubt engineers endowed with these qualities are highly competitive in job market. As for universities, they have the obligation to improve the image of engineering and make the career of engineers appeal to more graduates.  

However, the university research mechanism oriented to fund and ranking has hindered the innovative development of the engineering teaching. The preference to research achievements in the promotion and selection of teachers will exert long-term negative effects on the teaching work.  

The cultivation of the most talented engineers will be guaranteed if the top-notch students are convinced to major in engineering, a minimum but high-level lectures are given, challenging and open questions and group work are frequently adopted, more subjects about general engineering instead of specialized engineering are offered, comprehensive transferrable skills are encouraged, and the relationship between teaching and research is well balanced.       

Jörgen Carlsson, Dean of the School of Computer Science and Electric Engineering, Halmstad University, Sweden 

 

Halmstad University has taken a variety of measures to support their students’ innovation efforts: to help students establish their own start-ups, to value students’ inspirations, to provide the students with effective career planning and guidance, to actively contact related companies to help materialize the students’ research, to set up a science park for the close contact between students and entrepreneurs, and to sponsor incubation centers.  

Cirstea Marcian Nicolae, Dean of the School of Computer Science of Anglia Ruskin University, UK 

 

To train excellent talents, universities should optimize courses, improve efficiency, make graduate programs go international and gear more majors toward job market. We expect more recognition of our academic quality. To be specific, we aim to have at least 95% positive evaluation from the outside world including Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Bodies (PSRBs). Each faculty member will strive for more fruitful research and practice work and make more contributions to the local community and international partners.  

Ulf Ivarsson, Director of the International Affairs Office, Halmstad University, Sweden 

 

To ensure industrial gains, universities should broaden more channels for experts to pursue long-term venture research activities, obtain more patents from licensing agreements, acquire more funds from grant projects, and benefit from the enrollment of lab research graduate programs.  

Professor Yoshiro Iwai, Vice President of Fukui University, Japan 

 

Closely related to human development, engineering science has been playing significant roles in the promotion of the world’s sustainable development. We offer programs and researches of engineering so as to advance the sustainable development of the society. We hold that engineering talents in the 21^st century should enjoy rich imagination, critical thinking, self-learning capability, and international communication skills in addition to professional knowledge and skills. We take the following measures to train engineering talents: 

1. Promote the development of excellent engineers 

We have made great efforts to ensure the development of talented engineers who excel at creativeness, decision-making, independent learning and communication besides professional knowledge.  

2. Maintain the level of excellent engineers 

We release to the outside our forefront research achievements. Through the internal integration of engineering science and technology, we try to keep up with the latest social demands. And we enhance the research of foundation engineering to cater to the trend of future industries.  

3. Ensure excellent engineers’ contributions to social and industrial development  

We will integrate and systematize the intellectual resources related to engineering science so as to contribute to the sustainable development of the world and the local community.