The 2026 China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week was held in Guiyang from July 28 to August 2. Co-hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education and the People’s Government of Guizhou Province, the event adopted the theme “Leveraging Smart Education to Build an Amicable Homeland”. Zha Daolin, Deputy Party Secretary of Central China Normal University (CCNU), attended its opening ceremony.
At the opening ceremony, Zha Daolin joined other guests to unveil the China-ASEAN Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Initiated by the Secretariat of China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week and led by Guizhou Normal University, the institute counts ten Chinese and overseas universities including CCNU, Sichuan University, Baotou Teachers’ College, University of Saint Joseph (Macao) and Dhurakij Pundit University (Thailand) as founding members.
On July 29, the Seminar on High-quality Development of the Ministry of Education’s Program for Partner Support of Western Higher Education Institutions took place. Zha delivered a speech titled Empowering Southern Xinjiang through Digital Technology, Cultivating Teacher Talents via Cloud-based Collaboration. He presented CCNU’s practices in digitally supporting Kashgar University. Since launching the partnership in 2002, CCNU has leveraged digital education strengths over 24 years. Focusing on digital empowerment, self-sustaining development and cultural enrichment for Xinjiang, the university has built an AI-driven, cloud-collaborative digital support system, which has comprehensively improved Kashgar University’s institutional operations, faculty competence, disciplinary development and local basic education outreach.
Zha also participated in the launch ceremony for the Ministry of Education Service Platform for Partner-supported Universities. The platform is designed to break resource barriers between eastern and western universities, delivering full-chain support for western universities in disciplinary development, talent training and scientific research innovation.
Launched in 2008, the China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week is holding its 18th edition this year. It featured 35 activities covering higher education, vocational education, digital education, international industry-university-research cooperation and youth exchanges, and kicked off multiple cooperative projects such as the China-ASEAN Smart Education Capacity-building Program.
Chinese