Released on: July 15, 2016 Source: Press Center View count: 252
LNU Press Center News: In the context of national strategy to develop “world-class universities and world-class disciplines” and provincial strategy to build “high-level universities and high-level science and engineering universities”, what is the way out of normal universities? On July 4, Lingnan Normal University and Taiwan Normal Education Association co-hosted “2016 Cross-Strait University Presidents Forum”. Fifty presidents from 15 universities on both sides gathered in LNU and talked about the construction of high-level normal universities in the context of innovation-driven development.
Professor Wu Qing-chi, President-General of Taiwan Education University System and President of Taiwan Normal Education Association, together with presidents of National Taiwan Normal University, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Dong Hwa University, Lunghwa University of Science and Technology, Pingtung University, Quemoy University, Mingdao University and educational experts, leaders and experts from South China Normal University, Hunan Normal University, Hainan Normal University, Guangdong Polytechnic Normal University, Guangdong University of Education and Hanshan Normal University, LNU leaders and directors of functional and academic departments and deans of subordinate school attended the conference. The conference was presided over by Vice President Huang Wei.
“I feel excited every time I come here.” It's the fifth time that Wu Ching-chi has attended a conference like this. He believed the forum can help universities on both sides to learn from each other's strengths and overcome weaknesses. He stressed that education needs “flowing water” to keep going. In the context of innovation-driven development, universities should face the challenges and strengthen the training of innovative personnel, improve students’ abilities of innovation and practice. He took NTNU as an example and believed a high-level normal university should be a critical position for excellent teacher training and scientific researches, a cradle of outstanding social and economic, political and cultural elites and an important think tank for governmental policy consultation and problem solving. Wu Ching-chi appreciated LNU’s accomplishments in teacher training, discipline construction and cultural landscape and thought highly of LNU’s education philosophy of “education is where landscape is”.
Why high-level (normal) universities are high-level? LNU Party Secretary Luo Hai’ou thought high-level universities should have corresponding high-grade spiritual outlooks and campus landscape. He summarized this forum with a few key words like “good theme, great speeches, a lots of gains, promising prospect” and said this forum in the context of innovation-driven development is instructive for how universities keep innovating and opening up for communication. Fourteen speakers with a global vision unreservedly shared their advanced schooling philosophy and practices, showing their passion about the education and plain national feeling, which is of great inspiring and referential values for LNU to become a distinctive high-level normal university.
“As teacher education is the ‘machine tool’ of educational personnel training, to set up a well-configured innovative teacher development system that can be effectively implemented and keep pace with today's development has become an urgent need as well as an important task for the construction of high-level normal universities.” LNU President Liu Minggui stated in his speech that this high-level forum has a powerful lineup and wide coverage. It can set up a high-quality academic exchange platform for universities on both sides, propel the meeting and exchange of educational ideas, and facilitate construction and development of normal universities. The forum is also enlightening for understanding the new frontier and use of the practical experience for the construction of high-level normal universities in the context of innovation-driven development.
With a focus of the practice of NKNU, President Wu Lien-Shang believed it's necessary to strengthen and refine pedagogical courses, to control the pass rate of “pedagogical exam” and “teacher selection”, to implement three-week clinical practice and half-year internship and to highlight the characteristics of exemplary teacher training universities in order to produce innovators, entrepreneurs and high-quality personnel for high-level normal universities; Taiwan Education University System CEO and TU Education School Dean Ding Yigu cited typical cases and analyzed innovative strategy for professional development of university teachers. He believed the teacher's professional development includes five dimensions: teacher’s professional learning group, teacher research team, instructors of teaching methodology, teacher appraisal, internal and external case study.
SCNU Vice President Xiao Hua talked about how SCNU took the chance after the state launched innovation-driven strategy and Guangdong Province initiated the construction of high-level universities. He believed six institutional and systematic reforms should be made by promoting inter-disciplinary integration, teacher competition and incentives, self-development of students, collaborative innovation of researches, governance of university operation and optimization of resource allocation; based on the development of HNU teacher education, Vice President Jiang Xinmiao elaborated curriculum system reform should be the breaking point of teacher education development under an “innovation-driven” strategy while emphasis should be put on improving the ability of practice.
DHU President Prof. Chao Han-Chieh, LUST President Prof. Ko Tzu-Hsiang, NPTU Vice President Prof. Lin Chin-Feng, NQU Vice President Prof. C.T. Chen, and MDU Vice President Prof. Chen Yi-Shin shared their views on innovative culture and university administration, creation, innovation and entrepreneurship education, innovation-driven development and teaching & research reform, characteristic development of NQU, application of knowledge in adaptive instruction; LNU Distinguished Prof. Wu Wudian, GPNU Vice President Prof. Xu Ling, and GUE Vice President Prof. Zeng Xiaolong gave their own opinions on how to train multi-dimensional innovation education personnel, structure improvement of vocational education teachers and transformation of local normal universities.
In the forum, LNU entered into talent development agreements with NKNU and DHU. In this forum, the keynote speaker and the moderator were respectively presented with special souvenirs.
President Wu Ching-chi gives a speech
Secretary Luo Hai’ou gives a speech
President Liu Minggui gives a speech
Signing ceremony
Wu Ching-chi is presented with a souvenir
(Photo by You Jianfeng, Liu Haiying, Ye Yuting)
