Yorkshire to the fore in Chinese drive for education

The region is at the forefront of China's drive to give more of its young people an access to an international education while staying at home.

Bradford, Huddersfield, Leeds, Leeds Metropolitan, Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam universities are partners in the running of the Sino British College which teaches 1,500 students on its campus in the heart of Shanghai.

Traditionally universities have helped to deliver year-long foundation courses in China to bridge the gap for pupils who leave school at the age of 17 before coming to the UK to study.

Now the six Yorkshire Universities and three others from the North of England are going further by delivering their own qualifications from China.

The Sino British College allows students to do a foundation year and the first year of a degree in China with the option of staying in their home country for the remainder of their course or coming to the UK to do the final one or two years of study.

At present the college offers a range of subject areas where students complete two years in China before choosing one of the nine partner universities in England to go to.

It also offers a series of pilot degrees which allow students to stay in China throughout their course. This includes a finance degree

offered by Leeds Met and an events management course run taught by Huddersfield. Students on these courses will be the first to graduate next year after starting their study in 2006.

There are now plans to expand the number of courses run by the separate universities from the Sino British College which will allow more

students to stay in China.

Huddersfield University's chancellor Patrick Stewart visited Shanghai last month to deliver awards to its China-based events management students. The university's director of international strategy Prof

David Taylor said the Sino British College had helped to boost

universities' overseas recruitment and profile.

Sheffield University's director of international liaison Tim Crick said the scheme had also brought both financial and academic benefits.

He said: "It is exciting to be involved in the running of a Chinese university and I think the Yorkshire universities will have a long term role to play here.

"Chinese students want to be able to get a career return for their educational investment so we are not offering courses in subjects like philosophy where the demand would not be viable. But this is the only constraint we have."

Mr Crick said the Sino British College opened up the possibility of a British education to Chinese students who would not be able to afford to live abroad for three years. He also believes a base in Shanghai will allow Yorkshire universities to research the expansion of the city as the Chinese economy grows.

Universities delivering education outside of their own campus is also set to increase in the UK.

BPP, the new London-based private university college approved by the Government this summer, is running three new degrees this autumn, which will be taught from 17 centres around the country.

The Sino British College is just one example of the increasing links Yorkshire Universities are developing in China.

For the past three years York University has held graduation ceremonies for Chinese students in Beijing to allow them to celebrate achieving a degree with their families.

Leeds University is involved in several partnerships including the International Centre for Sustainable Energy Science and Technology with Zhejiang University which has won research grants worth more than 2m.

It has also created the Joint Laboratory for Plant Sciences with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and signed an agreement to carry out research with China's largest trading company Sinochem.

Hull University has set up a joint logistics institute with Xiamen University while Huddersfield is delivering education qualifications in

both Beijing and Guangzhou.