SPbU expands cultural and educational cooperation with China

St Petersburg University was the first university in Russia to sign a cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, which makes it possible to organise faculty internships abroad.

St Petersburg University has more than 80 partners from China in the field of education and science. These include Tsinghua University, Peking University, Qingdao University, Jilin University, Liaoning University and many others.

Speaking at the meeting, Valeria Malomuzh, SPbU’s Deputy Vice-Rector for International Affairs, noted the steady development of cooperation between the university and Sichuan Province. ‘For example, agreements have been signed with leading universities and research organisations in the region, including Sichuan University. In addition, in 2023, St Petersburg University became a partner of Sichuan International Studies University,’ said the deputy vice-rector. 

‘Cooperation with the Pedagogical University seems to be the most promising, as two relevant educational programmes have already been developed: the Bachelor’s programme "Russian as a Foreign Language" and the Master’s programme "Russian Language and Russian Culture in the Aspect of Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language". ‘The aim of these programmes is to train teachers of Russian as a foreign language,’ said Kira Shchukina, Associate Professor at SPbU, PhD in Philology. «We are, of course, interested in developing further relations, as it seems possible to create new master’s programmes based on the two-diploma model, as well as academic exchanges of students and teachers.’ 

Colleagues at Sichuan Pedagogical University, for their part, came up with an initiative to open the SPbU Russian as a Foreign Language Centre on their campus, which would provide an opportunity for residents of the south-western regions of China to study Russian and for teachers from St Petersburg University to undertake internships and gain work experience abroad.

There are SPbU language testing centres at Tsinghua University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Heilongjiang University and a number of others, and St Petersburg University also has a representative office in Harbin.

Valeria Malomuzh added that more than 80 educational programmes with in-depth study of Chinese language and culture, law and economics are being implemented at St Petersburg University. 

Irina Tsymbal, Deputy Dean of the SPbU Faculty of Arts for Youth Policy and General Affairs, emphasised the need for cultural exchange between students and teachers from the two universities: ‘We are proud of our students from China. Our education programmes are long — six years — so our students become very dear to us. We also want our students and teachers to get to know our colleagues from China. The easiest way to do this is to organise joint exhibitions. These would be festive events where people could learn new things, get to know each other, and exchange experiences.’ The idea of organising a Chinese New Year exhibition at the SPbU came up during the discussion.