On the morning of August 5th, the seminar on the work of international students studying in China which was organized by the Shaanxi Branch of China Association for International Education was held in Tai Bai Campus of Northwest University. President Guo Lihong of NWU, Director Liu Jinghui of the China Association for International Education and Deputy Director Guo Hongyi from the Office of International Cooperation and Exchange of the Education Department of Shaanxi Provincial Government attended the seminar and delivered speeches.
The conference aimed to discuss the development direction of education for international students in Shaanxi Province and the challenges and countermeasures faced by international students coming back to China in the post-epidemic era. At the meeting, Guo Lihong firstly introduced the history of NWU and the development of international students’ education, as well as the NWU’s innovative management of international students in response to the challenges of the epidemic, the successful completion of various teaching tasks for international students in China and abroad by adopting online + offline methods, and the exploration of online cultural experience activities. He pointed out that although the COVID-19 pandemic had brought a series of new problems to the development of international students education and management, the difficulties were temporary and should not be used as a reason to relax its future development.
In his speech, Wen Guangrui, Dean of the School of International Education of Xi'an Jiaotong University, put forward six challenges and measures to deal with the management of international students under the new situation.The representatives of other universities also exchanged ideas on the experience of their respective schools in international student epidemic prevention and control, recruitment and management, teaching and training, etc. They also shared their opinions on issues, such as the difficulties and strategies to solve the problems faced by international students returning to universities in China, and suggested that the Shaanxi Branch of China Association for International Education should regularly organize activities and forums such as professional skills training and competition for international student counsellors, psychological counselling for international students and sharing emergency cases and their countermeasures, in order to strengthen inter-university exchanges and jointly cope with the new challenges.
