Distinguished Mr. Danny Pieters, President of the Senate of the ...

Distinguished Mr. Danny Pieters, President of the Senate of the Kingdom of Belgium,
Distinguished Mr. Lodewijk De Witte, Governor of the Province of Flemish Brabant,
Distinguished Mr. Louis Tobback, Mayor of the City of Leuven,
Distinguished Prof. Johan De Graeve, President and Chief Executive of Group T,
Distinguished HE LIAO Liqiang, Ambassador of Chinese Embassy:
Professors and guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning:
As part of celebration series of 40 th anniversary of China-Belgium diplomatic relations, the
1 st Chinese higher education fair and China-Belgium engineering education forum is
opened in the beautiful city, Leuven. On behalf of Chinese Higher Education Delegation,
I’d like to extend congratulations on the successful opening of the ceremony.
With the rapid development of information and globalization, there came the dramatic and
significant change of productivity, production model, life style, and economic and social
forms. Scientific and technological innovating, industrial upgrading, structure optimizing
have become the focus of the world, which bring the opportunities and challenges to the
global engineering education. The purpose of the China-Belgium engineering education
forum is to exchange views on the same challenges and explore ways to deal with them,
which is beneficial for further understanding and cooperation. The delegations are happy
to be involved in it.
Great progress has been made for Chinese higher education and engineering education.
According to the statistics of 2009, the number of Chinese universities with engineering
bachelors is 1003, which covers 90% of Chinese universities. There are 3.71 million
students registered for engineering bachelors, and 470 thousand master students, which
cover 32% of Chinese university students and make the biggest engineering education
group in the world. A compete frame and system of engineering education has come into
being, with more than ten millions of graduates satisfying the varying need of China’s
economy.
In the new century, aimed to take a China style of industrialization, build a creative nation,
and develop an intellectual society, a new strategy was blueprinted, bringing forth
challenges to the engineering education. New upgraded industries require more specially
trained human resources. Creative nation needs more creative graduates. To meet new
challenges and accumulate national power requires more competent talents. The year of
2010 saw the release of China’s National Planning of Middle-term and Long-term
Education Reform and Development. It says that quality is the core part of Chinese higher
education. Engineering education is no exception, whose quality control is the
requirement of social and economic development.
In the new era, China should go further to reform the engineering education, complying
with national strategic development. Professors and engineers should work hand in hand,
making fully trained and integrated graduates of global vision. Thereby, China launched

the project of “Excellent Engineers” in June 2010, as part of national planning. In the
frame, students will be with businesses, of world outlook and for the future, initiative,
adaptable and of high quality. By this, the reform and innovation of engineering education
will be carried out, eventually to make China a country of high quality engineering
education rather than a big one. The project will be a model to show how to facilitate the
upgrading of production, how to optimize the structure, how to sustain the development.
European engineering education has a long history since the end of eighteen century. In
the past two hundred years, European countries including Belgium have dedicated
themselves to the research, reform and cooperation of engineering education, which
provided Chinese counterparts with more lessons and experiences. Nowadays,
international cooperation has been widely practiced, especially in attracting and
exchanging students, to broaden their view and gain international experience. Chinese
universities would like to work with Belgian universities to handle the challenges, to share
the resources, and to co-teach and co-train. The forum itself is a trial of the engineering
education exchanges. A platform should be built for the international cooperation, mutual
beneficial and complement. This afternoon eight speakers from both sides will share their
experiences and opinions regarding engineering education practice.
Wish the forum a success! Wish the friendship of Belgium-China evergreen!
Thank you!