Toronto and Beijing launch new Sino-Canadian teacher centre

The Schulich ExecEd’s Asian Business Management Program (Schulich ExecEd-ABMP), and the Beijing Institute of Education (BIE), affiliated with China’s Ministry of Education, have jointly launched the Sino-Canadian Centre for Teachers Professional Development. Located in Beijing, the Centre will serve as a new platform for the transformative power of education: Chinese and Canadian education experts will work together to deliver highly-specialized and practical training programs to Chinese primary and secondary teachers.

On April 12, high-level officials and educators, including John McCallum, Canadian Ambassador to China, and Huang Wei, deputy director of the Teacher Education Department of China’s Ministry of Education, unveiled the new center. On this occasion, both men congratulated representatives of Schulich ExecEd-ABMP and BIE for this unprecedented cooperation, and for the accomplishments of the two educational institutions, which strive to benefit the current and next generation of educators. The Centre is a wonderful example of what can occur when educational cooperation between China and Canada is taken to the next level, “not only training educators, but doing it together,” McCallum said.

Alan Middleton, Schulich ExecEd executive director Centre, and He Jinsong, BIE president, together pointed out that the Sino-Canadian Centre for Teachers Professional Development is an important component of the cooperation between two institutions focused on improving the growth of pedagogical strategies for global learners in China.

The Center is a culmination of the long collaboration between Schulich ExecEd-ABMP and BIE that was born of mutual interests, objectives and respect. Indeed, in the last two years, Schulich ExecEd-ABMP has delivered more than 20 programs and has trained approximately 1,000 educators in Beijing, in addition to hosting several BIE teachers at York University for long- and short-term training programs.