Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools for undergraduate program has been unprecedented in the school-running history of Binzhou Medical University.
The undergraduate program of rehabilitation therapy jointly launched by Binzhou Medical University and German University of Health and Sports has been recognized by the Ministry of Education and has been included in the national enrollment plan for ordinary colleges and universities since this year. Our school has also become the first university in Shandong province and the third in China to carry out Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools for rehabilitation therapy. This breakthrough marks overseas extension of our cooperative education model and truly integration of high-quality education resources into undergraduate education, which will have a positive impact on the expansion of school running scales, and the in-depth improvement of teaching quality.
Why do we choose Rehabilitation Therapy? What about our partners? What changes will be brought about by Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools? With a series of questions, the reporter visited the relevant department and school.
Why do we choose rehabilitation therapy?
The International Cooperation and Exchanges Office has conducted a large number of studies to determine whether it would be feasible to launch this project of Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools. In the study reports, the necessity of launching this project is clearly summarized as Four Needs, namely, the Needs of national strategy and local economic and social development, the Needs of rehabilitation therapy discipline construction and teachers’ competence improvement of our school, the Needs of personnel training and the Needs to promote the internationalization of education in our school .
Mr. Zhao Wei, Director of the International Cooperation and Exchanges Office, explained the “Four Needs” from two aspects. From the aspect of national macro development, with the fully implementation of the Healthy China strategy, the rehabilitation industry is in more severe lack of professional talents. In 2021, the National Health Commission and other eight ministries and commissions jointly released the Notice on Issuing Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Rehabilitation Medicine, putting forward higher requirements for the quality of rehabilitation professionals. According to the data, the number of rehabilitation therapists in China was about 50,000 in 2018, including physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech and swallowing therapists, etc. In this regard, the ratio of rehabilitation therapists to the total population of China is about 1:28,000 and ratio of physical therapists is lower. While, the ratio of physical therapists to the population is 1:1693 in the United States, 1:1344 in the UK, 1:768 in Switzerland, and 1:485 in Norway. It can be seen that there is a large employment gap for physical therapists in China and those with overseas study experience are even more scarce.
Mr. Zhao Wei believes that the internationalization of education is an inevitable trend in the process of economic globalization and China-foreign cooperation in running schools is a good way to promote the development of education internationalization, through effectively introducing international advanced educational concepts and high-quality educational resources. The 14th Five-Year Plan for the development of undergraduate education and teaching of our school, clearly states that it is necessary to deepen the reform of the education model through international cooperation and enhance the international competitiveness of talents. Rehabilitation discipline is an important support for our school-running pattern of Two Advantages and Two Specialties. Rehabilitation therapy is among the first batch of first-class specialty construction units in Shandong Province. The preparation for international accreditation of WPT started from 2018 and it is planned to apply for the accreditation in 2022. In this background, it is urgent to integrate with international education and to improve the overall education level and international influence of our school.
What about German University of Health and Sports?
According to Ms. Wang Yan from the International Cooperation and Exchanges Office, German University of Health and Sports, founded in 2007 is an university of applied sciences, featuring sports and health in Germany, which was awarded by the Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund (DOSB) as top sports university in Germany. It enjoys two main specialty groups, namely, sports and health and a teaching team of top quality and it offers a number of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, which are very popular. There are many similarity of the teaching content and research direction between Physical Therapy of German University of Health and Sports and Rehabilitation Therapy of Binzhou Medical University, which laid a solid foundation for cooperation.
Gong Jianwei, Deputy Dean of the School of Rehabilitation Medicine, believes that the talent cultivation mode of the two universities have obvious advantages and characteristics and are highly compatible and complementary. Rehabilitation Therapy is a featured specialty of Binzhou Medical University, focusing on cultivating innovative and application-oriented talents with physiotherapy skills and ability to conduct occupational therapy, speech therapy and rehabilitation aids treatment. Integration of theory and practice are often applied in the teaching methods, focusing on the cultivation of practicality, innovation and teamwork spirit. The German University of Health and Sports has always been adhering to the high quality and preciseness of German higher education, focusing on cultivating practical talents in the field of sports and health. The overall teaching focuses on practicality and individualization, and students mostly learn and practice in teamwork.
The most important is that the German University of Health and Sports has obvious professional advantages and school-running experience in the fields of sports injury rehabilitation, sports nutrition and other sports rehabilitation, and enjoys a high international reputation, which can just make up for the shortcomings of our school in the field of sports rehabilitation personnel training, introduce foreign advantageous professional teaching resources and advanced management concepts, and continuously improve the quality of teaching and personnel training.
Based on this consideration, we conducted cooperation with the German University of Health and Sports in 2019. Over the past two years, through multiple online and offline communications, the two schools have determined the intention to jointly launch an undergraduate program in Rehabilitation Therapy based on their respective school-running characteristics and advantages, completed the matching of undergraduate courses in Rehabilitation Therapy and the formulation of talent training plans and signed a memorandum of cooperation and an agreement on Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools. After joint efforts of the two schools, the project was successfully approved by the Ministry of Education of the P.R.C.
What new changes will the cooperation bring?
The biggest change is the internationalization of talent training and the improvement of faculty.
According to the agreement, the Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools for Rehabilitation Therapy is a four-year program with 4+0 school-running model (four years teaching will all be finished in our school), focusing on introducing high-quality education resources of the German side. Students who pass the examination of the project will be awarded the undergraduate diploma and degree certificate of Binzhou Medical University, and a bachelor's degree in Physiotherapy from the German side.
According to Jiang Ying, who is in charge of Rehabilitation Physical Therapy at the School of Rehabilitation Medicine, after the comparison of the professional training programs of the two schools in the early stage, the curriculum syllabus, based on Rehabilitation Therapy courses of Binzhou Medical University and featuring German Sports Rehabilitation, has been revised and completed. The program aims to cultivate high-quality talents who are proficient in the application of rehabilitation treatment technology and have an international perspective. There are 51 courses in this program, including 19 German courses, among which 18 are core courses of the German side.
According to the teaching arrangement of this program, a total of 16 German full-time teachers with English teaching ability and more than 5 years of professional practical experience have been introduced. Among them, 46.75% are professors and 62.5% have doctoral degrees. At the same time, we plans to send 3 to 5 teachers to Germany every year for six to twelve months for further study and training to provide opportunities for professional teachers to integrate and innovate in combination with their professional direction and the frontier development of international academic, to update teaching concepts, and to gradually meet the requirements of international teaching standards.
To guarantee the implementation of the project, the school has formulated a series of policy documents in advance and provided key support in laboratory construction, project management, quality control, and funding investment. We believe that the value of the rehabilitation feature of our school will be enhanced this year.
SOURCE: News Center
BY: Wang Zhaorong
