Hong Kong and Guizhou province on Thursday signed a deal to boost collaboration and increase exchanges in various educational fields, with the aim of better contributing to the country through complementary cooperation.

The memorandum of understanding was signed by Hong Kong’s Under Secretary for Education Sze Chun-fai and Guizhou’s Director-General of the Department of Education of Guizhou Province Zou Lianke.

The MOU provides a framework to strengthen educational exchanges and cooperation between Hong Kong and Guizhou, which includes supporting collaboration in higher education and vocational education and the ongoing development of the sister school platform.

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The initiatives also cover international exchanges and collaboration between the two regions, and encouraging teachers and students to conduct exchanges and mutual visits.

Under the MOU framework, Hong Kong and Guizhou will further promote the sharing of educational resources to achieve complementary development in this field.

They will also collaborate on innovation and talent cultivation to better serve the nation’s development needs.

Sze said that Hong Kong and Guizhou province have long maintained close ties. Higher education institutions in the two places have been conducting professional exchanges through different channels.

The cooperation covers talent cultivation, student admissions and employment, as well as scientific research.

In terms of basic education, the Department of Education of Guizhou Province has been providing support for Hong Kong students' study tours and exchanges on the Chinese mainland, Sze added.

With the signing of the MOU, Sze said he looks forward to a more diversified, broader and higher-level of educational collaboration between Hong Kong and Guizhou.

By March of 2024, a total of 80 schools in Guizhou and Hong Kong had established long-term, stable and friendly exchange relationships through bonding as sister schools, promoting cultural exchanges and interaction between the two regions.

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The Hong Kong-Guizhou Cultural Exchange Fund has been promoting the establishment of sister-school bonds between Hong Kong and Guizhou since 2016, and nearly 2,000 teachers and students from Guizhou and Hong Kong have participated in exchange activities over the years.

To boost innotech development, Guizhou is actively promoting emerging industries, such as computing power, aerospace equipment manufacturing and green transformation.

It has also established a number of leading scientific facilities, such as the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), the world's largest single-dish radio telescope.

Contact the writer at fangxue@chinadailyhk.com