State plans closer ties with UNESCO
By Cui Ning (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-03-03 00:30

China's cultural and educational departments will further widen their partnership with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) this year, by implementing several new educational programmes.

They include promoting basic education and farming skills in rural areas of China and other developing countries,Tian Xiaogang, an official with the Chinese National Commission for UNESCO, said at a news conference Tuesday in Beijing.

China set up an international training centre for rural education in the 1990s in Baoding of North China's Hebei Province, with the support of UNESCO.

"Based on this centre, we will pool talent from China Agricultural University and invite overseas agricultural experts to build up capacity in farming skills in rural areas of China, as well as in Asia and Africa,'' Tian said.

Since China resumed its legal seat in UNESCO in 1971, the country and UNESCO have successfully teamed up in such areas as education for the public, fighting illiteracy, heritage protection, conservation of biological diversity, geology, oceanology and hydrology sciences.

China has also joined UNESCO'S efforts for building educational and scientific programmes for some other member states.

Tian said UNESCO is now working hard to introduce the principle of cultural diversity into international law.

In another development, the Ministry of Education has encouraged major universities across the country to take on 40 important research programmes involving social sciences, such as the relations of ethnic groups and religious issues, major problems during the process of urbanization, studies on the country's educational issues, human resources and rural population.

These programmes have greatly helped promote academic exchanges between domestic and overseas universities, said Jin Nuo, an official of the ministry's Department for Social Science, Thinking and Politics.

Nanjing University in East China's Jiangsu Province, for example, has widened international exchanges with foreign counterparts in such issues as religion, world history, world affairs and China's major issues.

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