The Minister for Education and Skills, Jan O’Sullivan, TD, is this week leading an Education in Ireland mission to China, organised by Enterprise Ireland. This is an important step in deepening the strong education ties between Ireland and China, particularly in the third level sector. The intensive schedule on the mission covers a series of high level meetings and events in Beijing and Shanghai, including with the Chinese Minister for Education and senior Government and education sector representatives. These meetings are all aimed at supporting Irish colleges build their linkages with the Chinese education sector and promoting the world-class education and research opportunities in Ireland to Chinese students.

Minister O’Sullivan highlighted the very tangible benefits to this relationship. ‘We have seen an increase in the number of Chinese students studying at graduate and post-graduate level in Ireland. We are also seeing very strong, innovative partnerships evolving between Irish third level institutions and Chinese universities. These partnerships are resulting in new opportunities in research and collaboration and the Education in Ireland mission will see further progress in this regard’, she said.

A number of participating colleges announced significant new initiatives as part of the Education in Ireland mission. Trinity College Dublin has announced the establishment of the Trinity Global Undergraduate Scholarship for China, a new scholarship which will support a prospective Chinese undergraduate student to study at Trinity College Dublin. The University also unveiled its new Chinese online presence which includes a newly designed Chinese language website (trinitychina.ie) and university profiles across a number of social media channels. In addition, the University has announced a new Masters in Chinese Studies and the opening of the Trinity Centre for Asian Studies.

Minister O’Sullivan also officially opened 3U Partnership’s China Office in Beijing’s award winning Galaxy SOHO urban complex. The 3U Partnership combines the complementary strengths of Dublin City University (DCU), Maynooth University and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). The 3U China Office is focussed on recruiting Chinese students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels and developing strategic academic (both teaching and research driven) collaborations with top-ranking Chinese universities.

During the mission the National College of Ireland (NCI) also announced it is issuing 40 scholarships for the January intake of their most popular Masters and Foundation programmes - Foundation, Pre-Masters, MSc in Cloud Computing, MSc in Data Analytics and the MSc in Management.