Since the administering of foreign affairs plays a significant role in a university’s academic achievement, ZNU has been making sustained efforts to strengthen its international exchanges and cooperation so as to explore the internationalization of education, to intensify its educational reform, to reinforce its faculty, and to enhance the diversity and preferability of the education it offers.

Zhejiang Normal University pays persistent attention to its foreign affairs. It began in 1982 to assign a few staff members to take care of the affairs, and then set up its Foreign Affairs Office in 1989 and its Office for Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Affairs in 1991. To meet the need of international students, the College for International Education and Exchange, affiliated with the Foreign Affairs Office, was founded in 1999. In the same year, as a result of the reform of the University’s organizational structure, the Foreign Affairs Office was renamed the International Office. Now, the International Office, the Office for Hong Kong, Macao & Taiwan Affairs and the College for International Education and Exchange are three different setups performing their respective functions but manned with the same staff.

Much progress has been made in recent years in ZNU’s international affairs. The University was recognized in 1994 by the Education Commission of Zhejiang for its “outstanding work for drawing talented teachers.” From 1998 up to the present, 85 long- or short-term foreign experts and teachers have been engaged to work at the University, three of whom won the “West-Lake Friendship Award” granted by the People’s Government of Zhejiang Province to recognize their outstanding work. Achievements have also been made in the University’s international academic exchanges and collaborative researches. In 2001, the International Forum on University Education attended by five university leaders from four countries was held at ZNU, and a joint research was conducted in 2002 by the University together with Harvard University and the Earth Watch to study the local history and architecture of the municipality of Jinhua. Along with the ever increasing international exchange and cooperation activities, more and more university leaders, experts and scholars from different countries and regions have visited ZNU to promote academic exchanges. The University has received over 400 visitors from abroad, and sent over 200 ZNU people to go abroad since 1990. By now, ZNU has established cooperative and exchange relations with more than 20 institutions of higher learning, research institutions and educational administrative machineries in a dozen countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, France, Ukraine, etc.

The University’s international cooperation is broadening in scale. In three consecutive years since 2000, ZNU has successfully conducted an English camp every summer in cooperation with two US institutions of higher learning: the Lee University and the Nyack College. Since 1999, in cooperation with the Institut de Formation Internationale, Rouen in France and the Edith Cowan University in Australia, ZNU started various programs for undergraduate and postgraduate students. Besides, the University was authorized in 1997 to accept short- and long-term international students and has since enrolled up to now a total of over 300 students from the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Korea and Ukraine. Reciprocally, ZNU has sent over 200 students to study in the United Kingdom, Japan, France and Ukraine. Also, supported by the Ministry of Education, ZNU set up a Chinese Language Center in Cameroon in 1996 to teach the Chinese language and culture to students from central and western Africa. To make full use of the Center, administrative officials from the ministries of education from eight African countries came in 2002 to attend a seminar on the African Elementary Education Administration held by ZNU under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. The success of the seminar was highly evaluated by the ministry.

Exchanges and cooperation have also started between ZNU and educational institutions in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Various contacts have been established and exchanges operated between ZNU and the Taitung Teachers College and HsinChu Teachers College in Taiwan and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. As an outcome of the Cultural Exchange Forum for University Students from Both Sides of the Taiwan Strait held in Taiwan, the Center of Taiwan Children Literature Materials was founded at ZNU. Mutual understanding across the strait is strengthened and friendship deepened.

Looking ahead, with the determination to promote its international exchanges through every possible means, ZNU is making greater efforts to gather international talents, to introduce advanced teaching ideas and administrative experiences, and to absorb funds, facilities and academic materials from abroad. All in all, Zhejiang Normal University is endeavoring to create a new prospect of multi-channeled, multi-leveled and all-round international exchanges and cooperation, so as to build itself into a top-level university devoted to both education and research.