China has signed mutual recognition agreements on higher education academic degrees with 19 EU member states.

　　Data Map: As the 17th Confucius Institute in Germany, the Confucius Institute in Stralsund held a grand inauguration ceremony on the afternoon of August 30th local time. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was invited to attend and unveil the Confucius Institute. Photo by Peng Dawei

　　BEIJING, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) According to the website of the Ministry of Education, the scale of educational cooperation and personnel exchange between China and EU countries has been expanding. China has signed agreements on mutual recognition of degrees, diplomas and diplomas with 19 EU member states, including Britain, Germany and France.

　　EU member states are one of the main destinations for China students and scholars to study abroad. By the end of 2015, the total number of China students studying in EU countries was 303,451, accounting for 24% of the total number of students studying abroad, an increase of 7.5% over 2014. In recent years, the scale of EU students studying in China has been expanding. In 2015, the total number of students studying in China from EU member States was 45,125, which was basically the same as that in 2014, accounting for 11.3% of the total number of students studying in China in 2015.

　　Up to now, China has signed agreements on mutual recognition of degrees, diplomas and diplomas with 19 EU member states, including Britain, Germany, France, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Portugal, Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Latvia, Malta, Estonia, Lithuania and Poland.

　　In terms of language teaching cooperation, all universities in China have offered courses in 24 official languages of the European Union. Chinese teaching has also made gratifying progress in EU member states. At present, 28 European member States have established 131 Confucius Institutes and 251 Confucius Classrooms (including 23 independent Confucius Classrooms).

　　Since the launch of the China-EU high-level foreign language exchange and dialogue mechanism in 2012, China has trained 1,554 local Chinese teachers, sent 1,402 Chinese teachers and 1,064 volunteer teachers for EU countries. Donated 279,000 books; Receiving 1533 Confucius Institute Scholarships to study in China; 1714 young students from France, Germany, Belgium and other EU countries were invited to attend the "Chinese Bridge" summer camp in China.

　　In order to cooperate with China’s higher education reform and strengthen the compatibility of China-EU higher education system, the Ministry of Education cooperated with the European side in 2013, and launched the Sino-EU Tuning Study to conduct a pilot study on mutual recognition of curriculum credits between China and Europe. At present, the first phase of the project has been successfully completed and the second phase of the project has been officially launched.

　　The Ministry of Education set up the China Government Scholarship Program (EU Window). By 2015, a total of 851 people had received scholarships from this project to study in China. Students are mainly distributed in 38 universities including Peking University, Tsinghua University and China Renmin University.

　　In July 2007, the European Commission put forward the second phase of Erasmus Plan (2009-2013), and set up the China window project in the foreign cooperation window. The total number of Chinese students and scholars who received financial aid to participate in inter-school exchanges reached 860, accounting for 75.4% of the total number of exchanges, and there were 280 European students and scholars.