Wanli in depth

The Wanli Project is a key feature of the University's long-term strategy and is now well into its second year. As more departments become involved, project manager Mike Tooze recalls its background and discusses its main features and significance for the University of Dundee.

The collaboration between Zhejiang Wanli University and the University of Dundee is a good example of one of those outcomes that can be traced back to a series of fortuitous events. In 1994 in Guangzhou I met with the friend of a friend of the brother of one of our MBA students who was involved in setting up overseas work placements for Chinese managers, and six months later a public sector manager from the city of Ningbo on the east coast of China joined the economic development office of the then Dundee District Council for eighteen months.The offer of a personal introduction to Mrs Xu,Chairman of the Board of the Wanli Education Group, was gratefully accepted, and so began a period which has witnessed the gradual development of mutual trust and understanding at both a personal and institutional level.

The Wanli education group is the first state-owned but independently operated educational group in China. It is at the cutting edge of educational reform and has received visits from both Vice Premier Li Linqing and Mrs Chen Zhili, Minister of Education, within the past year. Accordingly, through its association with Zhejiang Wanli University, the profile of the University of Dundee is being raised throughout China.

Since its establishment in 1993 the Wanli Education Group has invested nearly £60m in creating an educational system ranging from kindergarten to university. The group is responsible for nine institutions including an international school, a vocational college and a night school. The creation of opportunities for Chinese students to study abroad and the provision of wider access at home are key elements of the group's strategy.

There are currently two agreements between the Wanli education group and the University of Dundee. Under the 1996 agreement the University agreed to admit into its first year undergraduate programmes up to 20 suitably qualified students per annum from the Wanli international school. The first students to come to Dundee under this arrangement are currently in their first year.

The second agreement concerns Zhejiang Wanli University. It was signed in 1999 and is being implemented through what has come to be known as the Wanli Project and a seven-year business plan. In 1998 the Zhejiang Provincial Government invited the Wanli Education Group to develop the now Zhejiang Wanli University from a provincial college that had been in existence for some fifty years. As the group's main overseas partner, the University of Dundee was approached with a view to providing guidance and advice on the development of syllabuses and quality systems, and Dr Ian Graham-Bryce accepted an invitation to be an adviser to the board, a position which he continues to occupy in a personal capacity. The agreement is concerned with articulation - not franchising- and sees the University of Dundee moving to a position by 2002 where it will be able to recognise the Zhejiang Wanli University diploma for advanced entry into the third year at Dundee, either for a general degree in one year or an honours degree in two. Currently the total estimated annual inflow is about 150 students and involves accountancy, applied computing, economics, electronic engineering, English language and environmental management.

The exchange of academic staff in developing syllabuses and monitoring standards, and in familiarising staff with western teaching methods and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is central to the implementation of the agreement. Furthermore, it is not envisaged that these exchanges will end abruptly when the first intake of students arrives in October 2002, but rather will continue throughout the life of the project. Syllabuses and personnel change over time, and we will have an opportunity to learn from our experiences and to fine-tune our procedures as the project develops. The business plan provides for two or three academics per annum from Zhejiang Wanli University to visit their counterparts in Dundee for about four weeks, and for a delegation of some six or seven academics from Dundee to visit Ningbo in June of each year. These exchanges are reinforced by regular visits by the project manager to ensure that the project is kept on track.

Departments at Dundee are comparing syllabuses and monitoring standards. While it is not essential that Wanli diploma courses and corresponding sub-honours courses at Dundee should be identical, it is important that Chinese students have already covered material that is a pre-requisite for their courses at Dundee. Copies of key recommended texts for each course are being made available to the staff in China.

Although individual departments can choose to monitor standards in a way that they feel is most appropriate for themselves and their disciplines, the departments currently involved in the project have agreed to implement a standard procedure along the following lines. Having identified those courses that should be monitored, one piece of coursework and one examination script from each of the top three and three marginal students from each course are submitted to the University of Dundee. These are in both English and Chinese, and are accompanied by a mark distribution list for the whole class. Comments are fed back to Zhejiang Wanli University at the end of each year.

Overall, the two major concerns relate to the attainment of a suitable level of English language competence and familiarisation with western styles of teaching.

English language is a core discipline at Zhejiang Wanli University with some 90 lecturers and six native speakers on the staff. Mrs Linda Xing, Assistant Dean in the department of foreign languages at Zhejiang Wanli University, recently spent ten weeks in Dundee receiving instruction in the running of the IELTS programme. This is being reinforced by Dr Arthur McNeill, director of Dundee's centre for applied language studies, in a regular programme of visits to China. But discussions with existing Chinese students in Dundee have shown that there also needs to be additional emphasis on idiomatic English and subject specific terminology, and familiarisation with the English versions of the computer packages used in Dundee.These points are already being addressed at Zhejiang Wanli University.

Linda Xing has also spent time in each of the departments currently involved in the project familiarising herself with the various teaching methods employed. There are significant differences in teaching styles between China and the UK. In seminars and tutorials in the west, students are asked to participate and share opinions. But Chinese students are used to listening to the teacher following the Confucian master/disciple relationship. Asking questions or venturing an opinion is discouraged and the students themselves are afraid of losing face.Group work presents Chinese students with perhaps their biggest cultural challenge: they can find it intimidating. In lectures, Chinese students are used to copying notes from the blackboard and learning from the text. They can be bewildered by basic skills such as revision aids which British students take for granted.

Zhejiang Wanli University has already decided to adopt a more western approach to teaching by reducing the number of lectures and introducing tutorial programmes in most disciplines. This is being introduced in several ways. "The Dundee corner" is a visual display of life at the University of Dundee, funded by Scottish Enterprise Tayside, and was recently opened on the campus in China by Professor David Swinfen. A Wanli website, also supported by SET, will be launched by Principal Sir Alan Langlands when he visits Ningbo in May 2001, and will include information on English language and teaching methods. There is also an ongoing programme of lectures by the project manager and related videos from the staff development library at Dundee.

The mutual benefits arising from the articulation of our undergraduate programmes in this way are clearly significant. But there are also initiatives for staff development in the form of Masters programmes and split PhDs. Contacts have already been established between the department of life sciences at Zhejiang Wanli University and the department of epidemiology and public health at the University of Dundee, and lecturers in the department of economics and trade in China and the department of accountancy and business finance in Dundee have agreed to collaborate on a textbook on international accounting systems.

During the eighteen months of its existence, the Wanli project has made great leaps forward. This has been due in no small measure to the collaborative spirit of our friends in China and to the support of the team of six departments currently involved in Dundee.

Caption - Professor David Swinfen at the Dundee corner in Wanli.

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