International students explore education innovations

By Liang Meilan
A handful of foreign university students spent the final days of their summer vacation in the classroom in Beijing. Students from South Asia, Europe, North America and South America joined local counterparts to attend a weeklong workshop at Peking University that discussed how to incorporate advanced technologies into education reform.
“An estimated 150 million students worldwide receive improper education in a poor educational environment, and the number is expected to double in the next 15 years. It is a pressing task for every country to ensure that its young people have a sound and sustainable education system,” said Xu Luping, co-founder of Paris-based Worldwide Interaction for Science, Education and Research in Universities (Wiser-U), the event organizer.
Xu said the help from students is indispensible in solving the problem, and that is why they organized the summer workshop. “We offer this platform to bring together young pioneers and experts to share their unconventional ideas on technologies that can be used for education in the future,” he said.
The 19 participating teams were composed of students who have been conducting their own research on how to introduce teaching innovations. The group of experts who advised the students consisted of 11 well-known education “innovators,” such as Raphael Ogar Oko, a member of Teachers Without Borders who has helped bridge school segregation in Nigeria.
The four-person team from Renmin University created a social networking website to help college freshmen adapt easier to campus life. “Students can ask and answer questions related to life on campus. Freshmen can get useful information and suggestions from senior students,” Xue Shengbo, one of the team members, said.
Kyra Gaunt, one of the judges, a US ethnomusicologist, commended the students for their great idea and implementations. “I’ve never seen a young team like it realize its goal of solving a problem we’ve all encountered in such a short period of time – only half a year. I was surprised by its high level of teamwork and groundbreaking idea,” she said.
“Those Chinese students are so young – with an average age of 18 – but they presented boldness in innovation,” said Uffe Elbaek, founder and former principal of Kaospilots, Denmark’s business and design school. “Though they looked unassuming when talking to the experts, I saw ambition in their work.”
Another group that grabbed the spotlight was a multinational team of students from Croatia, France, the UK, Cyprus and Serbia. Formed in Vukovar, Crotia, as a response to Europe’s segregated communities, the team introduced ideas on conflict management, peace keeping and science education through fun activities.
“We want to improve cooperation and foster social integration by mobilizing the youth living in conflict areas. By sponsoring workshops on topics such as popular science, we enable children from diverse ethnic backgrounds to work together,” said Bojan Markicevic, leader of the group called ConSol – an abbreviation for “conflict solution.”
“Promoting tolerance and empowering children to deal with every day battles is at the core of the program,” he said.
Neven Kudumija, a student from Croatia, said the workshop’s biggest contribution is the knowledge that participants bring back to their universities.