Vitebsk State University and a Chinese institute will begin training students under the "3+3" system in 2010

September 22, Vitebsk / Sergey Kochetov - BELTA /. Vitebsk State University named after P. Masherov and Hohhot Vocational Institute (China) have signed a cooperation agreement on joint training of students from the two countries, the department of international cooperation of the Vitebsk university informed a BELTA correspondent. In accordance with the document, Chinese citizens will study at the Hohhot Institute for 3 years in the specialties "Musical Art" and "Fine Art", and then continue their studies at VSU in the 4th and 5th years, as well as in the master's program of the Belarusian university. Training will be conducted according to jointly developed curricula and programs. It is planned to start training under this system in 2010. The agreement was signed during a working visit to China by a delegation from VSU headed by Rector Alexander Solodkov. During their stay at the Hohhot Institute, the heads of the Vitebsk and Chinese universities agreed on the curricula for the upcoming joint training, and also discussed the prospects for cooperation in various areas. Thus, agreements have been reached on the possibility of Belarusian specialists teaching Russian as a foreign language at the Chinese institute; to improve the quality of teaching, the Vitebsk university will provide the institute with 20 sets of textbooks on this discipline. In addition, VSU is working on the possibility of opening a new specialty "Russian as a Foreign Language" at the Faculty of Philology, taking into account the high demand for learning Russian by Chinese specialists. The management of the Chinese university has taken the initiative to build a dormitory for Chinese students in Vitebsk. One of the promising areas of cooperation may be the organization of excursion tours around Belarus and China for tourists from the two countries. Vitebsk State University has been training students from China since 2000; during this time, about 150 representatives of this Eastern country have been trained. In the new academic year, about 30 young men and women from China plan to study in Vitebsk. -0-