A decade retrospect of Chinese education in the Belt and Road Initiative: Achievements, experiences, and challenges

Education plays a key role in the Belt and Road Initiative in the new era. Over the past decade, education has promoted the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, constructing a multilateral cooperation mechanism led by the government and dominated by universities, facilitating the training of talents in participating countries, fostering cultural exchanges among countries along the Belt and Road, and developing diversified educational assistance models. Meanwhile, certain experiences have been accumulated, such as implementing province-ministry cooperation and leveraging local advantages, maintaining the opening of education to the outside world and building a higher education community, optimizing the governance system and promoting the internationalization of vocational education, as well as emphasizing the integration of strengths and exploring new models of international educational assistance. However, there are also numerous challenges, such as the need to overcome institutional obstacles of higher education systems among countries along the Belt and Road, the need to deepen educational cooperation and exchange between the participating countries, the need to enhance the level of China’s opening of education to the outside world, and the need to further optimize the “going global” strategy of China’s vocational education. Going forward, countries along the Belt and Road should seek to identify the convergence point of common interest and the greatest common divisor in educational cooperation and exchange, thereby contributing to the steady and long-term progress of the Belt and Road Initiative.