Purpose of The Project

1. The New Zealand Ministry of Education[1] recently supported a successful bid by China for APEC support for a project on joint ventures in higher education. The Shanghai Institute of Higher Education is over-seeing the project under the leadership of the Chinese Ministry of Education.

2. One of the education goals of APEC is "to carry out regional co-operation in higher education in order to meet the needs of globalisation". Joint ventures in higher education among APEC members are seen as empowering this goal.

3. The purpose of this project is:

a. to share past experiences of joint schools in higher education among APEC economies;

b. to analyse the present barriers and difficulties in joint schools of higher education among APEC economies;

c. to explore the possible better ways of joint schools working together in higher education in future among APEC economies; and

d. to improve capacity of higher education institutions in running joint schools through this study and following-up training activities.

4. Each participating APEC economy will introduce their own education policy on joint ventures and select two to three case study participating in joint ventures. Case studies will "sum up the experiences and lessons of running joint schools" and discuss advantages and disadvantages of present experience.