On October 22, a three-member delegation led by Ali Najeeb, Vice President of Villa College, Maldives, visited Xianyang Polytechnic Institute for exchange. A symposium was held, attended by Feng Hua, Vice President of the Institute, together with dean of the School of Medicine and the International Exchange and Cooperation Office.
At the symposium, Feng Hua extended a warm welcome to the delegation from Villa College, Maldives, and briefly introduced the institute’s history, major structure and achievements in international exchanges. She expressed the hope that both sides would take this visit as an opportunity to build on strength in medicine and other key disciplines, carry out practical cooperation in major co-construction and joint talent training, learn from each other and share resources, so as to set a new model for vocational education exchanges and cooperation between China and the Maldives.
Ali Najeeb thanked the institute for the warm reception and gave an overview of Villa College, highlighting its flagship programmes including nursing and pharmacy. He stated that Villa College attaches great importance to partnerships with Chinese institutions and looks forward to building diverse development pathways for faculty and students of both colleges through multiple forms of cooperation such as collaboration on medical programmes, sharing of teaching resources and two-way exchanges of teachers and students. He placed special emphasis on his expectation for co-development of the medical imaging programme, to support the development of this discipline at Villa College.
Following the symposium, the delegation proceeded to the training rooms of the School of Medicine for a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) experience session. The guests tried TCM massage, made herbal medicine hammers by hand and savoured the fragrance of handmade TCM incense, gaining first-hand experience of the unique charm of traditional Chinese medicine culture. Afterwards, they visited the Early Childhood Education Practice Centre and spoke highly of the institute’s infrastructure and distinctive school-running features.
Both sides agreed to take this exchange as a starting point to push forward practical cooperation initiatives including faculty and student exchanges and joint curriculum development, contributing to deeper cultural and educational mutual learning between China and the Maldives.