High-school Howest is planning to establish the first “Silk Road School” in Europe in cooperation with Zhejiang Gongshang University. Students will not only learn the Chinese language but will also have the opportunity to work for Chinese companies with an office or factory in Belgium. There are already Silk Road Schools in Africa and Asia that also cooperate with universities and Chinese companies located there.
Howest mainly wants to use the cooperation to exchange expertise in both directions. “We already have one pilot project with COSCO Shipping Ports, says Frederik D'Hulster, General Director of Howest. “It is a Chinese company based in the port of Ningbo but also in the port of Zeebrugge. The aim is to have internships for our students and also for our partner university in Zhejiang.
Students could come from different disciplines, such as informatics, but also company management and logistics. We aim to have a Chinese student for an internship in a Chinese port. A student from West-Flanders could for example work for the same company in the port of Zeebrugge. The aim is that students thousands of kilometers apart could still work together in the same company, with Howest and the university in China as academic partners.
The cooperation agreement was signed in Hangzhou on May 28, where a delegation of companies from West-Flanders was visiting together with Governor Carl Decaluwé.
