From December 19 to 26, 2022, the International School held five workshops in school meeting room on curriculum plan of undergraduate programs teaching in English. Five programs, namely International Economy and Trade (IET), Accounting (CPA), Business Administration (BA), Computer Science and Technology (CST), and Finance (CFA) are respectively discussed in details. Invited experts Professor Jianjun Miao, Dean of the School of Economics, Trade and Foreign Studies, Professor Jing Li, Dean of the School of Computer Engineering, Associate Professor Lihong Zhang, Vice Dean of the School of Accounting, and Ms. Dan Zhu from the School of Management attended the workshop of related program. All the teachers of the International School joined the meeting, which was presided over by Professor Shuze Tang, Dean of the International School.

Professor Tang first briefed the background of this workshop. On September 26, 2022, Guangzhou Huali College issued a policy "All academic courses of programs in the International School are required to teach in English starting from Fall 2022 batch (Guangzhou HLYJZ [22] No. 48)". Based on this policy, students of International School will be taught in English from 2022 freshmen. Subsequently, on December 13, 2022, Guangzhou Huali College issued another policy "Regulation of major transfer (Guangzhou HLYJZ [22] No. 60)". Article 9 of this regulation stipulates that "the College encourages students of non-Sino-Foreign cooperated training programs to transfer to Sino-Foreign cooperated programs to study in order to widen their international vision and to improve their competitiveness of career development". Article 10 stipulates that "Students studying in Sino-Foreign cooperated training programs offered by the International School shall not generally be allowed to transfer out to the non-Sino-Foreign cooperated training programs outside the International School". As all undergraduate programs in the International School are Sino-Foreign cooperated training programs and students are required to study 1-2 years in the partner universities abroad, the rest years of study must be finished in the International School of Guangzhou Huali College in order to achieve the Bachelor Degree (Teaching in English). Therefore, academic teaching in English in the International School is not only a requirement of the College policy, but also an essential guideline for the construction and development of all programs in the International School, and an urgent need for the School to schedule courses for students to choose and take for credit. Professor Tang also pointed out some challenges faced by the International School's curriculum plan. Guangzhou Huali College is currently the pioneer to use English to teach academic course for International School programs among 746 private colleges in Mainland China, indicating that there is no curriculum plan to follow. It can only learn from a few of public universities with a long history of all-English teaching. However, advantages of public universities such as the rank and level, internal and external environment and educational resources are incomparable. Professor Tang stressed that the development of curriculum plan for all English-taught programs in the International School should not only meet with the requirements of international education standard, but also be recognized and accepted by our international partners for mutual credit recognition, as well as meet with the requirements of the strategies of Guangzhou Huali College which is classified as the technical and applied orientation university. Professor Tang requested those invited experts with their generousness wisdom, and specialties to give meaningful and practical specific suggestions and opinions for us to prepare unique quality curriculum plans for programs run in the International School.

During the workshop, all invited experts together with faculty members of International School studied carefully the current used Chinese version of curriculum and referred ones cited from International School, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China, in which English-taught programs have successfully run for over 20 years. Professor Miao suggested that the prepared curriculum should balance the relationship between national standards, College requirements and School requirements and the curriculum plan should be "specialized" and "refined", and the total credits of each program should be adjusted against the benchmark colleges and universities. Professor Miao agrees that the Finance major offered by the International School should have differences from the Chinese teaching major. He supports the orientation of the International School's Finance major in the internationally recognized CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) direction, and the curriculum should be conducive to the CFA qualification examination and employment. Professor Li proposed that the basic courses of computer science can be basically unchanged, but the credits of professional elective courses and professional practice courses should be appropriately adjusted to better adapt to students' future career development. Ms. Zhang suggested that the Accounting major of the International School should select CPA (Certified Public Accountants) which is widely recognized in North America and the world as the orientation for Accounting program. The curriculum should be combined with the CPA requirements, which is conducive to the docking of students studying abroad, and also adaptable to the career of international companies and organizations. For this reason, she suggested that the credits of basic courses, core courses and elective courses should be appropriately adjusted. Students should be given more opportunities to choose courses freely. Ms. Zhu put forward adjustment suggestions on the curriculum of Business Administration (BA) major. She suggested that basic courses, core courses and optional courses should be appropriately added, and more rooms of courses should be provided for students to choose.

It is said that this is the first workshop in the International School focused on curriculum plan preparation or revision. Through this workshop communication and discussion, the recognition and target of curriculum construction is clarified and the principle, key points and direction of the English-taught programs for 2022 batch are clear defined. The framework, structure and course list are consistently planned. However, further discussion and revision for specific plans are still needed.

Written by Jinsui Li

Photo by Runze Zhang

Revised by Shuze Tang