New charter school provides a boost for Guangzhou's tech hub

The Huangpu district government in the Guangdong provincial capital is expecting the Guangzhou branch of Granada Hills Charter School to play an important role in helping to promote its educational internationalization in the years ahead.

The district government signed a memorandum of understanding with the Granada Hills Charter School of the United States and the Markham International Education Group in October to jointly construct the Guangzhou branch of Granada Hills Charter School in the district, which has become a new high-tech and scientific innovation center in the southern metropolis.

According to the memorandum, it's estimated that the Guangzhou school will be able to cater to around 4,800 students from China and overseas every year.

Bilingual education will be introduced at the new school.

The Guangzhou branch, which will cover education from kindergarten, primary, junior and senior middle school, is planning to recruit about 400 teachers and related teaching staff members from abroad.

In addition to Sino-US senior middle school courses, the school will set up some college curriculums of the US, including AP (Advanced Placement), IB TOEFL and SAT, for senior middle school students, to help its students directly apply to colleges and universities in the US and other countries when they graduate.

Students at the school will be able to take part in exchanges with affiliated US schools for a month, a school term, a year, or even longer periods of time.

Professors and teachers from the US will regularly be invited to the school to give lectures, conduct academic exchanges and help build the school into a major training base for teachers in the mainland.

The school is expected to cater for both day students and boarders.

Zhou Yawei, member of the Standing Committee of Guangzhou Committee of CPC and Party secretary of Huangpu district, said construction of the school would help further raise the educational levels in the district and also help Huangpu promote educational internationalization.

"The school is expected to help Huangpu district in the eastern part of Guangzhou attract more talented people from both home and abroad over the coming years," he said.

Huangpu district is sparing no effort in attracting talent to support its economic development, and the district government is planning to give top priority to the development of the IT, artificial intelligence and biomedicine industries.

Zhou met Brian Bauer, principal of Granada Hills Charter High School, in October to discuss the expansion of educational cooperation between the district and the school.

Zhou and Bauer pledged to develop the Guangzhou project into a major senior middle school that could compete with some of the world's most renowned schools.

Bauer said he believed the new school would have great potential in the years ahead, as the market for international education was burgeoning in the region.

"The Guangzhou school will attach importance to cultivating students' creative and innovation abilities, and connect with prestigious universities and colleges in the US, forming a coherent and integrated international educational process," he said.

In recent years Huangpu district has attracted a large number of foreign companies and professionals to the area and is an ideal environment for an international school, he added.

Granada Hills Charter High School, a public school, is the largest charter school in the United States.

Earlier this year, Huangpu district signed contracts to construct the Huangpu Shrewsbury Experimental School and International Hwa Chong School of Singapore.

Covering an area of 5.52 hectares, Britain's Shrewsbury Experimental School is planned for 1,500 students a year while the International Hwa Chong School, with an area of 6.5 hectares, will take in up to 2,900 students, including 600 senior middle school students and 2,300 junior middle school students.

Both schools will begin to enroll students from the autumn of 2019.

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